Technology And Social Change In Rural Areas

Technology And Social Change In Rural Areas
Author: Gene F Summers
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 283
Release: 2019-07-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000314111

The possibility of nuclear war, the failure of the Green Revolution, the capabilities of genetic engineering, and other actual and potential effects of technological innovations have created demands for a more humane application of technology. Addressing this issue, Technology and Social Change in Rural Areas is a clear assessment of the current state of affairs. The book begins with a discussion of the changing paradigms of technology adoption and diffusion, the dynamics of public resistance, and the question of social responsibility in an age of synthetic biology. In subsequent sections, the contributors assess the revolutionary effect of technology on agriculture worldwide and conclude that radically new public policies are essential; expose the transformations of rural life and communities that result from the localized effects of technology and its use as a weapon in world-system politics; and critically examine the appropriate technology movement. The essays are presented to honor Professor Eugene A. Wilkening for his many pioneering and lasting contributions to the study of technology and rural social change. The book includes an intellectual biography of Professor Wilkening written by his long-time colleague and friend, William H. Sewell.

Consumers in the Country

Consumers in the Country
Author: Ronald R. Kline
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2000-04-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780801862489

From 1900 to 1960, the introduction and development of four so-called urbanizing technologies–the telephone, automobile, radio, and electric light and power–transformed the rural United States. But did these new technologies revolutionize rural life in the ways modernizers predicted? And how exactly–and with what levels of resistance and acceptance–did this change take place? In Consumers in the Country Ronald R. Kline, avoiding the trap of technological determinism, explores the changing relationships among the Country Life professionals, government agencies, sales people, and others who promoted these technologies and the farm families who largely succeeded in adapting them to rural culture.

Rationalizing Rural Area Classifications for the Economic Research Service

Rationalizing Rural Area Classifications for the Economic Research Service
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2016-02-05
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309380561

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service (USDA/ERS) maintains four highly related but distinct geographic classification systems to designate areas by the degree to which they are rural. The original urban-rural code scheme was developed by the ERS in the 1970s. Rural America today is very different from the rural America of 1970 described in the first rural classification report. At that time migration to cities and poverty among the people left behind was a central concern. The more rural a residence, the more likely a person was to live in poverty, and this relationship held true regardless of age or race. Since the 1970s the interstate highway system was completed and broadband was developed. Services have become more consolidated into larger centers. Some of the traditional rural industries, farming and mining, have prospered, and there has been rural amenity-based in-migration. Many major structural and economic changes have occurred during this period. These factors have resulted in a quite different rural economy and society since 1970. In April 2015, the Committee on National Statistics convened a workshop to explore the data, estimation, and policy issues for rationalizing the multiple classifications of rural areas currently in use by the Economic Research Service (ERS). Participants aimed to help ERS make decisions regarding the generation of a county rural-urban scale for public use, taking into consideration the changed social and economic environment. This report summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

Social Transformation in Rural Canada

Social Transformation in Rural Canada
Author: John R. Parkins
Publisher: UBC Press
Total Pages: 430
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0774823836

The rapidly changing nature of life in Canadian rural communities is more than a simple response to economic conditions. People living in rural places are part of a new social agenda characterized by transformation of livelihoods, landscapes, and social relations – these profound changes invite us to reconsider the meanings of community, culture, and citizenship. Social Transformation in Rural Canada presents the work of researchers from a variety of fields who explore the dynamics of social transformation in rural settlements across several regions and sectors of the Canadian landscape. This volume provides a nuanced portrait of how local forms of action, adaptation, identity, and imagination are reshaping aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities in rural Canada. Unlike many previous studies, this work looks at rural communities not simply as places affected by external forces, but as incubators of change and social units with agency and purpose, many of which provide exemplary models for other communities facing challenges of transition.

Rural-Urban Migration and Agro-Technological Change in Post-Reform China

Rural-Urban Migration and Agro-Technological Change in Post-Reform China
Author: Lena Kaufmann
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2021-02-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9048552184

How do rural Chinese households deal with the conflicting pressures of migrating into cities to work as well as staying at home to preserve their fields? This is particularly challenging for rice farmers, because paddy fields have to be cultivated continuously to retain their soil quality and value. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and written sources, this book describes farming households' strategic solutions to this predicament. It shows how, in light of rural-urban migration and agro-technological change, they manage to sustain both migration and farming. It innovatively conceives rural households as part of a larger farming community of practice that spans both staying and migrating household members and their material world. Focusing on one exemplary resource - paddy fields - it argues that socio-technical resources are key factors in understanding migration flows and migrant-home relations. Overall, this book provides rare insights into the rural side of migration and farmers' knowledge and agency.

The Social Consequences And Challenges Of New Agricultural Technologies

The Social Consequences And Challenges Of New Agricultural Technologies
Author: Gigi M Berardi
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2019-07-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000305481

Although formal social impact assessment of changing technologies in U.S. agriculture is still in its infancy, scholars have been documenting the effects of new technology throughout the twentieth century. In this collection, Prcfessors Berardi and Geisler bring together historically relevant research and a carefully chosen cross section of contemporary work. Their review of the literature is followed by an evaluation of the effects of mechanization on labor and production, written in 1904, which provides a backdrop for papers from the 1940s and 1950s examining the mechanization of agriculture in the South, in the Midwest, and in rural areas in general. Subsequent chapters offer present-day insights on such topics as the socioeconomic consequences of automated vegetable and tobacco harvesting, center-pivot irrigation, and organic and no-till cultivation. The authors also look at compensation and adjustment programs for displaced labor, the relationship between technology and agribusiness growth, and the effectiveness of university programs that prepare students to perform social impact assessments in agriculture. The edited proceedings of a spirited roundtable discussion on new directions for the study of the social impacts of farm technology and the political economy of agriculture provide the thought-provoking conclusion to this overview of the field.

Technologies of Choice?

Technologies of Choice?
Author: Dorothea Kleine
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2013
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0262018209

A new framework for assessing the role of information and communication technologies in development that draws on Amartya Sen's capabilities approach. Information and communication technologies (ICTs)--especially the Internet and the mobile phone--have changed the lives of people all over the world. These changes affect not just the affluent populations of income-rich countries but also disadvantaged people in both global North and South, who may use free Internet access in telecenters and public libraries, chat in cybercafes with distant family members, and receive information by text message or email on their mobile phones. Drawing on Amartya Sen's capabilities approach to development--which shifts the focus from economic growth to a more holistic, freedom-based idea of human development--Dorothea Kleine in Technologies of Choice? examines the relationship between ICTs, choice, and development. Kleine proposes a conceptual framework, the Choice Framework, that can be used to analyze the role of technologies in development processes. She applies the Choice Framework to a case study of microentrepreneurs in a rural community in Chile. Kleine combines ethnographic research at the local level with interviews with national policy makers, to contrast the high ambitions of Chile's pioneering ICT policies with the country's complex social and economic realities. She examines three key policies of Chile's groundbreaking Agenda Digital: public access, digital literacy, and an online procurement system. The policy lesson we can learn from Chile's experience, Kleine concludes, is the necessity of measuring ICT policies against a people-centered understanding of development that has individual and collective choice at its heart.

Technology and Innovation for Social Change

Technology and Innovation for Social Change
Author: Satyajit Majumdar
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 215
Release: 2014-12-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 8132220714

Tension exists between technologists and social thinkers because of the impact technology and innovation have on social values and norms, which is often viewed as damaging to the cultural fabric of a nation or society. Since the global business environment is the context in which implementation of technology and innovation takes place, it is widely accepted as the major reason for such conflicts. In this backdrop, this edited book integrates independent research from across the globe. It deals with the nature and significance of technology, innovation and social change as well as the relationships between them, and discusses the significance of social entrepreneurship from social innovation and technology perspectives. Research areas covered are related to the development and deployment of technology, innovation and knowledge in social change, capabilities of institutions, models, role of government and corporate social responsibility and community involvement. Multiple aspects of social change are discussed in the context of India, Mexico, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Nigeria and other African countries. But society does not silently accept technologically enforced changes; sometimes technology is seen as an enemy of inclusive growth and for many, economic development is an anti-thesis of social change. Selected case studies on sector-specific technologies, such as the use of genetically modified seeds in agriculture, which has impacted the market and society, are critically analyzed to develop insights into the adoption of technology and its impact. At the same time it examines policy related issues, without any bias in favor of, or against, a specific technology.

Technology and Rural Change in Eastern India, 1830-1980

Technology and Rural Change in Eastern India, 1830-1980
Author: Smritikumar Sarkar
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780198092308

With Calcutta as the hub, eastern India was the gateway of technology transmission to India. This book explores the social history of this transmission, from the colonial metropolis to the interior, and analyses the context and results of technology induction to the villages. Based on local level sources, it also looks into why technology failed to accelerate development in India as against its impact in the West.