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Distributed for University of British Columbia Press

Social Transformation in Rural Canada

Community, Cultures, and Collective Action

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 the transformation of livelihoods, landscapes, and social relations, changes that invite us to reconsider the meanings of community, culture, and citizenship. This volume presents the work of researchers from a variety of fields who explore social transformation in rural settlements across the country. The essays collectively generate a nuanced portrait of how local forms of action, adaptation, identity, and imagination are reshaping Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities in rural Canada.

428 pages | © 2013

Social Work


Table of Contents

Introduction: Toward a Transformative Understanding of Rural Social Change / John R. Parkins and Maureen G. Reed

Part 1: History, Trends, and Territory

1 Notes toward a History of Rural Canada, 1870-1940 / R.W. Sandwell

2 Globalization and Rural Change in Canada’s Territorial North / Chris Southcott

3 Destination Rural Canada: An Overview of Recent Immigrants to Rural Small Towns / Yoko Yoshida and Howard Ramos

Part 2: Structure and Discourse

4 Rural-Urban Interdependence: Understanding Our Common Interests / Bill Reimer

5 Labour Migration and Mobility in Newfoundland: SocialTransformation and Community in Three Rural Areas / Martha MacDonald, Peter Sinclair, and Deatra Walsh

6 Producing Globalization: Gender, Agency, and the Transformation of Rural Communities of Work / Belinda Leach

7 Changes in the Social Imaginings of the Landscape: The Management of Alberta’s Rural Public Lands / Lorelei L. Hanson

8 Logic of Land and Power: The Social Transformation of Northern Natural Resource Management / Ken J. Caine

9 Including Youth in an Aging Rural Society: Reflections from Northern British Columbia’s Resource Frontier
Communities / Laura Ryser, Don Manson, and Greg Halseth

Part 3: Culture and Identity

10 It’s Who We Are: Locating Cultural Strength in Relationship with the Land / Jonaki Bhattacharyya, Marilyn Baptiste, David Setah, and Roger William

11 Visions of Rootedness and Flow: Remaking Economic Identity in Post-Resource Communities / Nathan Young

12 Governing Transformation and Resilience: The Role of Identity in Renegotiating Roles for Forest-Based
Communities of British Columbia’s Interior / Emily Jane Davis and Maureen G. Reed

13 Mill Town Identity Crisis: Refra

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