Rural sociology

Rural sociology was a concept first brought by Americans in response to the large amounts of people living and working on the grounds of farms. [2] Rural sociology was the first and for a time the largest branch of American sociology. Histories of the field were popular in the 1950s and 1960s.[3][4]

Rural sociology in Europe developed not in the old established universities but in the new countries that emerged after 1919 and were strongly influenced by the political philosophy of Agrarianism, which promoted the farmer as the strength of society. Czechoslovakia opened three research centers, and others opened in Romania and Yugoslavia.[5]

Rural sociology in Australia and New Zealand had a much slower start than its American and European counterparts. This is due to the lack of land grant universities which heavily invested in the discipline in the United States and a lack of interest in studying the “peasant problem” as was the case in Europe. [6] The earliest cases of studying rural life in Australia were conducted by anthropologists and social psychologists [7] in the 1950’s, with sociologists taking on the subject beginning in the 1990’s.[8][9][10]

Attempts were made between 1935-1957 to bring an American style rural sociology to New Zealand. The New Zealand department of Agriculture, funded by the Carnegie Foundation, tasked Otago Universities economist W.T. Doig with surveying living standards in rural New Zealand in 1935.[11] The creation and funding of such a report mirrors America's Commission on Country Life. Additional Carnegie funds were granted to the Shelly Group who conducted the countries first major sociological community study and endorsed the creation of land grant institutions in New Zealand. Ultimately, these attempts to institutionalize rural sociology in New Zealand failed due to the departments lack of organization and failure to publish impactful survey results.[12]

Early studies of rural sociology in the region focused on the influence of transnational agribusiness, technological changes effects on rural communities, the restructuring of rural environments, and social causes of environmental degradation. [13] By the mid 2000's researchers focus had shifted towards broader sociological questions and variables such as the construction and framing of gender among Australian and New Zealand farmers,[14] governmental policies impacts on rural spaces and studies,[15] and rural safety and crime. [16] Scholars have additionally focused on rural residents, particularly farmers, opinions of environmentalism and environmental policies in recent years. [17] Such a focus is particularly salient in New Zealand where livestock farming has historically been a major national source of income and environmental policies have become increasingly strict in recent years.

Though early scholars of rural sociology in Australasia tout it for its critical lens, publications in the 2010’s and 2020’s have accused the discipline of omitting the experiences of indigenous peoples,[18] failing to account for class based differences,[19] discounting the importance of race and ethnicity,[20] and only recently incorporating in studies of women in rural places.[21][22] Work on rural women in the region has often incorporated white feminism and used a colonial lens. As a response, scholars, particularly in New Zealand (Aotearoa), have begun to focus on the experiences of the Māori in rural areas, [23][24][25] while likewise shifting from solving issues of farmers to rural residents. A few scholars in Australia have likewise begun to incorporate the experiences of Aboriginal peoples into their scholarship, some of whom are indigenous scholars themselves. [26][27][28] In particular, Sandy O'Sullivan, Chelsea Joanne Ruth Watego,[29] and Aileen Moreton-Robinson [30] have risen to prominence in recent years, though the later two identify more as indigenous feminist scholars then rural sociology scholars.

Today many prominent scholars do not belong to a department of rural sociology, but rather related disciplines such as geography in the case of Ruth Liepins, Indigenous Studies in the case of Sandy O'Sullivan,[31] or Arts, Education, and Law in the case of Barbara Pini. [32] Today courses in the discipline can be studied at a small number of institutions: University of Western Sydney (Hawkesbury), Central Queensland University, Charles Sturt University, and the Department of Agriculture at the University of Queensland. Additionally, academics who publish in the discipline, such as Ann Pomeroy, Barbara Pini, Laura Rodriguez Castro, and Ruth Liepins, can be found at University of Otago, Griffith University, and Deakin University.