Constructing the Countryside

The first book in the Restructuring Rural Areas series, Constructing the countryside provides a stimulating interpretation of rural change through the development of new concepts and approaches. The authors demonstrate the necessity of an interdisciplinary approach to our understanding of the combined effects of social, economic, political and cultural forces for change. They go further, developing a methodology designed to integrate the broader national and international forces for change with the responses of actors set in their particular local contexts. They demonstrate the significance of rural change in the broader international restructuring of the economy and polity. The book is a product of the work done at the London Countryside Change Centre, which was set up in 1989 by the Economic and Social Research Council. The Centre's research has focused upon the social and political forces for change in rural areas and how these relate to rapid alterations in national economic circumstances and to public policies affecting the countryside (e. g. the Common Agricultural Policy of the EC). In this book, the authors present a new methodological approach to the analysis of rural change. Specifically, they seek to link the wider developments in the global political economy to the behaviour of local actors. In so doing, they place research into rural studies firmly in the mainstream of social science enquiry. The outcome is a book that promotes a truly interdisciplinary approach through which the constant "reconstruction" of the countryside can be properly understood. This holistic perspective, sustained by an historical analysis of rural change in the UK, has been made possible only by theextensive research experiences of the authors. Thus, on the hand, the book provides a set of insights into the trends that will guide rural change in advanced economies into the next century; on the other, it offers a challenging account of how they can be investigated. Constructing in the countryside will appeal to both students and staff in a wise range of social science disciplines, including geography, rural sociology, planning, environmental management, agricultural economics and land economy, and to all those concerned with the future development of rural areas.