Journal of Rural Studies最新文献

{"title":"Women's tenure security on collective lands: A conceptual framework","authors":"Ruth Meinzen-Dick ,&nbsp;Cheryl Doss ,&nbsp;Fiona Flintan ,&nbsp;Rachael Knight ,&nbsp;Anne M. Larson ,&nbsp;Iliana Monterroso","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103694","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103694","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Within discussions of land and resource rights, there is growing attention to women's rights, mostly in terms of household and individual rights to private property. This leaves unanswered questions about whether and how women's land rights can be secured under collective tenure, upon which billions of people worldwide depend. There is an important gap in conceptual tools, empirical understanding, and policy recommendations on this topic. To address this gap and lay the foundations for a sound body of empirical studies and appropriate policies, we develop a conceptual framework to improve understanding of women's land rights under collective tenure. We discuss what secure tenure for women on collective lands would entail, then what factors would affect women's tenure security. We give attention to particularities of rangelands, forests, and other types of collective lands as well as commonalities across types. A key theme that emerges is that for women to have secure tenure under collective tenure, the collective (group) itself must have tenure security and the women must have secure rights within this collective. The latter requires us to consider the governance structures, how men and women access and control land, and the extent to which women have voice and power within the collective. More consistent analyses of collective tenure systems using the conceptual framework presented in this paper can help to identify which action resources are important for groups to secure rights to collective lands, and for women to advocate for their rights within the group.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"118 ","pages":"Article 103694"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144084516","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"What good is agroecology? Predominant narratives about agroecology in Africa","authors":"Sidney Madsen ,&nbsp;Esther Laske ,&nbsp;Jarvis Fisher ,&nbsp;Aïssa Ndiereby Sall ,&nbsp;Stephanie Enloe ,&nbsp;Rachel Bezner Kerr","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103706","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103706","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Agroecology is still a marginal approach to agricultural development in Africa when compared to industrial approaches, despite growing evidence of its potential to address core challenges of food insecurity, poverty, and soil degradation. This paper investigates one possible explanation for this discrepancy: the discursive landscape of African agriculture. Taking inspiration from narrative analysis, we document stories about agroecology as told by key actors in the food system: farmers, pastoralists, NGO workers, extension officers, government officials, and researchers. Based on 208 interviews with key informants (KIs) across nine African case studies, we identified three distinct narratives: Agroecology is: 1) a tool in a toolbox 2) for poor farmers 3) the better path. In addition to these narratives, we report KIs' perceptions of two narrative components, namely their definition of agroecology and the key challenges affecting agriculture in their case study site. We use these problem framings to evaluate how logically agroecology fits as a solution in this story, and thus its discursive potential as an approach to agricultural development. We find that many respondents do not consider agroecology to be an effective or relevant solution to major food system challenges, or that they have a limited understanding of the full breadth of agroecology. We suggest that organizations seeking to promote agroecology guide their efforts according to a key agroecological principle, knowledge co-creation, to better understand farmers’ views and experiences with specific agroecological practices in the African context.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"118 ","pages":"Article 103706"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143949102","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Activating the income increase effect of geographical indications: The critical roles of intellectual property protection and internet development","authors":"Jie Wang ,&nbsp;Zequn Dong ,&nbsp;Zhaoshuo Ning ,&nbsp;Qianfeng Luo ,&nbsp;Lixiang Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103696","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103696","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Extant literature suggests that Geographical Indications (GIs) play a crucial role in promoting rural development in China. However, for the majority of underdeveloped regions, due to factors such as insufficient intellectual property protection and limited internet development, the impact of GIs on rural residents' income remains to be verified. This study analyzes the relationship between GIs and the disposable income of rural residents in China, examining how intellectual property protection and internet development serve as critical factors in activating the income increase effect of GIs. Additionally, this study explores the mediating effects of technological and green innovation. By analyzing panel data from 274 prefecture-level cities in China covering the period from 2008 to 2021, our results demonstrate that: (1) The income increase effect of GIs for rural residents have not been fully realized during the study period. (2) After incorporating intellectual property protection and internet development into our analytical framework, we observed that these factors play critical roles in moderating the impact of GIs on rural residents' income. Specifically, GIs significantly increase rural residents' income only in regions characterized by high internet penetration rates and stringent intellectual property protection measures. (3) Under robust intellectual property protection and internet development, GIs promote technological and green innovation, leading to increased income for rural residents. Thus, we suggest that policymakers should enhance regional intellectual property protection, accelerate the construction of rural internet infrastructure, and foster innovation and green innovation initiatives to fully activate the income increase effect of GIs.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"118 ","pages":"Article 103696"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143941457","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Uncovering the commodification of food in rural Chinese households","authors":"Bin Han ,&nbsp;Hongqing Li ,&nbsp;Ke Li ,&nbsp;Jianing Zhai ,&nbsp;Wanxia Ren ,&nbsp;Shuang Gang ,&nbsp;Cheng Chen ,&nbsp;Bing Xue","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103693","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103693","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>With the advancement of urban-rural integration in China, understanding rural household food commodification is crucial for uncovering the interconnections between rural socio-ecological systems and urban systems. This study aims to systematically identify the characteristics of rural household food commodification and provide new perspectives on the transformation mechanisms of rural socio-ecological systems. We first conceptualize rural food commodification and develop a theoretical framework that integrates the characteristics of production and consumption activities. Subsequently, we propose a dual measurement method to evaluate both production and consumption sides of food commodification, introducing the Food Production Commodification Index (FPCI), the Food Consumption Commodification Index (FCCI), and sales and purchase indices for various food types. Based on field survey data, Liaoning Province was selected as a case study. The results show that food commodification is widespread, with 33 % of households relying entirely on purchased food. However, the types of food production commodification are limited, with 75 % selling grains but fewer than 17 % engage in the production of beans, oil crops, vegetables, livestock, poultry, or fruits. Additionally, 51 % of households earn more than half of their income from non-agricultural activities, indicating a shift in rural livelihoods from traditional agricultural production to a more diversified economic structure. Rural households’ food consumption behavior increasingly resemble those that of urban residents. The process of food commodification highlights the emergence of urban production and lifestyle characteristics within rural economies, while also demonstrating the role of commodified food transactions in linking urban and rural socio-economic systems. These findings provide a foundation for developing precise and effective strategies for rural sustainable development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"118 ","pages":"Article 103693"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143924797","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Amish peoplehood: A critical synthesis of eight decades of theorizing","authors":"Cory Anderson","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103670","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103670","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Across eight decades, researchers have advanced several peoplehood theorizations of the Amish, a rapidly growing, fundamentally rural, North American population. However, these theorizations have been proposed implicitly or piecemeal and are poorly understood on the whole. This makes theoretical engagement difficult, which then limits knowledge advancement, allows fallacious concepts to shape results, and makes research priorities difficult to justify. This article clarifies Amish peoplehood theorizations by synthesizing and evaluating seven major theorizations. Early structural-functional approaches emphasized social integration and resistance to change, culminating in Hostetler's theorization of Amish as a change-adverse folk society. Olshan then countered, theorizing Amish as change-accommodating, calculating agents making value-rational choices, while Enninger's alternative was a thorough semiotic framework linking micro-interactions to macro-structures. Following Hostetler, Kraybill's “negotiating with modernity” perspective dichotomized Amish/outside but permitted system-reinforcing hybrid changes. Using a “patchwork” analogy, Nolt/Meyers emphasized internal Amish diversity while Hurst/McConnell argued diversity came from “terrains of tension” between internal/external forces and structure/agency. Finally, Reschly's Bourdieuian analysis framed Amish as possessing “community repertoires” of action, explaining both coordinated and contested changes within social fields. Reoccurring theoretical challenges include reification of social structures and overstructuring individual action, conceptual overreliance on “boundaries,” and undertheorization of power, conflict, and agency. Moving forward, scholars should drop value-laden developmental language (traditional/modern), engage broader disciplinary conversations, resolve structure/agency problems, conduct comparative population research, and encourage theoretical plurality. By rendering existing peoplehood theorizations cohesively explicit and critically engaging their claims, this article moves scholarship toward more intentional engagement with population theorization.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"118 ","pages":"Article 103670"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143907590","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Radical rural place-making? Agricultural grassroots initiatives in the everyday negotiation of the European countryside","authors":"Julia Spanier","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103676","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103676","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the context of capitalist and conservative renderings of European countrysides, ‘radical rural’ initiatives (Halfacree, 2007) have received increasing attention. Agricultural grassroots initiatives (AGIs), although acknowledged for their contribution to post-capitalist agri-food systems, have rarely been considered for their broader performances of radical ruralities. This paper provides an examination of the role of AGIs in remaking rural places beyond agricultural change. It draws on a conceptual framework that centres on <em>constructing</em>, <em>inheriting,</em> and <em>negotiating</em> as key processes in place-making. Through this framework, the paper explores two contrasting community-supported agriculture (CSA) initiatives in East and Southwest rural Germany. These case studies show that AGIs can be agents of more-than-agricultural change in rural communities: they can promote rural commons, create learning opportunities for post-capitalist thinking, create opportunities for the encounter of difference, and may even foster networks of rural leftist and antifascist politics. At the same time, they illustrate how not all AGIs will be radical, nor intentional, rural place-makers and highlight the key role of more and less positively disposed rural neighbours. The paper thus demonstrates the importance of studying radical rural initiatives beyond the internal characteristics of their ‘islands’. The making of radical ruralities will always happen in everyday negotiations with other rural place-makers, shaped by the histories and socio-material fabrics of specific rural places.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"118 ","pages":"Article 103676"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143901936","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Commodification and co-benefits: Neoliberalism and the growth of regenerative agriculture in Australia","authors":"Anja Bless,&nbsp;Federico Davila,&nbsp;Roel Plant","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103692","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103692","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>‘Regenerative agriculture’ is attracting increasing attention as a farming approach which could rejuvenate agricultural landscapes and support farmer wellbeing. However, regenerative agriculture's popularity in neoliberal economies such as Australia remains under-interrogated in terms of how this political-economic context might influence the adoption of regenerative practices. Furthermore, research on regenerative agriculture has largely focussed on individual farmer motivations for adopting regenerative agriculture and has failed to capture policymaker perspectives on the movement. Our research addresses these gaps by exploring the drivers of regenerative agriculture's growth in Australia based on 38 semi-structured interviews with policymakers and farmers. We then consider how policy settings have influenced these drivers through a content analysis of 244 documents related to regenerative agriculture from Australian governments. Our results highlight that while there is minimal explicit support among policymakers and institutions for regenerative agriculture, they remain enthusiastic about the economic and environmental co-benefits regenerative agriculture practices could provide, and capitalising upon them through nature markets. Our findings also demonstrate that economic factors are the primary driver of the growth of regenerative agriculture in Australia. In contrast with studies that emphasise eco-centric motivations for regenerative agriculture, our findings highlight how Australia's neoliberal policy setting is extending the commodification of nature and embedding extractivist, as opposed to reciprocal, human-nature value relations in the movement. We conclude with a discussion on how policy support based on principles of environmental stewardship and reciprocal relationality could instead sustain regenerative agriculture's growth without a reliance on economic incentives as a driver of change.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"118 ","pages":"Article 103692"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143899194","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Crossed views on land policies in Uruguay and France: What challenges do the current agrarian dynamics pose?","authors":"Virginia Courdin ,&nbsp;Verónica Camors ,&nbsp;Eric Sabourin","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103690","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103690","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In Uruguay, as in France, access to land has become a problem, and with it, the difficulty of regulating the concentration process. In Uruguay, the policies implemented through the National Institute of Colonisation receive few resources for land incorporation and the demand from producers with access difficulties is significant. In France, the common agricultural policy has stimulated land concentration, calling into question the actions of the Sociétés d'Aménagement du Territoire et d'Installation Rural, making it difficult for new producers to establish on the land. This study compares public policies and land regulation instruments in Uruguay and France, while it seeks to understand the evolution of these instruments and the results of their application, through a review of documentary sources (academic and technical) and interviews with different categories of actors. The first reflections show that both countries share a state-developed system of land-access regulation. Despite their different trajectories and characteristics, both systems aim at the promotion and maintenance of family production, as their priority. However, both structures have been confronted with the advance of agribusiness and the financialization of agriculture, which have resulted in the increasing concentration of agricultural land. The limitations of the instruments do not manage to overcome the difficulties identified to improve the access conditions for less well-endowed producers or sectors.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"118 ","pages":"Article 103690"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143894688","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The impact of Brexit on SME lending in the UK","authors":"Cem Soner ,&nbsp;Rasha Alsakka ,&nbsp;Noemi Mantovan","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103683","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103683","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Using a difference-in-differences model, we find a significant 1.2 % (4.8 %) quarterly (annual) lending contraction to Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the UK following the Brexit vote compared to similar European countries. This impact persisted in several quarters, particularly during key Brexit milestones, reflecting the prolonged uncertainty induced by Brexit. Within-country analysis, using postcode-level data, reveals severe loan contractions in rural and peripheral areas, as well as in regions with high EU export proportions, highlighting regional disparities in Brexit's impact on SME lending. Our findings emphasize the importance of economic geography and the role of local conditions in shaping access to finance during shocks. These results call for regionally tailored policies that specifically address the resilience and financial challenges faced by SMEs in rural and peripheral regions, to foster economic recovery across the UK in the post-Brexit era. Our research contributes to the literature on regional resilience and finance, with implications for policymakers aiming to mitigate the unequal impacts of economic shocks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"118 ","pages":"Article 103683"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143894687","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From cow sense to data sense: hybrid epistemologies on US dairy farms","authors":"Jaime Barrett ,&nbsp;David Lansing","doi":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103691","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103691","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Data technologies are increasingly being adopted by the dairy industry to manage animal health. While some have hailed the adoption of such technologies into agriculture as transformative, critical data and agriculture scholars have suggested that big data has the potential to displace further the situational knowledge of farmers. Others suggest that these technologies simultaneously catalyze forms of relational agency, but also forms of resistance, where the lived experiences of farmers and cattle can hinder technology's effectiveness. With these critiques in mind, we assess how data technologies are put into practice on dairy farms. Drawing on interviews with producers and key advisers, we found that adoption is not seamless, and often fails to deliver on promises of labor and animal health optimization. The adoption of big data technologies can be confounded by cow and bacteria physiology, by the farm's existing infrastructure, and by the attitudes and knowledge base of farmers. These barriers to data technology adoption have produced hybrid epistemologies around animal health. This involves an uneasy and provisional blending of experiential and analytical methods, objective and subjective reasoning, and an ongoing tempering of the promise of greater optimization with the material realities of dairy farming. These hybrid epistemologies require people with the situational awareness to perform the hidden labor necessary to make the data useful for a given farm site. Despite adoption difficulties, dairy farmers continue to engage with data technologies, but the value of experience endures.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Rural Studies","volume":"118 ","pages":"Article 103691"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143894689","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}