Challenging Welfare Issues in the Global Countryside

This book focuses attention upon rural social policy and welfare issues within selected areas in the US, Australia, continental Europe and Britain as well as in countrysides within less industrialised India and Mexico. This edited collection adds to the new genre of geopolitical and socio-economic rural transnational studies.

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• Discusses the multi-dimensional factors affecting rural space, socio-political urban-rural power relations, conflicting urban-rural tensions and opposed values
  
• Adds to the existing studies of contemporary urban-rural dialogue, in respect of social policy and rural welfare in a changing global countryside

1. Editorial Introduction: George Giacinto Giarchi.

2. Redefining the 'Rural Question': The New 'Politics of the Rural' and Social Policy: Michael Woods.

3. Rural Movements in Europe: Scandinavia and the Accession States: Vanessa Halhead.

4. Market-based Governance and the Challenge for Rural Governments: US Trends: Mildred E. Warner.

5. Between Decentralized Planning and Neo-liberalism: Challenges for the Survival of the Indigenous People of Kerala, India: Darley Jose Kjosavik, Nadarajah Shanmugaratnam.

6. Child Health in Rural Mexico: Has Progresa Reduced Children's Morbidity Risks?: Maria C. Huerta.

7. Rurality and Social Inclusion: A Case of Preschool Education: Mark Shucksmith, Janet Shucksmith, Joyce Watt.

8. Jobs in the Bush: Global Industries and Inclusive Rural Development: Robyn Eversole, John Martin.

9. Older People 'on the Edge' in the Countrysides of Europe: George Giacinto Giarchi.

10. Spinning the Rural Agenda: The Countryside Alliance, Fox Hunting and Social Policy: Alison Anderson.

Index.

?This is an interesting -collection with some chapters providing broad overviews of rural welfare and others detailing the specifics in particular places.? (International Journal of Social Welfare , July 2009) George Giacinto Giarchi is Professor of Social Care Studies in the School of Applied Psycho-Social Studies, in the Faculty of Health and Social Work at the University of Plymouth, England. Until recently, a greater concentration on urban social policy issues and urban deprivation has tended to create an urban sociological and urban welfare bias. However, there has currently been an increased interest in countryside issues and rural social welfare. This has led to a greater demand for British and transnational rural studies, hence this edited collection. Here, exemplars ranging from the more industrialized regions of Britain, Continental Europe, the USA and Australia, and of rural localities in the less industrialized contexts of India and Mexico, direct attention to multi-dimensional factors affecting rural space, socio-political urban-rural power relations, conflicting urban-rural tensions and opposed values. The authors add to existing studies that inform contemporary urban-rural dialogue, in respect of social policy and rural welfare in a changing global countryside.