Editing Rural sociology (section)

===Australia and New Zealand===
Rural sociology in Australia and New Zealand had a much slower start than its American and European counterparts. This is due to the lack of land grant universities which heavily invested in the discipline in the United States and a lack of interest in studying the “peasant problem” as was the case in Europe.<ref name="Lawrence, Geoffrey 1997">Lawrence, Geoffrey. 1997. “Rural Sociology – Does It Have a Future in Australian Universities?” Rural Society 7(1):29–36. doi: 10.5172/rsj.7.1.29.</ref> The earliest cases of studying rural life in Australia were conducted by anthropologists and social psychologists <ref>Oeser, O., & F. Emery 1954. Social structure and personality in a rural community. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.</ref> in the 1950s, with sociologists taking on the subject beginning in the 1990s.<ref>Dempsey, K. 1990. Smalltown: A study of social inequality, cohesion and belonging. Sydney: Sydney University Press.</ref><ref>Dempsey, K. 1992. A man's town: Inequality between women and men in rural Australia. Melbourne: Oxford.</ref><ref>Gray, I. 1990. Politics in place: a study of power relations in an Australian country town. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</ref>

Attempts were made between 1935-1957 to bring an American style rural sociology to New Zealand. The New Zealand department of Agriculture, funded by the Carnegie Foundation, tasked Otago Universities economist W.T. Doig with surveying living standards in rural New Zealand in 1935.<ref name="Carter, Ian 1988">Carter, Ian. 1988. “A Failed Graft: Rural Sociology in New Zealand.” Journal of Rural Studies 4(3):215–22. doi: 10.1016/0743-0167(88)90098-8.</ref> The creation and funding of such a report mirrors America's Commission on Country Life. Additional Carnegie funds were granted to the Shelly Group who conducted the countries first major sociological community study and endorsed the creation of land grant institutions in New Zealand. Ultimately, these attempts to institutionalize rural sociology in New Zealand failed due to the departments lack of organization and failure to publish impactful survey results.<ref name="Carter, Ian 1988"/>

Early studies of rural sociology in the region focused on the influence of transnational agribusiness, technological changes effects on rural communities, the restructuring of rural environments, and social causes of environmental degradation.<ref name="Lawrence, Geoffrey 1997"/> By the mid 2000's researchers focus had shifted towards broader sociological questions and variables such as the construction and framing of gender among Australian and New Zealand farmers,<ref>Liepins, Ruth. 2009. “Making Men: The Construction and Representation of Agriculture-Based Masculinities in Australia and New Zealand*.” Rural Sociology 65(4):605–20. doi: 10.1111/j.1549-0831.2000.tb00046.x.</ref> governmental policies impacts on rural spaces and studies,<ref>Loveridge, A. (2016). Rural sociology in New Zealand: Companion planting? New Zealand Sociology, 31(3), 207–229. https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.280312863833958</ref> and rural safety and crime.<ref>Panelli, R., Little, J., & Kraack, A. (2004). A community issue? Rural women's feelings of safety and fear in New Zealand. Gender, Place & Culture, 11(3), 445-467.</ref> Scholars have additionally focused on rural residents, particularly farmers, opinions of environmentalism and environmental policies in recent years.<ref>Fairweather, John R., Lesley M. Hunt, Chris J. Rosin, and Hugh R. Campbell. 2009. “Are Conventional Farmers Conventional? Analysis of the Environmental Orientations of Conventional New Zealand Farmers*.” Rural Sociology 74(3):430–54. doi: 10.1526/003601109789037222.</ref> Such a focus is particularly salient in New Zealand where livestock farming has historically been a major national source of income and environmental policies have become increasingly strict in recent years.

Though early scholars of rural sociology in Australasia tout it for its critical lens, publications in the 2010’s and 2020’s have accused the discipline of omitting the experiences of indigenous peoples,<ref name="Sullivan, S. 2013 pp. 139">O’Sullivan, S. (2013) ‘Reversing the Gaze: Considering Indigenous Perspectives on Museums, Cultural Representation and the Equivocal Digital Remnant’, in L. Ormond-Parker, A. Corn, C. Fforde, K. Obata and S. O’Sullivan (eds) Information Technology and Indigenous Communities. Canberra, ACT: Aboriginal Studies Press, pp. 139–50.</ref> failing to account for class based differences,<ref>Houghton, R.M. (1980) Lower Waitaki Communities Study. Technical Report. Dunedin: Ministry of Works and Development.</ref> discounting the importance of race and ethnicity,<ref>Scott, K., J. Park and C. Cocklin (2000) ‘From “Sustainable Rural Communities” to “Social Sustainability”: Giving Voice to Diversity in Mangakahia Valley, New Zealand’, Journal of Rural Studies 16: 433–46.</ref> and only recently incorporating in studies of women in rural places.<ref>Mahar, C. (1991) ‘On the Moral Economy of Country Life’, Journal of Rural Studies 7(4): 363–72.</ref><ref>Pini, Barbara, Laura Rodriguez Castro, and Robyn Mayes. 2022. “An Agenda for Australian Rural Sociology: Troubling the White Middle-Class Farming Woman.” Journal of Sociology 58(2):253–69. doi: 10.1177/1440783321999830.</ref> Work on rural women in the region has often incorporated white feminism and used a colonial lens.  As a response, scholars, particularly in New Zealand (Aotearoa), have begun to focus on the experiences of the Māori in rural areas,<ref>Pomeroy, Ann. 2022. “Reframing the Rural Experience in Aotearoa New Zealand: Incorporating the Voices of the Marginalised.” Journal of Sociology 58(2):236–52. doi: 10.1177/14407833211014262.</ref><ref>Pomeroy, A. and S. Tapuke (2016) ‘Understanding the Place of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Building Enduring Community Resilience: Murupara Case Study’, New Zealand Sociology 31(7): 183–204.</ref><ref>Te Aho, L. (2011) ‘Waikato River of Life’, pp. 145–57 in J. Ruru, J. Stephenson and M. Abbott (eds) Making our Place: Exploring Land-use Tensions in Aotearoa New Zealand. Dunedin: Otago University Press.</ref> while likewise shifting from solving issues of farmers to rural residents. A few scholars in Australia have likewise begun to incorporate the experiences of Aboriginal peoples into their scholarship, some of whom are indigenous scholars themselves.<ref>Ramzan, B., B. Pini and L. Bryant (2009) ‘Experiencing and Writing Indigeneity, Rurality and Gender: Australian Reflections’, Journal of Rural Studies 25(4): 435–43</ref><ref>Marika, R., Y. Yunupingu, R. Marika-Mununggiritj and S. Muller (2009) ‘Leaching the Poison: The Importance of Process and Partnership in Working with Yolngu’, Journal of Rural Studies 25(4): 404–13.</ref><ref name="Sullivan, S. 2013 pp. 139"/> In particular, Chelsea Joanne Ruth Watego,<ref>2023. “Chelsea Watego.” Wikipedia.</ref> and Aileen Moreton-Robinson <ref>2023. “Aileen Moreton-Robinson.” Wikipedia.</ref> have risen to prominence in recent years, though the later two identify more as indigenous feminist scholars then rural sociology scholars.

Today many prominent scholars do not belong to a department of rural sociology, but rather related disciplines such as geography in the case of Ruth Liepins, Indigenous Studies in the case of Sandy O'Sullivan,<ref>“Sandy O’Sullivan (0000-0003-2952-4732) - ORCID.” Retrieved October 12, 2023 (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2952-4732).</ref> or Arts, Education, and Law in the case of Barbara Pini.<ref>“Barbara Pini Profile | Griffith University.” Retrieved October 12, 2023 (https://experts.griffith.edu.au/18572-barbara-pini).</ref> Today courses in the discipline can be studied at a small number of institutions: University of Western Sydney (Hawkesbury), Central Queensland University, Charles Sturt University, and the Department of Agriculture at the University of Queensland. Additionally, academics who publish in the discipline, such as Ann Pomeroy, Barbara Pini, Laura Rodriguez Castro, and Ruth Liepins, can be found at University of Otago, Griffith University, and Deakin University.