The SAGE Handbook of Nature offers an ambitious retrospective and prospective overview of the field that aims to position Nature, the environment and natural processes, at the heart of interdisciplinary social sciences. The three volumes are divided into the following parts: INTRODUCTION TO THE HANDBOOK NATURAL AND SOCIO-NATURAL VULNERABILITIES: INTERWEAVING THE NATURAL & SOCIAL SCIENCES SPACING NATURES: SUSTAINABLE PLACE MAKING AND ADAPTATION COUPLED AND (DE-COUPLED) SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS RISK AND THE ENVIRONMENT: SOCIAL THEORIES, PUBLIC UNDERSTANDINGS, & THE SCIENCE-POLICY INTERFACE HUNGRY AND THIRSTY CITIES AND THEIR REGIONS CRITICAL CONSUMERISM AND ITS MANUFACTURED NATURES GENDERED NATURES AND ECO-FEMINISM REPRODUCTIVE NATURES: PLANTS, ANIMALS AND PEOPLE NATURE, CLASS AND SOCIAL INEQUALITY BIO-SENSITIVITY & THE ECOLOGIES OF HEALTH THE RESOURCE NEXUS AND ITS RELEVANCE SUSTAINABLE URBAN COMMUNITIES RURAL NATURES AND THEIR CO-PRODUCTION This handbook is a key critical research resource for researchers and practitioners across the social sciences and their contributions to related disciplines associated with the fast developing interdisciplinary field of sustainability science.
'This book raises the theoretical level of rural studies to new heights!the Handbook of Rural Studies will likely become a key resource on the bookshelves of the next generation of graduate students...' - Gary Paul Green, University of Wisconsin-Madison 'This Handbook powerfully demonstrates that rural spaces, rural societies and rural natures are at the very forefront of critical social science endeavour. Read this book, become a rural social scientist' - Henry Buller, University of Exeter 'An outstandingly comprehensive review of theory, research and the study of rural questions!an essential reference for students, scholars, politicians, developers and rural activists' - Imre Kovach, Institute for Political Sciences, Budapest 'This collection is an essential addition to any rural scholar's library and will be a critical resource for both established rural scholars and rising graduate students interested in rural research topics' - Peter B Nelson, Middlebury College 'The Handbook of Rural Studies is a tour de force on changing rural people and places in a rapidly urbanizing global economy -- the most comprehensive interdisciplinary treatment of "rural" available anywhere. This is absolutely must reading for social scientists concerned about finding a prominent place for "rural" in scholarly discourse, institutional analysis, and public policy debates on the political economy of space' - Daniel T Lichter, Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell University The Handbook represents the vitality and theoretical innovation at work in rural studies. It shows how political economy and the 'cultural turn' have led to very significant new thinking in the cultural representations of: rurality; nature; sustainability; new economies; power and rurality; new consumerism; and exclusion and rurality. It is organized in three sections: approaches to rural studies; rural research: key theoretical co-ordinates and new rural relations. In a rich and textured discussion, the Handbook of Rural Studies explains the key moments in which the theorization of culture, nature, politics, agency, and space in rural contexts have transmitted ideas back into wider social science.