Rural Structure Research Articles

A rural society after the Black Death: Essex 1350-1525

A Rural Society after the Black Death is a study of rural social structure in the English county of Essex between 1350 and 1500. It seeks to understand how, in the population collapse after the Black Death (1348–1349), a particular economic environment affected ordinary people's lives in the areas of migration, marriage and employment, and also contributed to patterns of religious nonconformity, agrarian riots and unrest, and even rural housing. The period under scrutiny is often seen as a transitional era between 'medieval' and 'early-modern' England, but in the light of recent advances in English historical demography, this study suggests that there was more continuity than change in some critically important aspects of social structure in the region in question. Among the most important contributions of the book are its use of an unprecedentedly wide range of original manuscript records (estate and manorial records, taxation and criminal-court records, royal tenurial records, and the records of church courts, wills etc.) and its application of current quantitative and comparative demographic methods.

Women's Participation in Central American Revolutions

Evidence from Nicaragua and El Salvador indicates that substantial numbers of women from humble backgrounds have participated in those nations' guerrilla armies, and not simply in support roles but as combat soldiers as well. This article analyzes the dynamics of societal change by which nonelite women are mobilized for participation in guerrilla insurgencies. The rapid social, economic, and demographic changes that accompany dependent modes of development erode the stability of rural social structures and contribute to male spouse abandonment of the family. Impoverished female heads of households have become involved in grass roots organizations whose programs address their immediate economic distress and mobilize them for collective action in support of economic and political reforms. When the regime represses this political activism, it seldom discriminates between males and females in the application of repression. Faced with the threat of violence, women have joined insurgent organizations that promise, if nothing else, security from state repression.

Landed but not Powerful: The Colonial Estancieros of Buenos Aires (1750-1810)

I N most of the regions studied in colonial Spanish America, the hacendados have been portrayed as wealthy and powerful members of the elite. In New Spain the nobility invested heavily in land, and in Leon, in the Bajio, hacendados staffed the local cabildo and were at the apex of the rural social structure. Venezuela by the late eighteenth century also had developed a powerful hacendado class: the cacao planters were, in fact, the most important members of the local oligarchy. Already in the late sixteenth century in Peru, heredados dedicated to viticulture built substantial houses in Arequipa, bought public offices, and presided over the social hierarchy. By the middle of the seventeenth century, Chile had a full-blown landed aristocracy of encomenderos and nonencomenderos, while a century and a half later the intendencia of La Paz had a thriving and internally stratified hacendado sector with the most prosperous members-the owners of multiple haciendas-enjoying full elite status. A recent study of the Lambayeque region in Peru identifies the hacendados there as the true source of power. Summarizing the existing literature on colonial large landowners, Susan Ramirez has characterized the hacendados as members of a wealthy, urbanbased elite who played multiple social roles, lived lavishly, and exerted considerable influence.'

Justice by Geography: Urban, Suburban, and Rural Variations in Juvenile Justice Administration

Despite statutes and rules of statewide applicability, juvenile administration varies consistently with urban, suburban, and rural social structure and context. In urban counties, which are more heterogenous and diverse, juvenile intervention is more formal, bureaucratized, and due process-oriented. Formality is associated with greater severity in pre-trial detention and sentencing practices. By contrast, in more homogeneous and stable rural counties, juvenile courts are procedurally less formal and sentence youths more leni* Centennial Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School. Ph.D. (Sociology), Harvard University, 1973; J.D., University of Minnesota Law School, 1969; B.A., University of Pennsylvania, 1966. The data used in this study are housed in and made available by the National Juvenile Court Data Archive, which is maintained by the National Center forJuvenile Justice (NCJJ) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and supported by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), United States Department ofJustice. The Minnesota Supreme Court's Judicial Information System collected the original data. The author's research was conducted under the auspices of the National Juvenile Court Data Archive's Visiting Scholar Program, which was supported by OJJDP. The author received exceptional support and assistance in assembling, organizing, and interpreting the data from Dr. Howard Snyder, NCJJ Director of Systems Research, Ms. Ellen Nimick, NCJJ Senior Research Assistant, and Mr. Terry Finnegan, NCIJ Computer Programmer. A number of colleagues generously provided constructive critiques of an earlier draft of this article: Gary Crippen, Dan Farber, Candace Kruttschnitt, Anne Rankin Mahoney, Michael Tonry, and two anonymous reviewers. Although the author attempted to address many of their concerns, he absolves them of any responsibility for his failure to follow their advice. Neither the Minnesota Supreme Court, the National Center for Juvenile Justice, nor the Office ofJuvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention bear any responsibility for the analyses, interpretations, or conclusions presented herein. A version of this Article was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Reno, Nevada, November, 1989. JUSTICE BY GEOGRAPHY ently. The Article explores the implications of justice by geography for juvenile policy.

The Keepers of Water and Earth: Mexican Rural Social Organization and Irrigation.By Kjell I. Enge and Scott Whiteford. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989.)

<i>The Keepers of Water and Earth: Mexican Rural Social Organization and Irrigation.</i>By Kjell I. Enge and Scott Whiteford. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989.)

The Keepers of Water and Earth: Mexican Rural Social Organization and Irrigation

The Keepers of Water and Earth: Mexican Rural Social Organization and Irrigation

Crop Improvement Programmes and Nutrition in Malawi: Exploring the Links

A model has been developed to conceptualize the relationships among a series of complex, interrelated factors that account for high levels of malnutrition among children in Malawi. It can be used as a tool for theoretical analysis and for programme evaluation. In this paper, the model is used to examine how interventions in crop-breeding strategies interact with existing rural social structure and influence household nutritional well-being in Malawi. It recognizes three tiers of causation: proximate, intermediate, and inclusive. The proximate tier refers to the immediate biomedical causes of malnutrition; the intermediate causes are those behavioural patterns that increase exposure to the proximate causes; and inclusive causes refer to the broad, social, economic, and cultural processes and structures in which the proximate and intermediate causes of nutritional status are embedded.

The Keepers of Water and Earth: Mexican Rural Social Organization and Irrigation. Kjell I. Enge , Scott Whiteford

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsThe Keepers of Water and Earth: Mexican Rural Social Organization and Irrigation. Kjell I. Enge , Scott Whiteford Susan H. LeesSusan H. Lees Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Anthropological Research Volume 46, Number 3Autumn, 1990 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/jar.46.3.3630433 Views: 1Total views on this site Copyright 1990 The University of New MexicoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The Keepers of Water and Earth. Mexican Rural Social Organization and Irrigation. By Kjell I. Enge and Scott Whiteford. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989. Pp. vi, 240. Figures. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $30.00.)

The Keepers of Water and Earth. Mexican Rural Social Organization and Irrigation. By Kjell I. Enge and Scott Whiteford. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989. Pp. vi, 240. Figures. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $30.00.)

Neo-Liberalism in Agriculture: Capitalist Modernization in The Chilean Countryside during The Pinochet Years

The article explores the political economy of the Chilean military regime as it affected agricultural development, with a focus on the social consequences of its neo liberal policies. Rural social structures and political organizations are examined in the light of changing economic conditions. The contradiction between Chile's economic success and the growing pauperization and marginalization of the bulk of the rural population is analyzed. New forms of mass organization and popular survival strategies are counterpoised to new forms of capitalist restructuring of rural Chile. The paper concludes by highlighting the structural difficulties faced by the new democratic government in instituting much-needed social reforms within the context of a thorough counter-revolution in the agrarian sector.

From Farming to Biotechnology: A Theory of Agro-Industrial Development

The industrial appropriation of the rural production process the industrial substitution of the rural product new directions in appropriationism and substitutionism - the emerging bio-industries rural social structures.

Peasants and Cities: The Cultural and Social Image of the Thai Peasant Village Community

The Thai peasant village community is an ideological construct rather than an empirical reality. Failure to recognize this has resulted in a reification and objectivization of rural social organization both past and present. It has also supported a number of false dichotomies such as between peasants and cities which distort the real nature of relationships. The paper examines the background to the application of these ideas with reference to their consequences for social analysis and planning, together with their more direct impact on rural social organization and relations with urban centres of power.

XV. Land Tenure Systems and Rural Development in India and Indonesia in the Colonial Period: A Comparative Study

In most studies of land policy in Asian nations, there is general recognition that agriculture is troubled by problems of landownership, particularly in the landlord-tenant relationship. Many observers point out that these are the principal issues confronting agriculture and the peasantry in most Asian countries. Looking at India and Indonesia, there are a number of problems with differing characteristics in the both areas, such as reform in land tenure and rural social structure, production increase and improvement in marketing distribution, and the credit system.

The Surface—Subsoil Form of Divided Ownership in Late Imperial China: Some Examples from the New Territories of Hong Kong

This paper is a study of certain aspects of land tenure in late imperial China. An extensive literature has evolved in recent years on the relationship between traditional forms of landholding and rural social structure in the irrigated rice-growing areas of southeastern and central China. In particular, the pronounced separation of‘rights to the surface’ (tianmianquan) and ‘rights to the subsoil’ (tiandiquan), which was common in many regions until its elimination as a result of the land reform campaigns of the People's Republic during the early 1950s, has attracted the interest of a growing number of sinological historians and anthropologists. I analyze here some of the principal characteristics of this traditional Chinese method of dividing property rights in land as they were found in the pre-British New Territories of Hong Kong. I also give consideration to those areas of the existing literature which seem especially relevant to my interpretation of the local manifestations of this extremely important feature of Chinese social life.

Cities and social change

Geographers rarely have held places of honor in the catacombs of disciplinary subdivisions that characterize American universities. This is unfortunate, for geographers have been fundamentally altering our understanding of urban and rural social organization in ways that social historians and sociologists ignore at their peril. It is our good fortune that three historians have produced two brilliant books, based soundly upon a geographic perspective, that refine and advance our understanding of cities and urbanization.

Capitalism and Social Differentiation

In recent years numerous studies have been conducted in Ecuador with the objective of analyzing changes that have occurred, especially in the last two decades, in the rural social structure. These studies have given rise to a considerable mass of primary empirical material on a diversity of rural situations, and have resulted in the development of interpretive discussions of those changes surrounding the process of the transformation of the hacienda. We shall attempt to relate these results to the theme of rural social differentiation. We shall establish the relationship beginning, first, with a presentation and discussion of the ideas of Lenin and of Chayanov, exponents of opposing theoretical conceptions with respect to the evolution of social relationships in the countryside, and then we briefly review the dominant Ecuadorian interpretations of the processes of social differentiation. Finally, we examine statistical materials from the parish of San Gabriel in the province of Carchi, which we use to outline the processes that have affected peasant holdings, suggesting interpretations that lend specificity to our general notions of rural differentiation. With these notes we hope to call attention to certain important themes (such as the evolution of the peasant family) for the analysis of the processes of peasant social mobility, often underestimated in studies of capitalist rural development that emphasize strictly economic aspects of the process.

The Tithe Surveys of England and Wales

Preface Introduction 1. The nature of tithes 2. The Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 3. Tithe maps, apportionments and files 4. The accuracy of the tithe surveys 5. Evidence of field systems 6. Land use 7. Farming 8. Farms, landowners and rural social structure 9. Summary and prospect Notes Bibliography Indexes.

Rural Violence in Socialist China

Have state policies under socialism radically and irrevocably transformed the Chinese countryside? Or do traditional attitudes and behaviour persist, fuelled by rural social structures that remain tenaciously vigorousdespitenew socialist imperatives? These questions have shaped much of the inquiry and debate on contemporary China over the past few decades. More recently, however, another promising line of argument has gained some currency. This approach does not pose the relationship between state control and traditional social structure as a “zero-sum conflict” in which the ascendancy of one is necessarily a loss for the other. Rather, it sees state and society as interacting in a more complex manner; a manner which is not always conflictual, and sometimes even quite complementary. By this view, certain policies of the Chinese state have contributed (albeit often unwittingly) to the survival and strengthening of traditional patterns of activity.

Seasonal dimensions of rural social organisation

The functioning of rural social organisation is affected by seasonality. The nature of this effect depends on the degree to which the organisation is related to the agricultural production cycle and the degree to which it has access to outside resources such as funds or personnel. Organisations can be characterised as continuous, seasonally fluctuating continuous, seasonally‐functional, or episodic depending on the strength of seasonal effects.

Rural change in Prince Edward Island, Canada: an interactive of directive economy?

Galeski's work on rural social change and organisation provides the framework for an examination of recent change in the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island. The Island is a classic rural community, with its agriculture dominated by the potato. A variety of forces are promoting rural change, particularly those of an economic, political and social nature. The processes of change common to all developed capitalist rural economies — urbanisation, autonomous change, and agribusiness — are present, but there is also the PEI Development Plan, a fifteen-year federal-provincial program for the comprehensive economic and social advancement of the Province. The Plan has highlighted the obstacles to rural change. The family farm is central to the traditional Island way of life, but it is seen as being threatened by the growth of agribusiness and the increasing land purchases by non-residents. Other threats to the Island way of life are seen in the growth of tourism and the centralised school system. Paralleling these changes is the increasing level of direction in the Island's economy, particularly from the federal government and agribusiness. The response is seen in political change at the Provincial level, opposition to the Plan, and the tightest restrictions on non-resident and corporate land ownership in Canada. Rural change per se is not opposed, but there is a growing desire to preserve what is best in PEI and its traditional way of life.