La avicultura de traspatio es una práctica productiva tradicional de la agricultura familiar que aporta a la nutrición de las familias, el empoderamiento femenino y la cohesión en los territorios. ...Este estudio tuvo como objetivos caracterizar y tipificar a los sistemas de avicultura de traspatio (SAT) en el área periurbana de Tunja (Boyacá-Colombia) y determinar su contribución a las dimensiones de la seguridad alimentaria. Se utilizaron variables socioculturales, socioeconómicas, técnicas y de planificación. Se analizó la percepción de inseguridad alimentaria de las personas participantes empleando la Escala Latinoamericana y del Caribe de Seguridad Alimentaria. Se tipificaron 138 SAT de 11 municipios de Boyacá por medio de análisis clúster de datos mixtos. Los SAT se caracterizaron por estar a cargo de mujeres adultas mayores con bajos niveles de escolaridad, en fincas propias de menos de 5 ha. Las aves son mantenidas con prácticas de manejo deficiente, infraestructura precaria y baja atención sanitaria. Los SAT pueden tipificarse en tres categorías: 1) SAT-tradicional de autoconsumo (40.5%); 2) SAT-tradicional de venta y autoconsumo (44.2%); y 3) SAT-en transición (13.7%). La avicultura de traspatio contribuye a las dimensiones de la seguridad alimentaria, pues favorece de forma estable a la disponibilidad y el acceso directo a alimentos de alto valor biológico, como la carne de pollo y los huevos, permite que este tipo de alimentos lleguen a lugares apartados, donde la calidad de vida de sus habitantes es baja en función de la relación entre condiciones de la vivienda, el tamaño de los predios y el acceso a servicios públicos.
The development of digital technology across the globe has taken place at considerable speed; however, this has not been at an even pace within all places (Graham, 2011; Philip et al., 2015; ...Riddlesden and Singleton, 2014). There has been a fundamental unevenness to the delivery of digital technology in all its forms that has been shaped by existing geographic and social inequalities (Graham et al., 2012; Townsend et al., 2013) and has, in turn, shaped the characteristics of new inequalities. This special issue critically explores how, in different rural spaces, the delivery and use of digital technologies differs massively and how this can impact on the ability of rural communities to be resilient in an increasingly digital world. In following the multiple variations in availability, accessibility, quality and use of digital technologies in rural communities, this special issue highlights how different rural communities have, first, been significantly disadvantaged by slow delivery of post-dial up (‘narrow band’ or ‘first generation’) Internet telecommunications infrastructure and, second, going beyond an infrastructure-based narrative we evidence how rural communities have utilised pre-existing resilience to help improve their ability to maintain and improve social and economic relations where telecommunications infrastructure development has failed to keep pace with national and international advances. This special issue originates from a Working Group convened at the 25th Congress of the European Society for Rural Sociology, 2013, organised by researchers from the RCUK dot.rural Digital Economy Hub at the University of Aberdeen. The Working Group brought together European-based scholars concerned with the level of broadband infrastructure available to rural communities in the context of the European Digital Agenda for Europe (DAE). This translated at that time, across many countries, as the market-led roll out of Superfast Broadband.
Small-scale human societies range from foraging bands with a strong egalitarian ethos to more economically stratified agrarian and pastoral societies. We explain this variation in inequality using a ...dynamic model in which a population's long-run steady-state level of inequality depends on the extent to which its most important forms of wealth are transmitted within families across generations. We estimate the degree of intergenerational transmission of three different types of wealth (material, embodied, and relational), as well as the extent of wealth inequality in 21 historical and contemporary populations. We show that intergenerational transmission of wealth and wealth inequality are substantial among pastoral and small-scale agricultural societies (on a par with or even exceeding the most unequal modern industrial economies) but are limited among horticultural and foraging peoples (equivalent to the most egalitarian of modern industrial populations). Differences in the technology by which a people derive their livelihood and in the institutions and norms making up the economic system jointly contribute to this pattern.
•The article discusses depeasantisation and repeasantisation as unequal but combined processes.•Social sciences contributed to the depeasantisation.•Depeasantisation and repeasantisation are far from ...outdated notions.
Rural areas become central sites for the development of the post‐carbon transition, yet this is a highly contested and contingent process whereby neo‐liberal models of development and framings ...compete with the emergence of the alternative circular eco‐economy. The article argues for a grounded conceptual and empirical approach in tracing this overall process of sustainable place‐making. It explores three key highly contested dimensions: reflexive governance, distributed eco‐economies, and re‐financialisation, arguing that such explorations are critical in developing more sustainable rural‐urban functionalities for the necessary post‐ carbon and post‐neoliberal transition.
European agriculture is experiencing a recruitment crisis that threatens the continuation of both family farming and associated rural communities. Conventionally, researchers and policymakers see ...farm succession as driven by discrete factors such as education level, farm size, profitability, enterprise type, and so on. This article offers an alternative perspective. Drawing on in‐depth interviews with 22 farm families in Scotland, it uses a single case‐study to outline the concept of endogenous succession cycles based on the iterative and interlinked development of successor identity and farm structure. In this way, succession is seen as predominantly socially constructed. We suggest that the key to succession lies in the development and maintenance of these endogenous cycles as, when they are broken or uninitiated, attracting a successor on to the farm is likely to be exceptionally difficult whatever the policy incentive. We conclude that the current crisis can partly be explained by the breakdown of early childhood socialisation, a key stage of the cycle, caused by changes to agriculture such as the use of larger machinery, more health and safety regulations, fewer farm workers, and so on. As a result, the process of constructing successor identities in early childhood through extended contact between the farmer, the child and the farm is becoming increasingly difficult.
The article discusses social innovation from a rural development perspective. The central questions addressed are: What are social innovations and why are they important for rural development? How ...can we gain more insights into the role and functioning of social innovations in rural development? Drawing on different approaches to conceptualise social innovations pursued in economy, management, sociology, psychology and regional economics, planning and development studies, the article outlines the central aspects on which the concept is built. Based on these insights a proposal for a concise basic definition of social innovations is given and a model of the social innovation process is introduced. Reasoning that a lack of social innovation is often one of the strongest restraints of the vitality and further development of rural communities in developed, democratic, capitalist, industrial countries, the second part orf the article highlights the need to put a stronger focus on social innovations in future rural development research. Building on these insights, the third part addresses open research questions and explains why an actor‐oriented network approach seems to be a promising potential methodological way to approach social innovations in rural development research.
Transformations inherently involve systems change and because of the political nature of change, are subject to contestation. A potentially effective strategy to further transformative change that ...builds on interdisciplinary, multiactor, and multiscalepractices and values is the use of foresight. Foresight covers a wide range of methods to systematically investigate the future. Foresight exercises offer collaborative spaces and have the potential to conceptualize and even initiate transformative change. But there is no clear understanding of the possibilities and limitations of foresight in this regard. This explorative paper builds on foresight and sociology and interrogates the role of foresight in transformative change, building on four cases. These cases are embedded in different contexts and characterized by different organizational approaches and constellations of actors. Nevertheless, they share the common goal of transformative food systems change. By reflecting on the processes that play a role in foresight workshops, we analyze what created conditions for transformative change in these four empirical cases. We have operationalized these conditions by distinguishing layers in the structuring processes that influence the impact of the foresight process. Based on this analysis, we conclude that there are three roles, ranging from modest to more ambitious, that foresight can play in transformative change: preconceptualization of change; offering an avenue for the creation of new actor networks; and creation of concrete strategies with a high chance of implementation. Furthermore, contributing to future design of foresight processes for transformative change, we offer some crucial points to consider before designing foresight processes. These include the role of leading change makers (including researchers), the risk of co-option by more regime-driven actors, and the ability to attract stakeholders to participate.
This review outlines several key aspects or the new rural-urban interface and the growing interpenetration of American rural and urban life. The historical coincidence ot spatial and social ...boundaries in America is changing rapidly. This review highlights (a) the enormous scale of rural-urban interdependence and boundary crossing, shifting, and blurring—along many dimensions of community life—over the past several decades, and (b) the symmetrical rather than asymmetrical influences between urban and rural areas, i.e., on bidirectional relational aspects of spatial categories. These general points are illustrated by identifying 10 common conceptions of rural America that reflect both its social and economic diversity and its changing spatial and social boundaries. Here we emphasize symbolic and social boundaries—the distinctions between urban and rural communities and people and the processes by which boundaries are engaged. Placing behaviors or organizational forms along a rural-urban continuum (or within a metropolitan hierarchy of places) or drawing sharp rural-urban distinctions seems increasingly obsolete or even problematic. We conclude with a call for new research on rural America and greater conceptual and empirical integration of urban and rural scholarship, which remains disconnected and segregated institutionally.
PDF
