Agrarian change
The Rural Sociology Group aims to understand, explain, and influence the roots and implications of the intertwined social and environmental crises of our times, and of their alternatives, for agrarian communities, agricultural practices, and rural life.
We examine change and continuity in diverse agrarian livelihoods across the Global South/North and rural/urban divides. We pay particular attention to the role of labor, including the experiences of migrants, women, and youth, and the politics surrounding vital resources such as land, seeds, soil, and water. We also examine the expanding influence of agribusiness and how it shapes the relationships between agriculture and society, often to the detriment of smaller farms and rural communities and their living environments.
At the same time, we are interested in diverse, and usually competing, sustainable agriculture transformations, such as agroecology and sustainable intensification, which are gaining traction as alternatives to industrial and extractivist agriculture. These transformations raise important questions about the role and implications of new agricultural technologies and agrarian political economies and ecologies, some of which are highly contested for their impacts on the environment and rural people´s livelihoods. Thus, the Rural Sociology Group also focuses on the political dynamics that influence agrarian and social change more broadly, including agrarian justice struggles and movements but also the political agenda of the powerful and the rural roots of conservative authoritarian populism.
Through this work in research and education, the Rural Sociology Group strives to understand the challenges and possibilities rural people face today, to contribute to a more just and sustainable future for agrarian communities.
