RHN 10/2021 | Call
Organisers: Daniel Brett (University College London), George Vascik (Miami University (Ohio))
Rural History 2021, 23–26 August 2021, Uppsala, Sweden
Extended deadline for paper proposals: 22 January 2021
Call for Papers for Rural History 2021 Session S59:
Rural Politics and Society: Representing and representation in rural society
This panel is interested broadly in the problems associated with how rural society organized in order to advance its political, economic and social interests. Is the attempt to represent rural society destined to fail and if so why? Alternatively, what have movements and organizations that have sustained themselves done in order to do so? We pose the question – is the structure and nature of rural society inimical to effective collective action and the creation of organizations to represent rural interests?
We are interested in the reasons behind and the processes involved the formation of groups and organizations as well and their collapse. We are interested in questions of voice, agency and power within rural society and how this is reflected in rural organizations. We are keen to explore the barriers to effective collective action and representation at a local, national and international level.
We consider these to be the critical question at the heart of understanding the countryside and its relations with wider society and to understanding the dynamics of rural society itself.
We welcome papers exploring any time period or location and from any disciplinary approach. We are seeking to explore comparisons across regions and time to develop a broader picture of rural politics and the problems of representation.
As this is a broad topic we invite papers to focus on one of four potential areas:
i) Voice and Agency of rural actors (individuals and groups)
ii) The problems of collective action and representation of groups or sections of rural society (i.e. what social, political, cultural barriers hinder collective action – locally, regionally, nationally, globally?)
iii) Power structures and hierarchies – the effects of social, economic, cultural transformations upon these structures and its impact on attempts to represent the countryside
iv) Local – National interactions – how do local actors interact at a national level and with national level actors?
Contact details: daniel.brett@ucl.ac.uk
The Rural History 2021 Call for Papers can be found in RHN 150/2020.
Conference website: https://www.ruralhistory2021.se/
Submission tool: https://www.ruralhistory2021.se/call-for-papers/