Rural Sodolol:)' 61 (I), 1996, pp.

77-102
Copyright 4) 1996 by the Rural Sociological Society

A Sociology of the Periphery Versus a Peripheral

Sociology: Rural Sociology and the Dimension of Space!

Linda Lobao
Rural Sociology Program, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210

AnSTRACf Rural sociology is intrinsically concerned with the spatial di-

mensions of social life. However, this underlying research tradition, par-
ticularly the use of space as a research strategy, has been insufficiently
addressed and its contributions to general sociology are little recognized.
I outline how concern with space, uneven development, and the social
relationships of peripheral settings have provided substantive boundary
and conceptual meaning to rural sociology, propelled its evolution, and
left it with a legacy of strengths, weaknesses, and challenges. A willingness
to tackle the dimension of space and the thorny problems it raises often
sets rural sociologists apart from other sociologists. This research tradi-
tion contrasted with general sociology's concern with developing gener-
alization, aspatial covering laws, and proto-typical relationships of mod-
ern or Fordist development settings. Conceptual openings have left
sociologists questioning their past agenda. Coupled with the "creative
marginality" inherent in the questions and contexts addressed by rural
sociologists, this makes the subfield central to contemporary sociology.
Introduction
Geographic space is the single element that has linked the diverse
concerns of rural sociologists since our subfield's inception. The
dimension of space gives rural sociology a sense of subject matter
and boundary. Attempts to deal with spatial issues have spurred not
only enormous debate and fractionalized rural sociology, but have
also led to exciting conceptual innovations and set the path for sub-
sequent evolution. A concern with the unevenness of change and
the marginality this often brings to rural places and livelihoods
means that we have traditionally grappled with a development set-
ting more complex than that considered by general sociology. In-
herent in rural sociology are conceptual questions, substantive fo-
cuses, and methodological issues reflective of a social reality that
defies easy generalization. It is concern with the development con-
text of the spatial periphery that, I believe, may have insulated rural
sociology in the past, but which now provides our strongest contri-
bution to the sociological discipline.
Space as a concept has both particularistic and relational dimen-
sions. The first reflects "place," a distinct spatial unit and setting
I This article is a contribution to the USDA National Research Competitive Grants
Program, project #93-37401-8972. The author gratefully acknowledges the helpful
comments of reviewers Clare Hinrichs, Tom Lyson, Shaunna Scott, Ann Tickamyer,
and particularly, Gil Gillespie, who provided thoughtful and extensive suggestions
which made this a better piece.
 78 Rural Sociology, Vol. 61, No.1, Spring 1996

within which social relationships transpire. Places range from the

microsociological unit of the household to the macrosociological
nation state and global system. Middle range units, such as the local
labor market, community, region, and state, are often the focus of
rural sociological research. The relational dimension of space is cap-
tured in location, the position of an area with regard to others of
similar or different spatial scales. This reflects social comparisons,
such as position in the broader political economy, distance from
metropolitan centers, and population density, evident in the vast
rural sociological literature comparing rural and urban populations.
Because places are nested within others at different spatial scales,
the household within the community, community within the region
and nation, and nation within the global system, processes at one
spatial scale influence those at another. The relational aspect of
space is also seen in the concept of globalization, how global pro-
cesses become articulated at the national and local levels and how
localized events may move up the global chain.
Although rural sociologists may give explicit attention to space,
more often it becomes a backdrop for the types of people, places,
and social relationships that we customarily have addressed.s A re-
search tradition that emphasizes attention to space, whether explicit
or implicit, however, distinguishes rural sociology from most other
sociological subfields. Further, the spatial settings and social rela-
tionships within them that interest rural sociologists make the sub-
field unique from its other geographically oriented counterparts,
urban sociology and demography.
This paper addresses the concern with and use of space in rural
sociological research. First, I show how geographic space has defined
the subject matter of rural sociology, providing boundary and mean-
ing to the subfield. Rural sociology can be characterized by rounds
of restructuring that redefine its boundaries based upon space. Each
round has created breakthroughs, as well as new limitations and
challenges, giving rural sociology a richer, deeper spatial legacy. An

2 Debates about the justification of rural sociology as a subfield traditionally have

revolved around the term "rural," specifically, the extent to which rural areas are
unique and to which there can be some overriding theory of "rural social life" (Pahl
1966). In contrast to this ontological basis for a rural sociology, the subfield can be
seen as socially created and defined by the "doing" of normal science or routine
activities occurring under its rubric. How rural sociologists employ space in routine
research varies greatly and the concept itself is rarely considered from a sociology of
knowledge standpoint. Often space is implicit, as through a distinctively rural back-
ground setting. Explicit use of space depends on the investigator's conceptual frame-
work and research objectives. For example, "space" can be seen as ranging from its
reduction to residence context, as in some demographic work, to a consideration of
its emergent properties, created by contested social relations, as in political economy
approaches, or by other distinctive social and cultural arrangements (Wilkinson
1991).
 Sociology of the Periphery - Lobao 79

overview of how space has been treated historically within both rural
sociology and general sociology is presented. As rural sociology
spans as many topical areas as general sociology, I give attention
particularly to rural development which has an intrinsic concern
with space, and to middle range, or local and regional spatial units.
Second, focusing on more recent literature, I illustrate how rural
sociologists have employed space conceptually to analyze questions
of interest. Finally, the link between rural and general sociology is
considered. Conceptual openings in sociology indicate greater rec-
ognition of spatial unevenness, the importance of place, and recon-
sideration of attributes of social life thought to have faded from
advanced contexts. Innovation in the social sciences has been said
to take place through a process of "creative marginality" (Dogan
and Pahre 1990). Researchers working "on the margins" of conven-
tional disciplinary issues are the first to notice research anomalies
and theoretical gaps and to bring new insights to bear on the core
discipline. Rural sociologists have much to contribute, as they have
long attempted to deal with sociological anomalies and conceptual
gaps, and in the process, have carved out the very research agenda
to which broader sociology is now aspiring.
The incorporation of space into general sociological theory and
research has been problematic and given sustained focus only re-
cently. As a consequence, rural sociologists could not look to a core
sociological tradition to guide questions about social processes and
spatial context," First, the roots of sociology reflect the subordina-
tion of space and geography to time and history (Soja 1989). The
concern of classical sociologists, the transition from feudalism and
the subsumption of pre-eapitalist societies to the logic of capitalist
market relations, centered attention on the temporal dimensions of
social change and implied the eventual leveling of geographic dif-
ferences. Second, a focus on space conflicted with the worldviews of
early modern sociologists. Marxist oriented frameworks considered
spatial identities (e.g., regionalism, nationalism) as barriers to the
rise of united proletariat (Soja 1989). The liberal social reformist
tradition in sociology defended modernization and the benefits, in-
cluding an instrumental, state-supported social science, it would ex-
tend to all, regardless of place. Finally, throughout the 20th century,
the intellectual priorities of social theorists centered on explaining
modern capitalist development, which entailed grand theory and
generalization (Storper and Walker 1989). The intrinsic specificity

S By and large, rural sociologists saw this problem as unique to their subfield-the
failure to specify an underlying "rural" theory to guide topic areas. For discussions,
see Friedland (1982) and Pahl (1966). While there was some acknowledgement of
the similar problem faced by urban sociology, there was little recognition that the
issue of incorporating space into an understanding of social processes extended to
the entire discipline of sociology.
80 Rural Sociology, Vol. 61, No.1, Spring 1996

of place muddled deductive research agendas in which aspatial cov-

ering laws were assumed to work everywhere. The lack of consid-
eration of spatial context was particularly evident in the defining
specialties of sociology, general social theory and stratification (Lo-
bao 1993).
Despite growing recognition of the need for a more spatialized
sociology (Giddens 1987, 1990), remnants of the deductive tradi-
tion, in which generalizations are treated as if they were context
invariant, remain. Particularly evident in routine research are cases
where a set of universal predictor variables is used to test a hypoth-
esis; when the hypothesis is not supported, the distinctive socio-spa-
tial setting is invoked as an ad hoc explanatory device. More com-
monly, spatial context, locale and region, are simply bracketed out.

Defining the boundaries of rural sociology: space and development

context
Throughout the 20th century, however, a focus on space remained
central to certain subfields such as social demography, human ecol-
ogy, urban and rural sociology, which held varying influence over
the sociological discipline.' The evolution of rural sociology reflects
a persistent attempt to deal with its spatial heritage. Despite the
many contours of this evolution, a relatively stable thread of the
types of places upon which rural sociologists focus remains.
Broadly characterizing the intersection of substantive focus and
geographic space, rural sociology can be seen as a sociology of the
periphery," From its formal institutional inception to the present,
rural sociology entails a focus on settings where the attributes of
capitalism of the core play out unevenly. Though these settings have
been interpreted in various ways, from early 20th century emphases
on cultural traditionalism and solidarity to late 20th century political
economic characterizations, the people and places of concern re-
main those marginalized in the course of development. That is, in
considering the segments of the world's population which are most
vulnerable to economic change, possess the least resources, and face
the greatest social structural impediments to higher incomes, stable
• For example, U.S. sociology was strongly influenced by the regional sociology of
the 1930s (Odum and Moore 1938), by human ecology through the postwar-era
(Hawley 1956), and by rural sociology, particularly prior to World War II. Interna-
tional development, although obviously concerned with nation-states, has tended to
develop more from theories of social change, thereby, emphasizing time and history
(Soja 1989; see also Walton 1993).
5 The boundaries of any discipline are porous. Rural sociology itself does not offer
a theory of society, which must instead be derived elsewhere, from general social
theory or middle range theories dealing with particular substantive topics. As a con-
sequence, rural sociologists typically find themselves working in several sociological
specialty areas and also often draw from other social sciences, which further compli-
cates the delineation of substantive boundaries.
 Sociology of the Periphery - Lobao 81

employment, state social provisions, and political mobilization, rural

sociologists look to the periphery of the global economy, less devel-
oped nations, and within advanced capitalist nations, the spatial pe-
riphery or rural areas. The term "periphery" by no means implies
that such regions are peripheral to capitalist development. Rather,
the centrality of peripheral areas to global capitalist expansion
through the exploitation of resources and people has been recog-
nized in the political economy literature since the classical theories
of underdevelopment and imperialism (Lenin 1969; Luxemburg
1963). While considering Third World nations may overextend rural
sociological borders, reasons for doing so are many and include that
their populations are mainly rural,"
Periods of transition in rural sociology have been seen as re-
sponses to developments in general sociology (Falk and Zhao 1989;
Picou et al. 1978). Supplementing this insight, I consider also how
debates over the spatial boundaries and significance of rural soci-
ology catalyzed its evolution. Most of these debates center around
the "rurality" of the advanced societies. I provide a brief outline of
these debates and the epochs of restructuring they have generated,
but do not discuss them in-depth, as this cannot be accomplished
in a single article. My purpose is to illustrate rural sociologists' long-
standing efforts to make sense of social relationships and contexts
that did not fit well with the more generalized models used by the
umbrella discipline.

A spatial legacy: the urban-rural continuum

For early rural sociologists, space was key because by providing
boundary, it also provided a niche for institutional legitimacy in the
land grant system. As often noted, institutional legitimacy was rein-
forced through an academic division of labor in which agricultural
economists took the farm economy as their substantive focus, leav-
ing rural sociologists with the residual or non-economic aspects of
rurality, a focus which pervaded the subfield until the 1970s. The
significance of rurality rested on the presumption that sociological

G Other reasons for linking less developed nations and rural areas of the advanced
societies as the purview of rural sociology are: the broader conceptual question of
how uneven development occurs, necessitating a general focus on peripheral areas
at all spatial scales; the current recognition of a global economy, making its compo-
nent geographic elements less separable; parallels in the development context of
domestic rural areas and the less developed world, a point that is returned to in the
text; the now common infusion of insights from international development sociology
to inform domestic rural development issues and vice versa; and the routine activities
of rural sociologists, which for many, involve international work. This last point is
underscored by the 1994-1995 Rural Sociological Society's directory, listing "inter-
national development" as the largest research and interest area of members. Inter-
estingly, rural sociologists historically seem to have had less affiliation with "urban
sociology," which has been largely domestic.
82 Rural Sociology, Vol. 61, No.1, Spring 1996

generalizations developed about urban areas could not be applied

wholesale to rural settings. Rural populations were argued to be
fundamentally different in their social organization, norms, values,
and a host of other attributes. Schulman and Anderson (1993) have
summarized how bi-polar typologies were used to characterize rural
and urban contexts, such as gemeinschaJt and gesellschajt and folk and
urban society. Differences in social relations and social organization
became fixed in space through conceptual devices such as the ur-
ban-rural continuum, a permutation of Tonnies's (1963) work.
Critiques of bi-polar portrayals of rurality are longstanding and
dovetailed with the emerging critical sociology, particularly neo-
Marxian paradigm of the 1960s (Gilbert 1982; Pahl 1966). These
critiques centered on the functionalist underpinnings of the urban-
rural continuum and the neglect of analyses of power, inequality,
and economic structure. Empirical challenges were also presented.
Presumed differences between urban and rural areas were argued
to be minimal and closing over time, and some variables, such as
social solidarity, were found to be equally evident in certain urban
neighborhoods. The effects of these challenges to the spatial frame-
work that had guided rural sociology for over half a century varied.
As Schulman and Anderson (1993) note, some contemporary rural
sociologists persisted with the older focus. Others argued that the
decline of rurality left the urban-rural continuum useless and rural
sociology without substantive justification (Newby 1980).
However misguided the older framework, it gave rural sociology
a legacy of strengths and weaknesses. It strengthened rural sociology
by instilling stubborn consideration of people marginalized in the
course of development and of sociological generalization as contin-
gent upon spatial context. This contrasted sharply with the focus on
the homogenization of social life under the bureaucratic and market
structures of Fordism that characterized much of sociology. But a
major weakness of the bi-polar, functionalist framework was to instill
a conceptualization of social relationships as fixed in place. This
legacy is seen in the contemporary taken-for-granted use, found in
most of our work, of metropolitan and nonmetropolitan as points
of comparison. In the tendency to reify government classifications
beyond mere population density, metropolitan and nonmetropoli-
tan often become implicit proxies for social relationships and eco-
nomic structure that should be empirically questioned and explored
rather than assumed.

Tire 1970s and tire economic periphery

By the 1970s, theoretical developments in sociology coupled with
changes in rural areas, ushered in another round of defining bound-
aries. Critical sociological, particularly political economy perspec-
 Sociology of the Periphery - Lobao 83

tives, swept over the formerly dominant functionalist perspective,

impelling focus on economic production, class, and the state. Iron-
ically, or perhaps reflective of much of sociology's lagged response
to social change (Tickamyer 1996), by the time the structural con-
text of postwar American society or Fordism had been mapped out
by industrial sociologists (Wallace and Kalleberg 1981), it was al-
ready being transformed.'
Broad sociological focus on economic production and class co-
incided with empirical changes in rural areas in the 1970s. Rural
sociologists responded by addressing the economic structures deriv-
ative of rural places. Analysis of the spatial periphery became cen-
tered around the economic periphery, namely, the extractive sector,
particularly farming and agriculture, and to a lesser extent, periph-
eral manufacturing. Those involved in this new work, while clearly
rejecting any boundaries to rural sociology imposed by the urban-
rural continuum, varied in their treatment of space. On one hand,
some denied the need to take spatial settings into account, based
on the perceived incompatibility of combining "rurality" with the
analysis of class relations, economic structure, and critical social the-
ory. On the other, rural economic structure was seen as inextricably
linked to the local community.
This period was thus marked by a shift from the postwar focus on
noneconomic aspects of rural life. Conceptions of a bucolic, con-
sensus based, and relative egalitarian rurality, rooted in earlier rural
sociological thinking, clashed with evidence of rising dualism in the
farm sector and the militancy of certain segments of the farm pop-
ulation. Rural sociologists fixed the lenses of critical theory, partic-
ularly its neo-Marxian political economy variant, on a new sociology
of agriculture. As this research tradition has been widely reviewed
elsewhere (Lobao 1990; Newby and Buttel 1980; Swanson 1988,
1990), I briefly mention its contributions toward understanding the
rural economic periphery.
First, among the earliest theoretical problematics was the persis-
tence of family farming, which necessitated consideration of land
and labor (Goss et al. 1980; Mann and Dickinson 1978). The im-
portance of land as a factor of production and the environmental-
biological properties of land based production illustrated the dis-
tinct characteristics of farming as compared to nonfarm industries.
The focus on family farming also gave conceptual importance to the
household: how multiple work roles, the use of paid and unpaid

7 As Tickamyer (1996) suggests, the more applied nature of rural sociology gives it
an inside track on current social change. Also, the location of rural sociology in land
grant universities, in colleges and often departments that contain agricultural eco-
nomics, is another reason why recognition of farm and rural economic change may
be more immediate. Contrast this with the more distant location of general sociology
from colleges of business and departments of economics.
84 Rural Sociology, Vol. 61, No.1, Spring 1996

employment by family members, and survival strategies of reducing

household consumption could account for the persistence of non-
capitalist social formations in advanced capitalism. A limitation of
this literature, however, was the tendency to explain farm change as
emanating from internal factors more than from farming's external
links to the local community and broader macroeconomy (Bonanno
1987; Kenney et al. 1989; Wimberley 1987). Also, a number of an-
alysts have noted that while the household was highlighted as a topic
of scholarly inquiry, the relationships within it and its economic log-
ic were often treated as consensus based (Barlett 1993; Lobao and
Meyer 1995; Salamon 1992).
A second focus was on agricultural commodities. The organization
of production was traced from inputs into farming through pro-
cessing and downstream phases (Friedland et al. 1981). This work
formed the basis for later commodity chain analyses that examined
the articulation of locally based production with global markets. The
third, and perhaps most prolific literature linked farming more
closely to its spatial context through examining the Goldschmidt
(1978) hypothesis about the effects of farming structure on com-
munities. Shortcomings of this literature noted by critics included
neglect of nonfarm industrial structure, over-emphasis on structure
over human agency, historical specificity of Goldschmidt's hypoth-
esis, and lack of consideration of state intervention (Lobao 1990;
Swanson 1988).
While agriculture tended to be the predominant focus of rural
sociologists who examined the 1970s economy, there was also bur-
geoning concern with manufacturing and how it filtered to rural
areas. These analysts assessed the costs and benefits of jobs that
would be created and other impacts on the local community, with
particular attention to peripheral, nondurable or lower wage indus-
tries (Summers et al. 1976). Though this research overlapped in
time with that of the sociology of agriculture, the two efforts were
not to be linked conceptually until the late 1980s.
In summary, rural sociologists' contributions in the 1970s and ear-
ly 1980s centered in articulating the economic foundations of ru-
rality, and this continues to provide a strong guide for rural sociol-
ogy today. However, this focus was limited to a few sectors, mainly
farming, due to the conceptual blinders of fixed features of rurality.
Researchers emphasized structural determinants over human agen-
cy and only minimally addressed the role of state in rural develop-
ment. Conceptually, this literature can be seen as an attempt to deal
with the changes of the 1970s, which for one of the few times in the
nation's history, were positive for many rural areas. The farm econ-
omy was booming, further reinforcing beliefs about the persistence
of family farming. However, the boom was spread unevenly, partic-
ularly in cash grains and across the Midwest, and belied the emer-
 Sociology of the Periphery - Lobao 85

gence of a bifurcated farm system, composed of a small proportion

of large, hired labor dependent farms and a large proportion of
small farms operated by semi-proletarianized households with in-
come mainly from off-farm sources. Manufacturing was decentral-
izing to rural areas, a process that analysts expected would continue
with the increased routinization of production and development of
rural infrastructure. People and prosperity followed these changes,
evidenced in a rural population turnaround, reversing long-term
trends of rural outmigration, and in declining gaps between met-
ropolitan and nonmetropolitan populations in poverty and income.
In considering the changes of the 1970s, however, much of the
sociology of agriculture and rural industrialization research re-
mained insular, fixed on the rural economy, and little linked to
literatures outside rural sociology. In contrast, regional scientists,
geographers, and rural demographers (Fuguitt and Beale 1978;
Wardwell 1980) had begun to focus on the connections between
rural and urban economic changes, generating insights that would
infuse rural sociology in the next decade.

Rural restructuring and beyond

A third transition in which space shaped the boundaries of rural
sociology began in the late 1980s, in what some have termed the
"new rural sociology" (Lyson and Falk 1993) or "rural restructur-
ing" approach (Lobao and Schulman 1991; Marsden et al. 1990;
Newby 1986). Again, this stage coincided both with changes in the
rural economy and with conceptual developments in sociology. It
calls into question earlier portrayals of rurality and the frameworks
studying it. I see two sequential phases of the "new rural sociology,"
the first reflecting attempts to deal with rural restructuring, such as
the farm "crisis" of the 1980s, which parallels the urban restructur-
ing literature (Walton 1993), and an emerging phase showing
broadening concern with spatial issues.
In the 1980s, the experience of economic crisis that permeated
urban areas since the previous decade became painfully evident to
rural people. The rural downturn sprang from similar shifts in the
macroeconomy and state intervention coupled with changes specific
to production sectors prevalent in rural areas (Kenney et al. 1989).
Rural sociologists tended to observe the first manifestations of re-
structuring via the farm crisis, a result of long-term structural trends
and distinct historical events that starkly reversed the boom of the
previous decade. Later, downturns in nonfarm sectors, such as man-
ufacturing and mining, spurred attention to the restructuring of the
entire rural economy.
Rural sociologists extended the sociology of agriculture literature
to questions about the farm crisis (Lasley et al. 1995). Building from
86 Rural Sociology, Vol. 61, No.1, Spring 1996

industrial and labor market sociology, others broadened the earlier

tradition of nonmetropolitan industrialization research, as rural so-
ciologists now watched the withering promises of the nonfarm econ-
omy (Singelmann and Deseran 1993). Analysts were concerned with
the decline of rural manufacturing jobs and their filtering to the
Third World, with the growth oflower wage service sectors, and with
rising unemployment, poverty, and regional inequality (Fitchen
1991; Lichter and McLaughlin 1995; Rural Sociological Society Task
Force on Persistent Rural Poverty 1993).
The attempt to understand rural restructuring has brought the
following innovations to rural sociology. First, agricultural and labor
market or industrial sociologies, literatures that developed separate-
ly in the past, are used increasingly to inform one another (Lobao
1990). The farm crisis and widespread semi-proletarianization of
farmers meant that farming could not be considered without its
situation in the broader national economy and without its link to
local nonfarm employment. Explicit incorporation of local industri-
al employment and broader labor market structure into studies on
the Goldschmidt hypothesis was evident by the late 1980s (Swanson
1988). Studies of individual farmers and farm households also now
routinely include characteristics of the nonfarm local labor market
(Whitener and Parker 1993). Conversely, the labor market literature
has been influenced by agricultural sociology and studies of the
farm household." This is evident in studies arguing for the impor-
tance of examining labor of all household members, individuals'
multiple work roles, non-wage or informal sector employment, and
consumption oriented survival strategies (Garkovich et al. 1995;
Tickamyer and Bokemeier 1993).
Second, the primacy once accorded economic structure in the
sociology of agriculture and industry is now offset by a recognition
that other factors are also important to rural development. These
include greater attention to human agency as a sociological concept
and to local empowerment and forms of resistance. Conceptually,
characteristics such as age, education, and skill levels have been re-
interpreted, from individual human-capital attributes to group attri-
butes that increase bargaining power vis-a-vis employers and that are
more reflective of human agency (Beaulieu and Mulkey 1995; To-
maskovic-Devey 1987). Labor and political organizations and com-
munity "social capital" are also seen as empowering local people to
resist or control change (Flora and Flora 1990). The role of the
state in social welfare (Lobao 1990) and economic development pol-
icy (Barkley 1993) are considered. Analysts are thus concerned with

8 Development sociology has also provided these influences, particularly a focus on

the informal economy (Rakowski 1994).
 Sociology of the Periphery - Lobao 87

how human agency, state intervention, and other extra-economic

factors modify the effects of structural change.
Third, rural sociology now has closer substantive and theoretical
alignment with other sociological specialties in that the latter are
increasingly concerned with the spatial aspects of restructuring. At-
tempts to understand empirical changes in capitalism led to shifts
in general sociology by the early 1980s and gave a renewed appre-
ciation for the role of space in social relationships (Lobao 1993;
Tickamyer 1993). Insights from critical geography and urban soci-
ology (Castells 1977; Giddens 1981; Harvey 1982) began to infuse
industrial sociology and stratification theory, both of which, as noted
earlier, had tended to ignore spatial issues. "Space" as a distinct
concept, but with a variety of sociological meanings, was incorpo-
rated increasingly into the general disciplinary lexicon (Hooks 1994;
Soja 1989). Thus, sociologists became concerned with the growing
inequalities created by economic restructuring and expanded their
focus beyond class to gender, ethnicity, and region. Attempts to ex-
plain the disintegration of Fordism led to inquiry about how capital
used space to resolve crises in the accumulation process. Analysts
illuminated the role of the state in facilitating the spatial mobility
of capital and how the state intervened to mop up the destabilizing
effects of restructuring across locales. To understand how people
and communities coped with economic crisis, focus also turned to
the household, and in turn, to the gendered relationships within it.
Literatures in a variety of sociological specialties have paralleled
the pioneering developments in rural sociology. For example, stud-
ies on plant closings and local economic restructuring asked re-
search questions that were similar to those asked in studies on farm
restructuring and its community impacts (Lasley et al. 1995). Re-
search on the U.S. urban informal economy covered similar house-
hold, gender, and work issues as studies of farm businesses and
households' multiple livelihood strategies.

The content of space and why it makes a difference

The previously discussed conceptual innovations are changing the
boundaries of rural sociology in two major ways. The first is that by
redefining the boundaries and content of rurality, rural sociologists
are establishing why it (and geographic space, in general) are im-
portant for understanding society. Although rural sociologists exten-
sively debate how rural and other spatial differences are created
(Rural Sociological Task Force on Persistent Rural Poverty 1993),
they generally acknowledge a battery of key differences. However,
these differences are not often clearly articulated and are rarely syn-
thesized. Recent literature shows that the content of rurality and of
spatial difference in general-eoncepts which define rural sociology
88 Rural Sociology, Vol. 61, No.1, Spring 1996

presently-can be understood as the following. Global economic

change is an uneven process over time and within and between
nations. It transforms economic structure. It alters social relations
or class structure and other asymmetrical power relations of gender,
age, and ethnicity, brings about new strategies of state intervention,
and affects the levels at which populations are able to reproduce
themselves. As a consequence, places are differentiated with regard
to production structures, social relations, demographic and other
characteristics reflective of local reproduction, and degree and kind
of state intervention. These characteristics can also be seen as con-
tingent conditions that mediate the effects of global and national
changes. Drawing together these conceptual elements from dispa-
rate literatures illustrates why space makes a difference in the schol-
arly study of society, as well as individuals' life chances.
A summary of elements that rural sociologists have used to ac-
count for spatial difference and the reasons why they do so is shown
in Table 1. As such, Table 1 provides a general overview of the
content and substantive domain of rural sociology at present. It re-
flects "ideal types" or proto-typical relationships argued in much of
the literature to define urban-rural and advanced-less advanced na-
tional development relationships. It should be emphasized, however,
that the relationships specified do not necessarily reflect the com-
plexity of empirical reality, which obviously is uneven across places
and time. I include the less advanced capitalist nations because, as
noted above, they are often included in the substantive domain of
rural sociology. Further, literature on international development has
gone through a similar evolution as literature on rural-urban differ-
ences and deals with similar spatial elements. Finally, it should be
stressed that Table 1 provides an overview and that gaps remain,
including attention to cultural elements, which are considered in
the following section.
The content of rurality is evident in the internal characteristics of
rural places (Table 1). These include economic structure, which
both the sociology of agriculture and labor market sociology have
long addressed. Social relations, in particular the balances of power
according to class, gender, and ethnicity, reflect recent concerns
with human agency, insofar as some populations have greater ability
to resist changes and structures that might adversely affect them.
The nature of the local state and social reproduction, including de-
mographic characteristics and levels at which a population is able
to reproduce itself, are also a basis for spatial difference. Geographic
differences are often cumulative over time, so that the past history
of places with respect to economic structure, social relations, the
local state, and demographic characteristics are relevant. For ex-
ample, racism, progressive labor legislation, economic structure and
local development policies of the past influence local society in the
 Sociology of the Periphery - Lobao 89

present. A third internal aspect of rurality and region, a focus of

rural sociology since its inception, is ecological conditions-settle-
ment patterns and natural resource bases. Finally, external factors
affect and define rurality and region. Because places are nested with-
in and positioned differentially in national and global economies,
regulatory policies and macro-level changes create new rural-urban
spaces and reinforce older differences over time.

The spatial dispersion of the elements defining rural places

A second innovation appearing in recent literature is that the con-
cepts and relationships shown in Table 1 are increasingly viewed as
variable across space, rather than embedded in fixed rural or Third
World locations. That is, there is a continual spatial loosening of
elements once considered indicative of differences between rural
and urban areas and less advanced-advanced capitalist countries,
much in the way that "social solidarity" and "neighborliness" were
decoupled conceptually from space with the waning of the old rural-
urban continuum. These emerging conceptions overcome static por-
trayals of the rural condition as mired in continued marginality and
counter tendencies to ignore uneven development, to stress overly
the urban bias of development, and to overlook periods in which
rural areas "developed" precisely because urban areas were in de-
cline. For instance, the 1970s can be seen as a time in which rural
areas benefited from the disintegration of urban Fordism and its
rising unemployment, social tension, and manufacturing decentral-
ization. In this sense, any research that paints broad characteriza-
tions of nonmetropolitan areas as possessing poor jobs and local
conditions is limited because it belies major differences both within
metropolitan America, such as the higher poverty in the urban core,
and within nonmetropolitan America, such as the better conditions
found in metropolitan adjacent counties (Brown and Hirschl 1995).
Also, static portrayals cannot further understanding of economic
development, which has become increasingly ephemeral and spotty
across households, locales, and regions. Finally, spatial de-eoupling
is evident in the present recognition that formal and informal sector
employment, market and non-market exchanges of economic sur-
plus, and therefore, the character of class and other social relation-
ships, are not confined to certain spatial locations but are found
globally (Mingione 1991).
Where is this intellectual journey taking rural sociology? I would
argue that we are moving from a narrow focus on "rural restruc-
turing" to a broader focus on how the principles of capitalism op-
erate differently across space. While capitalist development varies
across places, its essential features-patterns of accumulation and
economic production, the balance of social relations, social repro-
90 Rural Sociology, Vol. 61, No.1, Spring 1996

Table 1. The social bases of spatial difference

Rural compared
to urban U.S. Less developed compared to
(prot~ical advanced ~italist nations
Conceptual elements relations ips) (prototypi relationships)
1. Internal characteristics: place as a social container
1. Present, interrelated social forces
a) Economic structure a) Extractive employment, a) Extractive employ-
low wage manufac- ment, poorer job
turing, poorer job quality and quantity;
quality and quantity; multinationals that
branch plants that extract surplus
extract surplus which which is sent to First
is sent to urban World headquarters.
headquarters.
b) Social relations: class b) Lower bargaining pow- b) Lower bargaining pow-
and ethnicity er of work force, er of work force,
lower education and lower education, po-
unionization, less po- litical power lower;
litical power of mar- land is an important
ginalized groups; indicator of political
land is an important power, power of
indicator of political landed elites high;
power, power of indigenous people
landed elites high; often particularly
indigenous people marginalized.
often particularly
marginalized.
c) Social relations: c) Opportunity structure c) Opportunity structure
gender ofjobs, landed re- ofjobs, landed re-
sources may work sources may work
against women; against women;
greater presence of greater presence of
paid, male employ- paid, male employ-
ment structures, pos- ment structures, pos-
sibly more en- sibly more en-
trenched patriarchy. trenched patriarchy
depending upon
phase of develop-
ment.
d) Social reproduc- d) Higher proportion of d) Higher proportion of
tion: demograph- elderly, males, two children,dependent
ic characteristics, parent families; population; depend-
social well-being greater poverty, low- ing upon nation,
er income, poorer may be more males
health status, other or females or single
indicators of quality parent households
of life. due to migration;
greater poverty, low-
er income, poorer
health status, other
indicators of quality
of life.
 Sociology of the Periphery - Lobao
Table 1. (Continued)
Rural compared
to urban U.S. Less developed compared to
(prototypical
Conceptual elements relation-ships)
e) The state e) Local state tends to
have fewer re-
sources, less power,
and may act more
on behalf of local
elites.
2. Past history of above Over time, poorer eco-
forces a, b, c, d, e: nomic structure, lower
geographic inequali- bargaining power of
ties often become workers, possibly higher
cumulative over elite control, greater
time poverty and poorer
quality of life.
3. Ecological conditions: Distance from urban ar-
settlement patterns eas, lower population
and natural re- density; infrastructure
sources costs create greater
problems of access to
state interventions, pos-
sibilities of securing
higher wage employ-
ment; may be natural
resource endowed
which may lead to
boom-bust economies;
declining natural re-
source base due to
over-exploitation.
II. Position in the wider or global political economy
1. Policies of states at U.S. economic develop-
higher geographic ment in urban areas
levels, global capital, premised historically
political economic upon low cost food pro-
history of an area duction; urban areas
affect future trajec- said to develop at the
tory of develop- expense of rural; cer-
ment. tain national policies
have spatially variant
outcomes (e.g., medi-
care, agriculture), with
an urban bias often
built into policy; global
political economic
events, trade policy may
have more negative ef-
fects due to more spe-
cialized, fragile local
economy.
91
advanced capitalist nations
(prototypical relationships)
e) National state has few-
er resources, less
power, and acts
more on behalf of
national elites.
Over time, poorer eco-
nomic structure, lower
bargaining power of
workers, higher elite
control, greater poverty
and poorer quality of
life.
Distance from First World
trade; infrastructure
less able to provide ac-
cess to state interven-
tions, possibilities of
supporting higher wage
industries; often natural
resource endowed
which leads to boom-
bust economies; may
have fragile environ-
ment and farming sys-
tems; declining natural
resource base due to
over-exploitation.
Advanced capitalist
nations said to develop
at the expense of less
developed world due
to: terms of trade,
world market for com-
modity products, debt-
traps, domination by
multinational firms;
First World bias built
into global trade and fi-
nancial policies; global
political economic
events, trade policy
tend to have more neg-
ative impacts due to
more specialized, frag-
ile economies.
92 Rural Sociology, Vol. 61, No.1, Spring 1996

duction and state intervention (reflected in Table I)-remain useful

and conceptually durable. Contemporary analyses of development
are further informed by insights not only from classical political
economy, but also feminist and post-modern frameworks. The con-
ceptual content of "space" is being drawn out and more linked to
theoretical perspectives in sociology, geography, and other social sci-
ences (Storper and Walker 1989; Walton 1993).
Though I have focused on the more advanced capitalist nations,
a similar evolution has been underway in the development litera-
ture. As others have noted, dualistic categories, whether from or-
thodox modernization theory or from political economy modes of
production approaches, gave way to considerations of gradations of
nations in the world system. Although, attributes of First World and
Third World development contexts remain fixed and relatively static
in world systems theory, more recent analyses of globalization and
spatial divisions of labor see various "capitalisms" being created in
the world system, development as transitory, and the poverty and
inequality experienced by the First and Third Worlds as linked (Sad-
ler 1992).9
In summary, the boundaries of rural sociology are becoming less
defined by space per se and more defined by concepts and processes
that help us to explain spatial contexts and differences. The evolu-
tion of current rural sociology toward heightened sensitivity to geo-
graphic differences and focus on peripheral development contexts
gives it an important niche in contemporary sociology. Despite this,
however, analysts still tend to focus on the spatial periphery and the
people and places marginalized in the course of development," The

9 The literature on development internal to less advanced capitalist nations also

has characterized rural-urban areas in fixed, dualistic terms. In part, this is because
analysts tended to apply theories framed at the national or cross-national level to
development within. Regions were characterized by distinct modes of production, for
example, capitalism in the cities and feudalism in the rural hinterlands; or different
modes of production, such as capitalist and pre-capitalist peasant modes, might co-
exist, but vary in their dominance over the social formation (Wolpe 1980). Depen-
dency theory in the form of internal colonial theory was also applied to show how
urban elites and core areas benefited from surplus extraction in the countryside. The
inadequacy of such theories was shown in studies highlighting the complexity of
regional development, which did not support empirically generalizations about the
outcomes of dependency, and that did not fit the model of capitalist development
occurring elsewhere (Brenner 1977; Cardoso and Faletto 1979). Research has tended
to move a,vay from these older approaches and seems to be following that of rural
sociology. Walton (1993) provides a brief review of how urban sociologists are char-
acterizing internal development of the less developed nations.
10 In this sense, if rural sociology is treated as a sociology of the periphery, we
should deal with the urban core as well. The academic division of labor has tended
to steer rural sociology a,vay from this topic, but for an exception, see Brown and
HirschI (1995).
 Sociology of the Periphery - Lobao 93

next section describes how rural sociological use of space contrib-

utes to broader sociological agendas.

Research strategies and the use of space: contributing to the

sociological agenda
Although a unifying element of rural sociology is its spatial ground-
ing, it is surprising how little attention has been directed to how we
use space to inform our subfield. Drawing from recent literature, I
delineate a number of ways in which we conceptually employ geo-
graphic space. As noted earlier, space is often treated implicitly by
rural sociologists as the backdrop for questions of interest. This can
be seen in studies in which relationships in the confines of non-
metropolitan or other spatial categories are examined with little
concern for the meaning of these categories. The sociological ques-
tion is the focus; space is the taken for granted area in which this
works out. Insofar as any research tradition involves selective em-
phasis and sociology is a discipline concerned first with social rela-
tionships, implicit treatment of space may be unavoidable. However,
to the extent that attributes of social reality and specific contexts
are overlooked, theory and research findings are limited and likely
misleading.

Challenging aspatial generalizations and establishing macro-micro links

One of the most important, explicit conceptual uses of space by
rural sociologists is hypothesis testing: to examine whether or not
relationships hold across various spatial contexts. Rurality, region,
and locale become laboratories for testing sociological generaliza-
tions. This has been important in challenging or clarifying propo-
sitions posited as spatially invariant covering laws. Studies may be
focused on a single locale or region with the purpose of examining
how attributes of this context affect outcomes. Comparative region-
al, urban-rural or local settings are also examined. For example,
agricultural sociologists have long debated the Goldschmidt hypoth-
esis that large scale farming is detrimental to community well-being.
Regionally comparative studies clarified much of the earlier debate
by delineating where and under what conditions.such a relationship
might occur (Lobao and Schulman 1991; Swanson 1988).
A related way in which rural sociologists employ space is in estab-
lishing macro-micro linkages through place effects on individuals
and households (Tickamyer 1993). This, in turn, reflects broader
sociological concerns about action and choice, structure and con-
straint. For example, studies of men's and women's employment
now typically include place characteristics pertaining to the labor
market, which modify the effects of individual and household level
attributes. Recent work on rural poverty also incorporates contex-
94 Rural Sociology, Vol. 61, No.1, Spring 1996

tual variables as predictors of individual and household poverty. In

a sense, these studies too are premised upon disaggregating socio-
logical generalization because they specify the conditions under
which relationships might occur. Labor market research has been
important, for example, in highlighting demand-side factors (quality
and quantity of employment) as opposed to human capital, supply
side factors, in creating wage differentials. In much of this literature
an implied division between human agency and structure remains,
in that the latter, represented by aspects of local context, constrains
human action.
Several observations can be made about rural sociologists' use of
space in both hypothesis testing and in establishing macro-micro
linkages. Though these can be seen more clearly in quantitative
studies, they apply to some qualitative research as well. First, the
locale, region, or rural place tend to be represented by or seen as
reducible to several key variables. Nearly all studies incorporate a
rural-urban categorical type variable and others incorporate a num-
ber of contextual variables; most of these are indicators of some
aspect of the rural economy. By and large, however, analysts have
not delineated systematically the concepts that contextual variables
should cover (Tickamyer 1993). As Table 1 draws together elements
that analysts have used to establish why space makes a difference, it
may inform such studies.
Second, local context is examined mainly as a constraining force
rather than one which emerges and changes from rounds of social
action. How individuals construct local social life and institutions is
neglected. Structure, both in terms of the analyst's framework and
the causal forces at work, is imposed over the human and physical
environment. Third, the explanatory contribution of existing studies
is necessarily limited: at worst, such research tells us only if particular
hypotheses are supported in the studied locales; at best, why a few
attributes of locale might affect a prespecified relationship are out-
lined. Yet despite these limitations the previous types of research are
important to sociology because they clarify, overturn, or lend sup-
port to generalizations formulated in aspatial terms.

Alternative directions
Rural sociologists are also pursuing other uses of space that provide
more holistic views of context and greater depth of explanation.
These reflect more inductive strategies and hearken back to earlier
work influencing rural sociology: the regional sociology of the 1930s
(Odum and Moore 1938) which focused on regional ecology and
livelihood strategies in distinct settings such as the South; Geertz's
(1973) anthropological work; and Glaser and Strauss' (1967)
grounded theory approach. However, newer work incorporates the
 Sociology of the Periphery - Lobao 95

sociological developments of political economy frameworks, feminist

methodologies, and post-modern and other critical perspectives.
Again, rural sociologists rarely make explicit their use of space as a
research strategy. Much of this work, however, is concerned with
"place" as a distinct spatial unit and setting for social action. To
illustrate, I discuss examples of how these alternative approaches are
providing sociological insights.
A number of studies have considered the social construction of
place, community and region (Tickamyer 1993). Rural sociologists
have explored how social action gives rise to a sense of solidarity,
identity, community culture, and networks, which reflect emergent
conditions bounded in place (Wilkinson 1991). Analysts have ex-
amined the role of local sentiments and "place imagery" that allows
people to make sense of their personal lives and to deal with broader
community conditions (Hummon 1990). Local social networks and
solidarity represent "social capital," something as important to local
development as conventional economic efforts (Flora and Flora
1990). Places are also seen as sustaining cultures of resistance to be
resurrected under certain historical conditions, a point made in lit-
erature on the new social movements. For example, analysts have
examined the extent to which Midwestern farm men and women's
political activism during the 1980s farm crisis was related to local
social networks and place based traditions of prior social mobiliza-
tion (Meyer and Lobao 1995).
Another strategy for considering space is through examining the
embeddedness of economic action in the social structural context
(Mingione 1991; Tickamyer 1996). This implies a focus on local
social structure, power relations, and culture (Barlett 1993; Salamon
1992). Sociologists are using this framework for researching formal
and informal credit markets, banking, and other forms of economic
transactions beyond conventional labor market issues, areas where
insights about social-structural context have been lacking (Green et
aI. forthcoming). A related topic is sociologists' efforts to contex-
tualize unpaid work and household economic survival strategies. For
example, Billings and Blee (1990) build on a tradition of older com-
munity studies and rich historical sources to examine kinship and
livelihood strategies among Appalachian householders.
At the more micro end of the continuum, rural sociologists have
continued their longstanding focus on households, but now more
commonly build from feminist frameworks indicating the distinct
structural positions and often varying interests of household mem-
bers by gender. Recent work on farm women and families sees
households and farms as gendered settings which give rise to wom-
en's distinct experiences and interpretations of their lives (Adams
1994; Garkovich et aI. 1995).
96 Rural Sociology, Vol. 61, No.1, Spring 1996

At the macro end of the continuum, rural sociologists are also

making conceptual use of space to deal with "globalization" and
national transformations. Again, conceptual strategies tend not to
be specified clearly. Some analysts are concerned first with place and
how broader changes work themselves out in particular locales, a
tendency characterizing much social impact assessment research-
for example, how a particular government policy such as NAFTA or
global economic change affects specific communities (Freudenburg
and Gramling 1994; Sizer and Porterfield forthcoming). Others are
linking changes across different spatial analytical levels. One strategy
is to view the locale or region as a bundle of contingent factors that
mediate changes occurring at broader spatial levels (Lobao 1993).
Another is through commodity chain analyses which follow labor
and capital flows through the global system. While research that
attempts to link locales to the global system is crucial to understand-
ing recent change, it is inherently problematic, raising questions
about how to empirically delineate these linkages. Sociology has no
research tradition parallelling that in economics of trade theory or
input-output analysis, which, however flawed, consider economic
change simultaneously through industries and spatial units. This is
an example of a topic where research strategy has not caught up
with theoretical innovation (Tickamyer 1996).
A final way in which space is used follows analyses of "new indus-
trial spaces" from geography and regional science literature (Sadler
1992; Storper and Walker 1989). Work in these disciplines deals with
new locales and regions emerging in post-Fordism. It combines idi-
ographic attention to intrinsically important locales and also uses
such locales to generate nomothetic insights that can be applied to
the larger economy. Focus has been on locales leading in post-Ford-
ism, often exemplified by Los Angles (Soja 1989). Rural sociological
research using space in a similar way is now underway. Emerging
rural spaces can be seen in Midwestern communities dominated by
meatpacking, which increasingly relies on immigrant labor, and in
rural communities depending upon hazardous waste and prison fa-
cilities. A related way in which the idiographic characteristics of
place can be combined with generalizations about the broader econ-
omy is through the analysis of regions, once a traditional sociological
focus. Meso-level territorial units such as Appalachia, the Ohio River
Valley, the Mississippi Delta, and so forth have intrinsic importance
due to their role in national history (Brown et al. forthcoming; Ly-
son and Falk 1993). These traditional regions, marginalized by past
economic development, provide a window on rural changes occur-
ring today (Page and Walker 1991).
Conclusions
Historically, concern with space and the social relationships of pe-
ripheral settings have been the moving forces in rural sociology.
 Sociology oj the Periphery - Lobao 97

Space has defined the boundaries of our subfield such that epochs
of scholarly transition are grounded in the underlying concern with
this dimension. Rural sociological treatment of space has ranged
from its quasi-reification in the urban-rural continuum to a brack-
eting out of its effects, as during the 1970s; from its explicit concep-
tual incorporation into studies to its implicit use as a background
setting; from consideration of its emergent properties to those
reduced to residence categories; and from settings composed of
fixed elements to elements which vary globally. A willingness to tackle
the dimension of space and the thorny problems it raises has often
set us apart from much of sociology. Now, the stubborn tradition of
concern with space and within this, the social context of periphery,
provide a legacy which make rural sociology central.
As noted earlier, for much of the 20th century general sociology
based its scholarly success on building deductive theory and empir-
ical generalizations. Consideration of spatial differences muddled
this agenda. Moreover, since classical and modern general sociolog-
ical theories implied an eventual leveling of geographic differences,
sociologists saw no inherent need to treat them. Although by the
1970s, this aspatial agenda broke down for those analyzing Third
World social change, it continued to inform sociological theory in
the advanced societies through the early 1980s (Soja 1989). For ru-
ral sociologists concerned with the uneven development of the ad-
vanced societies, mainstream theory provided little conceptual guid-
ance and the discipline as a whole seemed to take little interest.
Rural sociologists dealt with this academic schizophrenia in various
ways, by associating with other disciplines that then seemed relevant,
such as agricultural economics, by turning inward in their scholar-
ship, and by questioning the justification for their subfield. But they
held fast to the ideas that sociological generalizations were contin-
gent on spatial context and that uneven development was worthy of
study.
In the 1980s, the primacy of aspatial social structural determinants
and deductive modes of reasoning characterizing much of postwar
sociology began to crumble with critical reflections on political
economy and with rising alternative approaches from feminist, post-
modern, and other frameworks. Contemporary sociology is charac-
terized by the demise or reformulation of grand theory, growing
acknowledgement of alternative theoretical frameworks and meth-
ods, and importantly, for rural sociology, an attention to space, par-
ticularly as it allows exploration of the contingent nature of gener-
alization.
Another historical deviation from broader sociology has been ru-
ral sociology's attempts to address social relationships within the de-
velopment context of the spatial periphery. As Tickamyer (1996)
notes, general sociology has taken a "modernist" approach in its
98 Rural Sociology, Vol. 61, No.1, Spring 1996

concepts, analytical categories, and methods. For example, in in-

dustrial and economic sociology, "work" traditionally has been ex-
amined in its paid form, only recently as unpaid and informal, and
hardly ever, as is common in rural sociology, as a multiple work role
and household livelihood strategy. This "modernist" approach rest-
ed on parallel assumptions that the development context of the
United States was essentially "Fordist," that most people worked in
large firms, at one occupation which provided lifelong identity, and
that individuals could be categorized into distinct "classes" based
upon this single occupation. Focus on this Fordist development con-
text also contributed to sociological agendas bent on creating grand
theory and avoiding complicated empirical realities. To examine the
complexities of the spatial periphery, rural sociologists were left with
few choices but to plow ahead by grafting theory from international
development, from peasant studies, and from sociology where pos-
sible, to find the theories, concepts, and measures that could explain
the periphery. Because rural sociologists had long recognized the
inadequacy of earlier, mainstream conceptualizations (even to de-
scribe the postwar Fordist context they were intended to address),
they were well positioned when, in the 1980s, massive changes in
the national and global economies called for new conceptualizations
of domestic development contexts.
Another contribution of rural sociology, largely unrecognized, is
that our research continues to raise sociological anomalies due to
its focus on space and peripheral settings. At times we have dealt
with anomaly by interpreting it as a consequence of our own inad-
equacy brought by lack of fit with conventional theory and empirical
findings. I believe, however, the fault lies less in our disciplinary
inadequacy vis-a-vis sociology and more in the reality we seek to
explain. In other words, we were always moving in the right direc-
tion, although we were not reaching the conventional sociological
destination to which many aspired.
To proceed with the agenda we have developed, we must address
several pressing issues. First, despite some inroads, much of recent
rural sociological work has not given serious conceptual discussion
to space. That is, while the of use region, rurality and locale, are
sometimes seen as problematic, rural sociologists rarely give explicit
attention to employing them as strategies to address specific re-
search questions. Other social science disciplines, particularly ge-
ography and regional science, and their respective methodologies,
are useful for informing such issues and are being increasingly in-
corporated into rural as well as general sociological work. However,
rural sociologists have in fact developed their own agenda about
space that has tended to go unrecognized and unexplored and that
has developed rather independently from these disciplines. Consid-
eration of our own tradition is needed, so that insights from these
 Sociology of the Periphery - Lobao 99

spatially based disciplines are not adopted wholesale, but rather

adapted to and considered in light of central sociological questions.
At present, two conceptual issues are particularly relevant. One is
the appropriate geographic level to study sociological processes of
interest, a topic that has been considered in labor market research,
but requires expansion to regions and other locales (Killian and
Tolbert 1993). A more complex question is how to link various spa-
tial levels of analysis empirically, as in globalization research.
Other recent rural sociological agendas need to be extended. For
example, while much rural sociological research now centers on
characterizing the rural poor, much could be gained from focusing
on the rural and non-rural elite and capitalist employers. This would
help us understand how marginal settings are created, how they are
socially constructed, such as in definitions of good business climates,
and how populations of marginal areas may be politically mobilized.
A final question is how far we will want to pursue a research agenda
that loosens the traditional characteristics of rural areas from their
embeddedness in place. Ifwe continue further with this agenda, the
next epoch of transition in rural sociology may well be described as
the declining significance of rurality and the rising significance of
spatial marginality.

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