Journal of Rural and Community Development
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Triangulating Neighborhoods: A Research Note on Improving Links Between People and Places in Smaller Cities and Rural Areas
Get PDFThere is growing interest among social and behavioral scientists in exploring concepts of place through characteristics of social and physical space. In smaller regions, such research faces a number of obstacles due to limitations of the geospatial units available, and postal code linkages to these units can be particularly unreliable. This research note explores how triangulating postal code data with open field survey questions on the name of a neighbourhood and adjacent streets can help improve understandings of communities. The research note offers a practical overview of how triangulating missing information can help resolve misclassification errors in postal codes or other geocoding.
Keywords: methodology; socio-spatial; geocoding; postal code; neighborhoo
The Little Island That Did: Related Variety, Branding and Place-based Development In South Australia
Get PDFWhile the vulnerability of natural resource-dependent rural communities and regions to environmental, technological, and market-based shifts and shocks has long been recognised there has also been recent appreciation of the fact that more remote, non-metropolitan places can and do thrive in neoliberal spaces and
times. Drawing on the notion of related variety, itself an offshoot of evolutionary economic geography, this paper examines the factors that best explain the relative robustness and adaptiveness of Kangaroo Island, South Australia, economically, in the face of a severe market and regulatory crisis. Based on semi-structured interviews with local farmers, other representatives of the local
business community, and key members of local and State Government and regional development agencies this paper argues that Island producers’ dedication to overcome the region’s isolation, together with their commitment to quality, niche and value-added products carefully tuned to export markets, has
been a key element of this success. Local spillovers within and between sectors and firms sharing cognitive proximity have also been fundamental in fostering production, processing, marketing, and logistics innovations. This case study demonstrates how the local farming sector was brought into a new direct relation
with major international markets for food and fibre, based on the Island’s developing global reputation for high quality, high value produce. It underscores the capacity of local scale businesses to develop innovative market strategies and to combine efforts in order to form broader networks that ‘jumped scale’
and ensured their farming business success and, crucially, their ties to the land.
Keywords: related variety, evolutionary economic geography, branding, place-based development, Kangaroo Islan
Counterurbanites and Commercial Landscape Change in the Canadian Countryside: Insights from Paris, Ontario
Get PDFThis paper examines the role of in-migrants in the functional transformation of amenity-rich places. Its overarching goal is to determine if and how internal migrants arriving from larger settlement areas (i.e., counterurbanites) are contributing to the creation of functionally diverse (hybrid), or functionally limited (pure) commercial landscapes in places endowed with heritage assets. We focus on Paris, an historic town situated at the confluence of the Grand and Nith Rivers in southern Ontario. Three objectives guide the research: (1) to determine which commercial landscape form (hybrid or pure) and landscape generating process (creative enhancement or destruction) best characterizes the downtown; (2) to establish counterurbanite presence in this commercial core; and (3) to assess their role in the downtown’s recent evolution. Evidence gleaned from secondary sources, and local fieldwork reveals that creative enhancement (functional addition), rather than creative destruction (functional displacement) is the dominant process. This has given rise to a hybrid landscape, where quotidian businesses (i.e., those selling ordinary goods and services) accompany five non-quotidian (i.e., distinctive) product types (i.e., authentic heritage, infused heritage, heritage-enhanced, faux-authentic heritage, and non-heritage boutique), each relying in different ways on the town’s heritage assets. Information gathered from 35 proprietors finds that counterurbanites, and other inmigrants, dominate the downtown core, with only six non-migrant proprietors represented. In-comers, including counterurbanites, sell both quotidian and nonquotidian products, with non-migrant vendors offering only ordinary goods and services. These findings reveal that by selling both product types, counterurbanites are contributing to the creation of a hybrid landscape in the city’s countryside. Their attraction is thus an important ingredient for facilitating diversity and economic viability in small settlement areas.
Keywords: counterurbanization, tourism, creative enhancement, creative destruction, Canad
Change in Reporting an Aboriginal Identity: Age Matters
Get PDFnumber of individuals reporting an Aboriginal Identity in the Census of Population has increased in each census by more than the number of births (minus deaths) of the Aboriginal Identity population. The number reporting an Aboriginal Identity has shown a consistent pattern of increase in each inter-censal period in each age group – with one exception. As individuals move from the age group of 15-19 years of age to 20-24 years of age, the pattern of increase does not appear for individuals with a First Nations Aboriginal Identity in Canada’s four western provinces and in the northern territories. Age matters in the reporting of an Aboriginal Identity.
Keywords: Aboriginal identity, ethnic mobilit
Exerting Sovereignty Through Relational Self-determination: A Case Study of Mineral Development In Stk’emlupsemc te Secwépemc Territory
Get PDFWith an increasingly political environment developing in western, industrialized resource sectors, the purpose of this paper is to explore Indigenous governments’ ability to assert sovereignty over their territory as it pertains to resource development. Utilizing a relational self-determination framework, we present a case
study of the Stk’emlupsemc te Secwépemc Nation and their role in governance over mineral development in their unceded traditional territory located in the interior of British Columbia, Canada. This article adds to the growing case examples that suggest that First Nations governments in Canada are exerting their selfdetermination strategically, transitioning the role of negotiated agreements from an Impact-Benefit transaction to gain greater participation in resource extraction decision-making. Utilizing tools such as cultural heritage studies, legal action, and developing community-based processes of consent, First Nations governments are gaining more negotiating leverage and influence over decision-making processes for resource development projects. These insights are particularly relevant for Indigenous communities that are considering their options regarding resource development as a path to autonomy and self-governance over their territory,
resources, and economies.
Keywords: Indigenous sovereignty; resource development; relational selfdetermination; negotiated agreements; impact benefit agreement
Last Resort: The Promise and Problem of Tourism In Rural Atlantic Canada
Get PDFThis paper examines community attitudes toward tourism as a rural economic development strategy in four small towns in rural regions of the Atlantic Provinces. We view rural tourism through a political economy lens, asking: by what relations of power and historical precedents do communities find themselves with tourism as the best or most obvious local development option? Whose interests are served, and in what ways, when tourism is used to bring economic activity to rural communities? Does tourism bring local communities more or less control over their economic affairs? We find that rural residents’ views toward tourism contain three themes: first, the key to unlocking tourism potential is simply to “market the place,” inclusive of its natural beauty, lifestyle and friendly people, to tourists elsewhere. Secondly, research participants emphasized the centrality of volunteers—and their dwindling numbers and energies—to extant tourism efforts, signalling that the current mode of tourism development is unsustainable, and casting doubt on tourism’s job promises. Finally, tourism is understood not as the best choice, but as the last resort for communities where primary industry is believed to be dead and impossible to revive. We conclude by connecting these community views back into the political economy framework outlined at the beginning, in an effort to understand the historical and socio-political contingencies that bring rural communities to a place where investing in tourism seems to be the best way forward.
Keywords: tourism, sustainable rural development, Maritimes, Atlantic Canada, political econom
Digital Learning in Rural Ontario, Canada: An Evaluation of the Computer for Seniors Program
Get PDFThis article presents an evaluation of an educational intervention that provided computer skills training for a sample of n = 17 rural seniors in North Middlesex, Ontario, Canada. Due to the rural nature of the community, this cohort had limited access to and knowledge of computers. A total of N = 36 originally participated in a designed basic computer training intervention consisting of 8-week training sessions, offered sequentially in three smaller cohorts of 12 seniors. The evaluation included a pre and post-test using the Seniors Basic Computer Skills Scale (SBCSS) to assess the effectiveness of this training. The evaluation team developed the SBCSS to measure basic computer skills of seniors and pilot-tested it with the sample. Psychometric testing of the SBCSS showed exceptionally high degrees of reliability. The SBCSS measured 11 basic computer skills including: (a) talking
about computers, (b) using computer technology, (c) using the Internet, (d) using an Internet resource such as Skype, (e) using a computer mouse, (f) using Web browsers, (g) manipulating the computer screen brightness and size, (h) using bookmarks, (i) sending and receiving emails with family and friends, (j) sharing
photographs with family and friends, and (k) using social media such as Facebook. There were some encouraging results regarding increased computer skills for this sample of rural seniors. However, there were other areas where learning did not increase significantly. This article speaks to the need to identify and recruit rural seniors who may benefit from such targeted interventions to increase technological skills, and also to the need for a second-level enhancement of the municipally funded Computer for Seniors program (CSP). We contend that community workers have a
unique role to play in such initiatives, as they may encourage local seniors to both explore their computer literacy in rural areas, and help to increase opportunities that are often missing in rural communities.
Keywords: rural seniors, computer technology, digital divide, community developmen
When in Doubt, Go to the Library? Libraries & Rural Creative Placemaking
Get PDFAs rural communities confront increasing challenges and escalating social problems, a variety of interventions have been proposed, including creative placemaking. Creative placemaking is a bottom-up approach to cultural policy development (Redaelli, 2018 that derives from embedding the arts in cross-sector collaboration to produce location-specific social and economic impacts (Markusen & Gadwa, 2010). Libraries in urban and suburban environments have advocated for and demonstrated their abilities to partner in creative placemaking processes. Do rural communities may possess a magic potion to support creative placemaking? “Because it’s what Hermione does…When in doubt, go to the library,” Ron Wesley tells Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling, 1998, p. 255). This research note investigates the practices and capacities of rural libraries to participate in creative placemaking. Relying on data from the Library Services Survey, conducted by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and scans of websites, the authors presents the descriptive statistics of capacity indicators and evidence of creative placemaking from 170 rural libraries in Texas. This investigation finds major constraints in the capacities of rural libraries. It concludes with steps to continue advancing the understanding of organizational capacity, rural libraries, and creative placemaking in rural areas.
Keywords: rural communities, creative placemaking, librarie
Integration in an Explanatory Sequential Design Mixed-Methods Study: The Case of a Secondary Cooperative
No full textThis single case study explored the experience and practice of Rochdale’s 6th cooperative principle by the Union of Church-based Co-operatives in the Philippines to understand its relevance to the globalized co-operative movement. The findings suggest that the union has systematically implemented programs and services to meet its objectives to unite and strengthen the members. The study offers three policy directions and measures focused and targeted toward the issues that could have hampered a more
effective performance. First, it needs to push for a broader and more diverse funding base to enhance its capacity to influence and meet its members' needs. Second, it needs to take bold steps to encourage unresponsive officers to invest their physical and mental
energy at a more desirable level. Third, it needs to formulate strategies and enhanced packages to increase the quantity and quality of its membership. The study adds to the limited literature on the viability and advantage of cooperation among primary cooperatives. It concludes by suggesting some potential avenues for future research on collaboration among co-operatives.
Keywords: case study, church-based co-ops, co-operative principles, group cohesion, performance level, types of co-operative
Women’s Water Access Is Associated With Measures of Empowerment and Social Support: A Cross-sectional Study in Sub-Saharan Africa
Get PDFWater access is an important global issue that impacts health and wellbeing and has been recognized by the United Nations as a significant area for improvement. Despite some global improvements from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) targets, regions with the most compromised water access are still
experiencing significant deficits. Among those regions, Sub-Saharan African (SSA) Countries are the most affected. Socio-ecological factors intersect to further contribute to this compromise in water resources, and community structures and social supports need to be considered. Women’s empowerment and social support
have been shown to have an impact on community health and wellbeing, but the association with water access is not well researched. This cross-sectional study considers these relationships and aims to identify water access for women living
within SSA and assess its relationship with measures of women’s empowerment and social support. Using data from the Gallup World Poll, our study highlights an association between these factors, suggesting a role for community and female
capacity-building to empower women and foster relationships within SSA communities to further work toward improvements in water resources.
Keywords: Water access, water security, empowerment, social support, SubSaharan Africa, capacity buildin