Rural Society Research Articles

Study on the influencing factors of rural residents' willingness to classify domestic waste in the context of acquaintance society: An example from Jiangsu Province in Chin.

Waste classification helps to maximize the recovery of resources, reduce environmental pollution and promote sustainable economic development. To improve the willingness of rural residents to classify waste, based on the background of a rural acquaintance society, this thesis constructed a theoretical model of waste classification cognition, willingness to classify, economic incentives, face consciousness and vernacular identity affecting the willingness of rural residents to classify waste, and put forward seven research hypotheses. With the help of 530 valid surveys of rural residents in Jiangsu Province, the seven hypotheses were verified using structural equation modeling, and the mediating effect of rural residents' willingness to classify waste was examined using the bootstrap method. The results showed that waste classification awareness, knowledge of waste classification, economic incentives, face-saving concepts and local identity all affected rural residents' willingness to classify waste, and all were significant at a 0.01 level. They also showed that face-saving concepts and local identity played partial mediating roles. Strategies to improve rural residents' willingness to classify waste have been proposed, such as multiple incentives to enhance subjective awareness, play the role of face culture in rural areas, strengthen the construction of public culture in rural areas, and improve rural residents' local identity.

Mobility and the Social Differentiation of Rural Youth in Australia

AbstractGeographical mobility has become an integral element of the biographical trajectories of young people from rural areas. In this paper, we contend that theories of rural-urban inequality tend to unduly homogenise rural social groups and are insufficient to understand rural youth out-migration as a selective rather than universal practice. We draw on a statistical analysis of the social differentiation of rural youth mobility in Australia to argue that sociologists gain from further theorising the social differentiation of rural society. Empirically, we find that classed resources and stratified dispositions toward one’s future life are important properties associated with outward mobility. Theoretically, we propose the concept of rural social space to make sense of these patterns. Rural social space describes the material and symbolic hierarchies that structure the social differentiation of rural society. We conclude by suggesting how future research could refine the conceptualisation of rural social space proposed in this paper, by further considering the opportunities, practices and representations that distinguish the lives of different groups of rural young people.

Traditional Village Morphological Characteristics and Driving Mechanism from a Rural Sustainability Perspective: Evidence from Jiangsu Province

Traditional Village Morphological Characteristics and Driving Mechanism from a Rural Sustainability Perspective: Evidence from Jiangsu Province

The royal Welsh agricultural society: Patronage and the reproduction of elites in rural Wales

This paper is concerned with the reproduction of rural elites and the role of volunteering and participation in rural civil society institutions. Set in the context of popular discourses of the gentleman farmer and the agricultural elite as historic (as opposed to contemporary) leaders in the countryside, this research extends longstanding debates on rural class politics and gentrification, and resonates with a renewed sociological interest in the elites in society. Focusing on senior volunteer roles in the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society (RWAS), we explore the connections between social and cultural capital, the maintenance of moral boundaries, and the relationship of these processes with recruitment at the committee level. Our findings indicate that systems of patronage remain significant in rural contexts, and that these systems interrelate with professional and business fields, and with embedded social and intergenerational networks. Data depicts an organisation that is looking to balance the sustained benefits to organisational capacity brought through longstanding obligations of public service, duty, and family ties, with an acknowledged need to recognize diversity and foster inclusivity. This requirement, however, is largely articulated and confined to considerations of gender, age and to a lesser extent, multiculturalism.

The Relief Campaign for the 1954 Yangzi River Flood and Rural Collectivization in Early Communist China

Abstract: In 1954, a devastating flood struck the entire Yangzi River basin, causing the first major natural disaster in the newly established People’s Republic of China (PRC). The young regime had just embarked on its First Five-Year Plan, aimed at achieving rapid economic development and industrialization. The flood swept across several provinces, displaced populations, and submerged farmlands, posing both a new challenge and an opportunity for the regime to shape the socioeconomic landscape of the affected regions. This article uses a localized perspective to examine how the rural society of Hubei Province, the hardest-hit area, responded to the disaster. The central government’s self-help doctrine delegated much power to local governments and communities. Local officials and rural cadres had considerable leeway in managing the relief campaign as they simultaneously followed the state macroeconomic policy of rural collectivization. The 1954 flood in Hubei Province serves as a case study that illustrates the complexities of disaster management in the early years of the PRC.

Linking ecosystems to public health based on combination of social and ecological systems

Promotion of public health is one of the most important benefits of ecosystems. Nevertheless, the relationship between ecosystems and social health’ needs is not well understood. Therefore, a study was done to investigate the potential of natural (forests and rangelands) and artificial (urban parks and gardens) ecosystems in ensuring the five dimensions of public health (i.e. physical, mental, spiritual, social and environmental) in the social systems (urban and rural societies). Therefore, 47 health indicators were used in order to relate different ecosystems and social’ needs to five dimensions of public health through questionnaire. The results indicated that natural ecosystems had the greatest potential in providing mental, spiritual and environmental health due to ecological characteristics of wilderness and aesthetic. The artificial ecosystems had the greatest potential in providing physical and social health due to their easy access. However, there was a match between social health’ needs and ecosystem potential in the rural areas. The study highlighted the need for promotion of ecological indicators related to mental health in urban areas by enhancing silence and aesthetic in artificial ecosystems. Presented framework can provide comprehensive information on the weaknesses and strengths of different ecosystems to promote public health based on social needs and fixing the weaknesses of artificial ecosystems in urban areas.

Exploring the Paradox of Local Community Empowerment in Mediating the Role of Village Fund Policy to Increase the Rural Society's Welfare: An Analysis through the Eye of Village Public Service's Users

Recent studies reported that the implementation of local budgeting in the context of fiscal decentralization policy had no significant contribution in increasing rural community welfare. This study therefore evaluated the local budgeting policy implemented in Indonesia through Village Fund (VF) policy as well as examining the mediating role of local community empowerment. This investigation used crossectional data from 399 respondents from villages in Indonesia. The measures used in this study involved villagers' perception about policy and implementation of village fund, the success of rural welfare and local community empowerment. PLS-SEM was used to test the hyphoteses. The result of this study evidences that perceived of VF usage measured by perceived infrastructure development and perceived basic social services, except for perceived VF usage in rural economic development, have less significant impact on rural community welfare. Moreover, perceived involvement of community empowerment has minimum contribution on perceived rural community welfare. This study provides an understanding of paradox existing in the perceived role of local community empowerment in mediating the effect of local finance budgeting on rural welfare which is still rarely studied particularly in developing countries like Indonesia.

Political Mobilization of Farmers in India: A Case Study of Bharti Kisan Union (Ekta Ugrahan) in Punjab

Growing agrarian contradictions and peasant protests globally are seen as outcomes of the commercialization of agricultural production systems. The Indian Punjab is one such site that has also witnessed a high degree of agricultural commercialization, and farmers’ movements and protests are attributed to growing discontentment among peasantry due to the emergence of agrarian crises. This has led to massive farmers’ movements and protests through their unionization over time. These protests received global limelight during the introduction of three farm laws by the union government of India in 2020, which were repealed in 2021. This necessitates understanding the organizational structure and functioning of unions; their social composition, mobilization strategies and role of gender. This article examines the evolution and strategies of Bharti Kisan Union (Ekta Ugrahan, ekta meaning united), which is the largest farmers’ union in Punjab and one of the largest in India. Using a mixed-method approach of research, which included interviewing union member farmers and agricultural workers through a semi-structured schedule and conducting focused group discussions with block presidents and executive committee members, the study finds that the unionization of farmers has accelerated the process of rural democratization. However, active persuasion of social reforms along with other agrarian issues in rural society by the unions is needed to bring social inclusiveness to make rural development process pro-poor and inclusive.

Exploring Issues and Strategies of Rural Land Use and Environmental Protection

  Land resources play a crucial role in the overall development of society, but the irrational exploitation and use of these resources have significant adverse effects on the natural ecological environment, which is detrimental to the effective construction of a harmonious society. There is an inseparable relationship between rural land use and ecological security, and in current rural land use practices, environmental protection issues are increasingly emphasized. In some rural areas, in pursuit of short-term economic benefits, the importance of environmental protection is often overlooked, leading to excessive development and use of land resources, posing a great threat to the sustainable development of rural society. The reduction of vegetation signifies a deterioration of the ecological environment, and soil erosion leads to a decrease in land resources and a decline in land productivity, while soil degradation directly affects the growth of crops and the income of farmers. Therefore, it is essential to integrate environmental protection concepts throughout the entire process of rural land use. In the development and utilization of land resources, environmental protection requirements must be fully considered, adopting scientific and reasonable planning and measures to ensure the full utilization of land resources and achieve sustainable development of rural society.

Historical, cultural, and social significance of ancient hydraulic wheat mills: A multidisciplinary approach in the municipality of Matanza (Colombia)

This work focuses on the historical, cultural, and social significance of ancient hydraulic wheat mills in the Municipality of Matanza (Colombia) from a multidisciplinary perspective. It begins by providing historical context about wheat and its introduction to the Americas, particularly in Colombia, as well as discussing the relevance of mills in wheat flour production and their role in rural and urban society. We emphasize the historical and technological significance of the ancient hydraulic mills in Matanza, which harnessed the power of water to grind grains and produce wheat flour. Additionally, the document explores the general characteristics of the millstones used in these devices, including their shape, dimensions, and function in the milling process. Next, it is proposed that the millstones were made from intrusive igneous rocks from the Triassic-Jurassic magmatism and biotitic and possibly amphibolic gneisses belonging to the Proterozoic Bucaramanga Gneiss. Finally, this article addresses the importance of preserving the cultural heritage related to wheat production and artisanal milling in Matanza. It underscores the need to conserve this cultural legacy, revitalize wheat production in the region, and promote tourism and environmental education related to the geological and cultural heritage of the area.

How internet healthcare information overflow affects farmers' healthcare consumption: insights from China.

In the context of the deep coupling and synergistic development of digital villages and healthy villages, the development of China's rural society harbors a huge potential for medical and healthcare consumption. On the basis of theoretical research, a framework was constructed to analyze the influence mechanism of farmers' medical and healthcare consumption in the context of Internet medical information overflow, and empirically examines the research and analysis framework by using the 2020 China Household Tracking Survey data with the OLS model, mediation effect model, and instrumental variable method. It is found that Internet medical information spillover has a "crowding-in effect" on farmers' healthcare consumption; Medical attendance behavior, economic capital utilize the intermediary effect between Internet medical information spillover and farmers' healthcare consumption. And there is age group heterogeneity in the effect of Internet medical information spillover on farmers' healthcare consumption, The ability of rural middle-aged and old-aged groups to recognize new things such as Internet medical information needs to be improved, so the overflow of Internet medical information will induce rural middle-aged and old-aged groups to generate a certain amount of medical and health care consumption. However, the impact on healthcare consumption is not sensitive to the youth cohort group. The sinking of Internet medical resources should be accelerated in the future to promote the high-quality development of rural medical and health services, at the same time the "Internet + healthcare services" should be optimized to promote scientific and rational stratification of farmers' access to healthcare, and economic capital for farmers' access to health care should be improved in order to alleviate the burden of health care, etc.

Improving the lives of rural Indians through social innovation

India is a country of villages, and a significant proportion of the population lives in the rural area. There are several fundamental challenges in the Indian villages. There is a requirement for a holistic approach to participatory development. This study addresses important facets of the interconnected problems that Indian rural society has experienced in recent decades, highlighting the dysfunctional relationships between an innovation policy that is grounded on an economically and technologically oriented, one-sided understanding of innovation. There are two aspects, first, possibilities within the village or contributions from the local community, and second the state's role in innovation. The social capital, use of local resources, and participation of stakeholders can be seen as a base for the sustainable development of the village. The study recommends the state enable rural areas in the affordable agriculture system and other small occupations, information and communication technology (ICT), communication, vocational skills courses, self-help groups, and microfinance.
 Keywords: Information and communication technology (ICT); rural development; social capital; social innovation.

From rural to urban: Clan, urbanization and trust

This study explores the persistence and transformation of culture amidst a critical economic process in China today, known as urbanization. Based on the China Labor-force Dynamics Survey (CLDS), we find that the clan, a central mechanism used to sustain cooperation in China's rural society, continues to impact trust traits amidst the ongoing urbanization process. Respondents from regions with a history of high clan density report higher levels of limited trust toward families, lower levels of generalized trust toward strangers, and a significant trust gap between these two. Nevertheless, the urbanization process is gradually mitigating the effect of clans on trust traits by driving the population from villages, providing public services to citizens, and promoting cooperation among strangers.

Fear of the bear? Rewilding, rural agencies and politics in two documentaries in Trentino and the Pyrenees

In Trentino and the Pyrenees, the population of bears has grown since the 1990s, when new specimens were released into the wild to recover this endangered species. The reintroduction generated a conflictive cohabitation with village dwellers, the shepherding sector, and rural initiatives in both areas. The aim of this research is to evaluate how local media and two audiovisual documentaries covered the bear issue in both regions. The researchers analysed the content of 86 articles from two newspapers in 2022, conducted a narrative analysis of the documentaries and interviewed their directors. The results reveal that the documentaries created a counter-narrative to politicisation, in the Italian case, and to environmentalisation, in the Catalan. Because both documentaries paid attention to rural communities, they contributed to increasing rural agency, an aspect aligned with the filmmakers’ motivations at the inception of both productions. The authors argue that the circulation of these narratives diversely expresses renewed imaginaries of rural societies in both contexts.

Indebtedness in India- A Region Wise Analysis Leveraging Machine Learning By IJISRT

The risk of indebtedness across region level is higher among the households having less human and physical assets and human resources. However, because of their better borrowing capacities, the extent of indebtedness among them is significantly higher than other segment of the rural society. The same is true about the households self-employed in various agricultural and non-agricultural activities in the rural areas. The region level analysis also rejects the contention that the higher consumptive expenditure of the rural people as a cause of their risk of indebtedness whereas the extent of indebtedness confirms that consumptive expenditure plays a major role in their indebtedness. Similarly, the hypothesis of agricultural prosperity and indebtedness going together lacks wider generalization for household located in all the regions except North-West states in Logistic regression and in North-Western, Eastern and Southern region in Tobit regression. Exposure of rural households to higher risk and uncertain situations like droughts, floods, crop failure due to pest attack pushes rural households deeper into debt.

Indicators of digitalization technologies in the agricultural production, food industry and marketing sectors - a review

Some Arab countries have faced many problems in the growth of the economy, which depends largely on agricultural production, food industries, marketing and electronic commerce. This review came to extract the most important advantages and obstacles to the application of digitalization techniques in the agricultural production sector, food industries, and electronic marketing to identify them in a deductive manner. It has become clear that the most important obstacles facing the application of digitization are the legal legislation related to the application of digitization techniques, as well as digital illiteracy in rural society in particular, in addition to the deterioration of the infrastructure necessary for the application of digitization techniques. It recommended that a long-run strategy developed to apply digitalization techniques in agricultural production, food industries, marketing and electronic commerce. As well as developing human capital, especially in rural areas, to provide an appropriate technical environment to achieve development in agricultural production and food industries to contribute to economic growth

Catchwater colonialism: reshaping Hong Kong’s hydrology, infrastructure, metabolism and landscape, 1937–1968

Abstract This article explores the development of hydrological infrastructure in colonial Hong Kong between the late 1930s and the late 1960s. Utilizing archival sources in Hong Kong and London, it shows how this infrastructure fundamentally reshaped Hong Kong’s geography. By way of concrete catchwaters and metal pipes, both ‘green’ and ‘urban’ Hong Kong became counter-intuitively interconnected. This interconnection created both unintended consequences and novel opportunities for colonial governance, driving forward natural conservation, state intervention into rural society and the development of new carceral institutions. Exploring these developments provides pivotal insight into the urban history of Hong Kong, with implications for global studies of historical urban political ecology.

L’espace public à Algér : le désintérêt privé (beylick) comme produit du contrôle public

Public spaces in Algeria are characterized by the strong lack of interest among people who rely entirely on public authority. Not any tendency here to make of it a common good. The purpose of the paper is to exhibit the extent of popular indifference from in situ observations in Algiers and to explain this attitude through historical analysis. Indeed, the collective imaginary and practices have not always been insensitive to public spaces. On the contrary, in traditional rural society, public spaces were perceived as a continuity of domestic space. The peasant was obliged to take charge of its maintenance as well as for his home, his intimate space. To understand the later behavioural evolution, we must refer to the Ottoman and colonial domination processes. Each period had its own way of considering public spaces, but the urban management systems have always been based on a discrimination policy against natives and a strict control of the public spaces to the point of making them appear as the State property in the collective mentality. This perception of a grabbing of public spaces by the Turkish governor (Beylik) and later by the French colonial administration (for security reasons) has led amongst city dwellers to a feeling of exclusion and a disaffection that still characterize their attitude today.

Redistributing Power: Land Reform, Rural Cooptation, and Grassroots Regime Institutions in Authoritarian Taiwan

Can redistributive policies such as land reform help authoritarian regimes coopt rural societies? Given that land reform has the potential to disrupt preexisting sociopolitical orders, this article highlights an unresolved puzzle of how regimes balance between the objectives of expanding its rural coalitional support through transformative redistribution and stabilizing its political control over rural institutions during land reform. Using a novel dataset of Taiwan’s 1950s rural reforms under the Kuomintang authoritarian regime, I find that stronger redistributive effects facilitated cooptation of new land reform beneficiaries through a key institution – the farmers’ association (FA). However, I also find that the restructuring of rank-and-file FA membership was still subject to meddling by the native landlord class. I thus argue that land reform, while allowing regimes to broaden their rural coalitions through socioeconomic redistribution, can also paradoxically compel regimes to concede power during institutional cooptation.

Imported Table Wares in the Palestinian Countryside in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries and Their Integration into (and Influence on?) Local Dining Habits

Archaeological fieldwork in Israel has testified to the presence of a variety of imported glazed table wares of the 19th and first half of the 20th century—notably from the northeast Mediterranean, Europe and the Far East—in numerous locations, including in rural sites of various ranks. The influx of import of these ceramics to the southern Levant and their widespread use reflect the intensifying commercial activity in the eastern Mediterranean and the gradual processes of globalization and quasi-Westernization or modernization among certain local populations. This article examines the extent of use of imported table wares among 19th to early 20th-century Palestinian Arab rural societies, the modes of use of these vessels in food consumption contexts, and consequently the power of foreign (culinary) objects to modify local (dining) traditions. These aspects are investigated by using archaeological materials, historical photographs and some written testimonies. This review shows, on the one hand, that imported table wares were integrated into local kitchens and functioned alongside locally-produced vessels. On the other hand, although many of these imports—specifically the European ones—were originally designated for individual eating, it is shown here that their influence on local, well-rooted traditions of communal dining was minor, especially among the great majority of the countryside population.