Rural Livelihoods, Regional Economies, and Processes of Change

For centuries, new technologies and expanding networks of production and consumption have been changing the face of rural economies in significant ways. Millions of rural dwellers have found survival increasingly difficult and have fled to urban centres. Others have remained: some retrenching, struggling to just subsist, others attempting to innovatively redefine their place within ‘new’ rural economies. Over the past 30 years, rural economies have largely been ignored by policy makers, but recent growing concerns about food security, environmental degradation, climate change, continued rural poverty, and high rates of out-migration have sparked renewed interest in rural regions. Covering a range of geographical and socio-cultural contexts, the case studies in this book draw on actor-oriented in-depth field studies, which provide detailed, locally focused perspectives on the nature of rural livelihoods today. The collection highlights the ways in which rural livelihoods are being redefined, the multiple ways in which rural dwellers draw on distinct social, cultural and environmental resources to formulate their livelihood strategies, and the factors which facilitate or limit their abilities to do so. This volume will be of interest to development practitioners and policy makers, and scholars working in rural development and economic anthropology.

1. Introduction: Rural livelihoods and processes of change Deborah Sick 2. ‘We Will Not Farm Like Our Fathers Did’: Multilocational livelihoods, cellphones, and the continuing challenge of rural development in western Kenya Joshua Ramisch 3. The New Face of the Countryside: Agriculture and generational livelihood strategies in rural Costa Rica Deborah R Sick 4. On the Ends of the Diversification Spectrum: Macro-level factors and Maasai livelihood pathways in contemporary Kenya Caroline Archamault, Scott Matter, and John G. Galaty 5. A Place That Found Its Brand: Kyoto’s agricultural economy in the twenty-first century Greg De St. Maurice 6. Balancing Conservation and Over-Exploitation: Rural economies, protected areas and sea cucumber fisheries in Yucatán, Mexico Sabrina Doyon and Catherine Sabinot 7. Livelihood Strategies, Ecotourism and Changing Environmental Values in a Costa Rican Village Josephine Howitt 8. Ethicizing Rural Livelihoods in a Market-Oriented Society: Lessons from a quilombola community in Sao Paulo, Brazil Rodrigo Penna-Firme Pedrosa 9. Bypassing the National, Engaging the Global: (Re)negotiating terms of global belonging in the Balinese handicrafts industry Jennifer S Esperanza 10. Networks, Collaboration, and Embeddedness: How small rural businesses mobilize social resources in local and global markets, a Canadian case Nathan Young

Deborah Sick is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Ottawa, Canada. Her research interests include smallholder producers, commodity markets, food systems, resource management, and socio-economic change in Latin America, principally in Costa Rica and northern Mexico.