Pluralistic rural gender relations: international perspectives on gender and rural development

Working Group 23: Pluralistic rural gender relations: international perspectives on gender and rural development 

Sally Shortall [1], Bettina Bock [2]
1: Queen's University Belfast, UK; 2: Wageningen University, The Netherlands

Globalisation, cosmopolitanism and the network society are all concepts underlining the increasing connectivity of countries and continents, and with it the increasing cross-border interrelations of citizens. Discussing citizens' social relations based on national identity and residency makes less sense than ever when people are increasingly on the move and populations become fluid. The same is true for the popular separation between global North and South in sociological research and analysis. With the actual level of transmigration the population of the South and North becomes mingled and with it their citizens closely connected.

This working group explores how rural gender relations are changing in a globalising world that fundamentally impacts on the structure of agricultural life in rural areas and urban-rural relations. It analyses the development of rural gender relations in specific places around the world and looks into the effects of the increasing connectivity and mobility of people across places. The working group is not geographically or geo-politically organised but integrates experiences across the globe by inviting contributions under five themes:

1. How does mobility affect men and women in rural areas?
2. What do we know about agricultural change, the response of individuals and the collective within farm households?
3. What is the impact of international, European and national politics and policies on rural relations?
4. The construction of identities and the changes occurring in the definition of rural femininity as well as masculinity as a result of rural transformations
5. What is the role of international aid in advancing women's well-being in less developed parts of the world?

We wish to organise this session in a different way to the norm which we believe will be more productive. Here are our plans:

• If you wish to present in this working group you must send a prepared paper to the session organisers by June 1st 2015.
• Authors will not present their paper, rather a discussant will give a summary and raise some issues for discussion about the paper.
• If you are presenting in this session we ask that you will be prepared to be a discussant for some of the other contributors.