Abstract
In the face of current uncertainty and volatility, the concept of resilience in rural studies is gaining more attention. This renewed focus not only helps understand rural communities better, but it also helps re-frame the theories and debates around rural development in new ways (Scott, 2013). Brown and Schafft’s approach to resilience in this second edition of Rural people and communities in the 21st century: Resilience and transformation deploys an evolutionary approach which is characterized by an emphasis on transformation and adaptive capacity rather than an equilibrium approach which mainly focuses on a return to original state after a system undergoes disturbance. Evolutionary resilience emphasizes transformation, whereby a community can adapt, search for or develop alternative development trajectories (Davidson, 2010). The authors stress the significance of evolutionary resilience by putting the two terms resilience and transformation next to each other in the title of the book. They emphasize on critical economic, social, political and to some extent the environmental roles of rural communities amid rapid universal urbanization and metropolitan expansion.
While Brown and Schafft stress local challenges and realities in rural areas, they also point to the importance of subjective approaches to understanding rurality. Their theoretical framework is, therefore, derived from contrasting two different approaches: rural as a socio-geographic locality versus rural as a social construct. They see these as complementary rather than fundamentally opposed. The book’s resulting multidimensional approach to rurality is revisited throughout the different thematic sections of the book on rural communities, institutions and environments; rural populations and rural economy; and socio-economic well-being. The non-binary discussions around in- and out-migration and aging population are particularly salient and provide readers with a comprehensive understanding of both challenges and opportunities faced by rural communities due to unique population structures.
This new edition of the book includes a whole new chapter on rural politics and governance with a focus on political participation and voting in rural communities. The authors challenge the widely held belief that rural communities are more conservative than urban ones. Grounding their argument on the 2016 US presidential election, Brown and Schafft suggest that the long-term social and economic side-lining of rural areas in national agendas, especially in the rural Midwest, was one of the main factors in Trump’s election success. National and international awareness of this side-lining and election results could have profound impacts in other jurisdictions. The authors also identify some of the reasons why rural communities matter in the political context of the wider world. This non-conventional and artfully crafted argument gives a stronger conclusion to the first section of the book when compared to the first edition.
Despite their place-based approach, the authors only briefly discuss the environmental aspects of rurality and ecological approaches to resilience; instead, the authors rather predictably focus on the extraction of natural resources (both renewable and non-renewable) and associated conflicts regarding natural resource development and management. Since rural places should be analysed as an interdependent set of socio-spatial, economic, institutional and environmental systems, the lack of a complex discussion around rurality and its relation to environment as more than just amenity limits the scope of this edition. Matters such as the impacts of climate change on rural communities, especially in the face of current ecological crisis and risks, are not well explored. More comprehensive discussions around identifying the opportunities and vulnerabilities of rural places with regard to their landscapes and ecosystems would add invaluable weight to the argument and support the authors’ ontological perspective.
Moreover, despite a very limited geographical area covered in the case studies of this book, the title of the book wrongly suggests a comprehensive worldwide argument in relation to the growing debates on rurality in different countries. Majority of the statistics, maps and figures discussed in this book are sourced mostly from the United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service (USDA-ERS) using United States Census Bureau data. This Anglo-American-centricity narrows down the scope and relevance of this book for a wider audience.
Nonetheless, the book does offer engaging empirical analysis grounded on real-life case studies mostly from the USA and occasionally in the context of Europe. It is deservedly marketed as a standard reading of choice for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in rural and/or community sociology, rural and/or population geography, community development and other related courses. The book is also of relevance to community development practitioners and policymakers and those who are interested in developing a better understanding of rural communities, their roles, circumstances and challenges in contemporary times. The arguments presented in this edition contribute a wealth of resources for an inclusive and coherent dialogue towards a more balanced national rural policy agenda in the USA.