Rural Sociology Commons^™

Ict Use By Smallholder Farmers In Rural Mozambique: A Case Study Of Two Villages In Central Mozambique, Kathlee Freeman, Fridah Mubichi

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

This study adds to the empirical evidence of information and communication technology (ICT) use by smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study draws on qualitative data collected from eight focus groups segmented by gender and consisting of adult farmers in two villages in central Mozambique. Special attention was given to the types of ICTs that farmers have access to and the dissemination of agriculture information through various ICTs. Findings indicate that the characteristics of ICTs explain why cell phone and radio use is prevalent, while access to television remains limited. The type of information accessed also varied by ICT type, …

Community, Regional Identity, And Civic Agriculture: A Structural Ritualization Analysis Of Rural Online Farmers' Market Sellers, Jason S. Ulsperger, Kristen Ulsperger

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

Despite the impact of “new agriculture,” a revival of farmers’ markets (FMs) occurred in recent years. Though urban environments have FMs, people often neglect to consider their existence and functions in rural areas. Moreover, a lack of research specifically related to rural, online markets exists. This article is an analysis of rural, online farmers’ market sellers in the Arkansas River Valley. It provides a brief history of FMs and review of literature associated with food, identity, and community. It also uses structural ritualization theory to explore community bonds, regional identity, and civic agriculture themes. Results suggest that online sellers rarely …

Livestock-Livelihood Linkages In Uganda: The Benefits For Women And Rural Households?, Elizabeth Ransom, Carmen Bain, Iim Halimatusa'diyah

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

Livestock are an important component of rural households and gendered livelihood practices throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Widespread within the development literature is the belief in the livestock ladder, with poorer households often owning small stock and wealthier households owning large stock, with the assumption that poor households can utilize livestock to build their asset base and over time this would allow poorer households to expand from small stock to large stock, and in so doing climb the livestock ladder. There is also an assumption in the literature that women are more likely to oversee small stock. In addition, some well-known agricultural …

Energy And The Rural Sociological Imagination, Thomas M. Beckley

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

Energy is the lifeblood of any society. It drives a society’s material culture and the reproduction of that culture. It is essential for the production of food, shelter, clothing, and for transportation, trade, and communication. This article makes the case for a rural sociology of energy. Relative to the impact that energy issues have for rural places and people, energy, as a subject area, has been understudied by rural sociologists and is infrequently represented in the journals devoted to rural sociology and rural studies. Energy production and distribution activities such as coal mining, uranium mining, hydroelectric dams, wind farms, nuclear, …

Effect Of Mobile Telecommunication Technologies On Globalization Of Nigerian Rural Areas, O. A. Lawal-Adebowale

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

The globalization of a country is today measured with respect to indices of globalization such as the Maastricht Globalization Index (MGI) and the Konjunkturforschungsstelle (KOF). These indices of national globalization often have an urban bias. This study however explores the extent to which these international measures include rural environments of the globalizing country. Application of the MGI/KOF indices for determination of the Nigerian rural environment inclusion in globalization showed that the country’s rural communities were mainly integrated technologically by virtue of telephony (communication technology) penetration of rural areas. An attempt to modify the MGI/KOF globalization indexes for rural inclusion showed …

Heterogeneity Of Rural Consumer Perceptions Of Health Service Access Across Four Regions Of Victoria, Daniel Terry, Kaye Ervin, Alan Crouch, Kristen Glenister, Lisa Bourke

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

Access to a range of services, including health care, ranks among the key determinants of health and wellbeing. It varies with both health system supply factors and consumer demand characteristics. For rural populations, access to health services can be restricted for a variety of reasons, contributing to poorer health outcomes compared with metropolitan populations. Access to health care differs between communities, despite commonly being seen as homogenous in terms of lack of service and poor access. This article seeks to examine consumer perceptions of access to health service in four shires in rural Victoria and explore differences between rural areas. …

Editor's Introduction, Mathew Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

An overview of African Catholicism. Part Two: Retrospect and Prospect, third issue of the Journal of Global Catholicism. A summary of the work of Bradford Hinze, Mary Gloria Njoku, Matthias Scharer, Mary Sylvia Nwachukwu, and Bernhard Udelhoven. Among the topics considered: African ecclesiology, African wellness and quality of life in Africa, interreligious dialogue in Africa, African Biblical scholarship, witchcraft and the Catholic Church.

A “Hammer Held Over Their Heads”: Voluntary Conservation Spurred By The Prospect Of Regulatory Enforcement In Oregon, Katherine L. Wollstein, Emily Jane Davis

Human–Wildlife Interactions

When the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; sage-grouse) did not warrant listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 2015, the agency recognized a coordinated effort of private landowners, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and state and federal agencies that effectively reduced threats to the species. This effort exemplified an alternative model to species conservation that relies on voluntary conservation of private landowners to preclude government regulation. Through one in-depth case study of private landowners’ voluntary sage-grouse conservation efforts in Lake County, Oregon, we explored features of these voluntary arrangements that motivate participating private …

Dispossession And Protection In The Neoliberal Era: The Politics Of Rural Development In Indigenous Communities In Chaco, Argentina., Mercedes Biocca

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Neoliberal reforms and technological innovations associated with the agribusiness model have led to profound transformations in the Argentine agricultural sector. These transformations, far from being limited to a central region, are expanding rapidly into areas previously considered marginal, causing major changes in the socio-economic and cultural dynamics of those territories. As argued by Sanyal and Chatterjee, the state has played a dual role in these processes of ‘accumulation by dispossession.’ On the one hand, it has created the necessary conditions for the displacement of peasants and indigenous peoples while on the other hand, it has implemented programs that seek to …

Dynamics Of Household Role Performance And The Culture Of Child Health Production In Igbo-Ora, Southwestern Nigeria, Kabiru K. Salami, Ayodele S. Jegede, Frederick O. Oshiname

Journal of Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences

Studies about production of health for children have mainly concentrated on the behavior of one or two key household members compared to the dynamics in households involving three or more members. Health production refers to the process of directing available knowledge, skills, and resources towards ensuring, maintaining, and sustaining the health of the members. This cross-sectional design study explored how the dynamics of household structure and members’ roles influence the process of health production in a rural Nigerian community. An interviewer-moderated questionnaire was administered through a panel survey approach in 576 households. Twelve in-depth interviews and eight group discussion sessions …

Moving Mountains : A Study Examining Long-Term Impacts Of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining On Mortality In The Appalachian Region Using Geographic Information Sciences Techniques., James Howard Kent Pugh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Over the last hundred years, the Appalachian region has been dominated by the coal industry. It has also been and currently is one of the unhealthiest regions in the United States. Recent scholarship has examined the relationship between coal mining and health and mortality rates in the Appalachian region. The first study incorporates air quality and pollution data to examine if coal mining counties have higher levels of pollution and if this pollution contributes to mortality disadvantage. In the second study, I construct a population-based coal-exposure measure to better evaluate the relationship between coal mining and health I find that …

Identities And Persistence Of Family Farm Operators, Parker T. Arnold

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on the identities of family farm operators and the challenges to maintaining viable farm operations in today’s agricultural economy. Employing a grounded qualitative approach, the author conducted 18 in-depth interviews with principal farm operators from Iowa and Tennessee. Using the insights of farmers from geographically different agricultural regions, this study notes how preserving family histories, socialization processes, and farming as a moral career inform operators’ understandings of themselves and the work they do. The analysis also focuses on how family farm operators contend with a globalized agricultural economy and the moral and ethical concerns of managing a …

Banko: Reshaping The Philippines Rural Banking System, Peter Williamson, Havovi Joshi

Asian Management Insights

In 2009, eight out of ten Filipinos did not have access to a bank. A few informal moneylenders provided about 40 percent of small-scale business lending in the market, at interest rates that could touch around 240 percent per annum. Additionally, the population living in 40 percent of the Philippines’ municipalities did not have easy access to a physical bank branch. It was then that the Ayala Group, the oldest business house and one of the largest conglomerates in the country, identified and explored an opportunity to develop a business model capable of meeting the needs of the unbanked in …

Measuring The Impact Of Youth Leadership Development: An Evaluation Of Impacts, Heartland Center For Leadership Development

Heartland Center for Leadership Development Materials

Introduction

The research purpose of this collaborative study is to develop a psychometrically sound measure of youth leadership and examine its relationship to community outcomes such as retention, civic engagement, entrepreneurial activity and community attachment. This program, entitled the Rural Civic Action Program (RCAP), is designed to engage undergraduate “fellows” with rural middle or high schools to facilitate a service learning project intended to address locally identified needs.

Bridging The Gap From Policy To Practice: Diabetes In Rural Morocco, Zoe H. Robbin

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Morocco is in the midst of an epidemiologic transition ushered in by reduced fertility rates and extended life expectancy. Unlike two decades ago, today’s leading cause of death is chronic disease. In 2006, Moroccan officials launched Vision 2020, a comprehensive plan that seeks to expand access to healthcare and reign back the prevalence of noncommunicable disease, among other goals related to development. Through qualitative interviews with the residents of Tarmilat and Oulmes, a rural community south of Khamissat, this paper represents the first assessment of Vision 2020’s performance thus far to combat the spread of type 2 diabetes among rural …

Water Injustice In Jendouba Governorate, Wilder Mccoy

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Water is a precious resource even in a tropical rainforest, and in a dry country like Tunisia it is essential. Located in the south central region of the Mediterranean Sea, Tunisia, like nearly every other Mediterranean country, faces a stark challenge in providing clean drinking water to its growing population. Compared to its neighbors, Tunisia, with a few minor exceptions, does a good job in meeting this goal. In the rural northwestern governorate of Jendouba, where most of the country’s surface water comes from, there is ironically a dire need for clean drinking water in the rural areas outside the …

Land Insecurity In Gulu, Uganda: A Clash Between Culture And Capitalism, Zachary Slotkin

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper presents the causes and consequences of land insecurity in Gulu, Uganda. In order to address this important and often sensitive issue, the paper analyzes the role of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency and the government’s policy of forced encampment during the insurgency in contributing to land insecurity, causing widespread displacement among former internally displaced persons (IDPs). It further explores the importance of land ownership in providing economic productivity to rural landowners, as well as the nature of customary land tenure in Acholi culture and the government’s efforts to privatize communal land, to give a background on the …

Farm Deaths And Injuries: Changing Irish Farmer Attitudes And Behaviour On Farm Safety, Maurice Murphy, Kieran O'Connell

Dept. of Management & Enterprise Conference Material

While the Irish agricultural sector accounts for just 6% of the working population of Ireland, it consistently has the highest proportion of fatal incidents of any sector - generally ranging from between 35% and 45% of all workplace fatalities in any given year. This was again evident in 2014 where 55% (30 of the 56) of the fatal workplace incidents were in the agricultural sector. Agriculture has an ageing workforce with the average age of an Irish farmer now standing at fifty-seven and farmers are eight times more likely to be fatally injured in a farm accident than the general …

A Cross-Sectional Exploration Of Household Financial Reactions And Homebuyer Awareness Of Registered Sex Offenders In A Rural, Suburban, And Urban County., John Charles Navarro

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As stigmatized persons, registered sex offenders betoken instability in communities. Depressed home sale values are associated with the presence of registered sex offenders even though the public is largely unaware of the presence of registered sex offenders. Using a spatial multilevel approach, the current study examines the role registered sex offenders influence sale values of homes sold in 2015 for three U.S. counties (rural, suburban, and urban) located in Illinois and Kentucky within the social disorganization framework. Homebuyers were surveyed to examine whether awareness of local registered sex offenders and the homebuyer’s community type operate as moderators between home selling …

Farmers' Cooperatives In China: A Typology Of Fraud And Failure, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Since the 1990s, agricultural cooperatives—particularly what China calls Farmers’ Specialized Cooperatives—have experienced rapid expansion in China. After more than two decades of growth and policy support, what is the overall performance of the ever-increasing numbers of these cooperatives? We visited 50 cooperatives across the country, most of which had officially been lauded as successful, to make a first-hand evaluation of their overall status and performance. We argue that, judging by either international or Chinese standards, the vast majority of these agricultural cooperatives are not authentic and fail to deliver expected benefits to smallholders. We categorize them into five types: genuine …