Working groups

We invite submissions on various topics covered by the Working Groups.

Here you can review the Working Groups and submit your abstract via https://esrs2025.exordo.com/

Each Working Group description contains information on the topics, epistemic and methodological approaches, and format. The names of the convenors are also listed.
Each participant can submit a maximum number of 2 abstracts.
You can also apply to the poster session.

1. Value-based Alternative Food Systems: Quality Assurance and Sustainable Practices Beyond Certification

Conveners

Robert Home
Lina Tennhardt
Christian Grovermann
Gusztáv Nemes

Topic

As urbanization increases and supermarkets dominate food supply chains, consumers are increasingly disconnected from the people and processes that produce their food. Industrialized agriculture has contributed to the widespread use of agrichemicals, long supply chains, and the decline of smallholder farming. In response, diverse types of value-based alternative food systems have emerged, aiming to reconnect producers and consumers through sustainable practices. These systems often use formal quality assurance mechanisms, such as certification schemes (e.g., organic and agroecological labels, and participatory guarantee systems (PGS)), as well as informal systems rooted in trust, community, and personal relationships.

This working group explores the dynamics of these alternative food systems, whether cooperatives or not, focusing on how they ensure quality and sustainability. We invite papers that address mechanisms for success, issues of equity and justice, risks of self-exploitation, and outcomes of self-organized collaboration. The discussion will highlight the importance of local democracy, collective action, and community-based approaches, drawing attention to both institutionalized and informal quality assurance systems that support sustainable food practices.

Objectives
The working group aims to foster dialogue among researchers and practitioners engaged with value-based alternative food systems, emphasizing various forms of quality assurance. We welcome contributions that showcase diverse systems and practices, whether formal certifications or trust-based, community-driven models. Through this dialogue, we hope to identify key issues and opportunities for future collaboration, including the potential development of a special issue or other collaborative outputs.

Format
We propose a dynamic format that begins with short presentations, followed by a round-table discussion or interactive workshop. This will allow participants to collaboratively identify critical themes and challenges in the field. The goal of the discussion is to outline possible directions for a special issue or further research collaborations. Presenters will also be encouraged to creatively connect their key take-home messages to relevant songs or cultural references to stimulate engagement.

2. Land Reform and Community-Owned Land for Liveable Futures

Conveners

Ian Merrell, Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC)
Carey Doyle, Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC)
Naomi Beingessner, James Hutton Institute

Topic

A concentrated pattern of landownership can act as a barrier towards liveable and sustainable futures (Glenn et al, 2019). Various countries, regions or localities, have historical lineages of landowners going back over centuries. Some of these landowners are considered good community and environmental stewards, but others are negligent, absentee, or only take private interests into account, which have significant impacts and tamper the ambitions of the surrounding communities and businesses. Scotland is an example of a country with an alarmingly high concentration of landownership, with only 433 people owning 50% of the country and only formally abolishing Feudal tenure in 2000. Since then, Scotland has an ongoing Land Reform Agenda, with Acts in 2003, 2016 and recently in 2024. The aim of this agenda is to lower this concentration and increase the diversity of ownership via transferal of land from private- to community-ownership through a ‘Community Right to Buy’ mechanism. Other contemporary or historical land reform agendas of community-owned land include Italy, Norway, France, Kenya and Mexico (McMorran et al, 2020).

Community-owned land and other assets (such as energy infrastructure, community centres, pubs, shops, libraries etc.) are an opportunity for more democratic and participatory forms of land management and governance to emerge. In Scotland, 754 assets are held in community ownership, covering 212,342 hectares (roughly 3% of the country). However, the recent interest in land as an investment opportunity for natural capital (and acquiring carbon credits) has seen adverse effects on land values (Merrell et al, 2023; Glendinning & Merrell, 2023), making these assets unattainable for communities wishing to purchase these. The long-term socio-economic effects on communities neighbouring or tenanted on land designated into a natural capital scheme are yet to be felt, but early analysis suggests a host of negative and positive effects (McKee et al, 2023). Sub-themes include:

Benefits (or other outcomes) of community-owned land
Policy mechanisms to help increase/facilitate community-owned land
Alternative routes to land reform/improved democratic decision-making of land
The role of cultural values and norms in supporting or inhibiting community land ownership
Motivators to engaging in land reform and/or community owned land
Wider factors affecting land reform (e.g. markets, socio-economic/political factors)
Post-capitalist detours of commoning in rural areas

Objectives

This Working group will explore opportunities and barriers to transferring more land from private (or in some cases public) to community (or third sector) ownership which is a foundational asset to ensure a more sustainable and liveable future for those living in rural areas. It is an opportunity to share new knowledge between academics, practitioners and policy-makers concerned with land reform and community-owned land/assets.

Format

The Working Group welcomes international examples of land reform and/or the transferal of land into community/third-sector ownership. It will be a 90-minute session with presentations and time for questions/discussion after each talk. Completed or ongoing research will be considered. PhD students and Early Career Researchers are encouraged.

3.Generational renewal, sustainable farms, and rural futures.

Conveners

Petra Benyei, Institute of Economics, Geography and Demography, Spanish National Research Council (IEGD-CSIC)
Federica Consentino,partment of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Catania
Ana Villán Delgado, Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB)

Topic

Generational renewal in agriculture is a critical issue, particularly in the context of sustainable farming and the future of rural areas. In Europe, young farmers' farms decreased from 11.5% to 9.3% between 2010 and 2020, with at least one-third of farmers now being over 65 years old. The growing literature on generational renewal portrays young farmers as being more prone to innovation, multifunctionality, and environmental sustainability (Bertoni and Cavicchioli, 2016). It also contends that major changes in farm organization are likely to be decided upon during farm succession and the first years under the new farmer’s management (Fisher and Burton, 2014; Zagata and Sutherland, 2015; Coopmans et al., 2021, Bertolozzi-Caredio et al., 2023). However, studies on whether succession leads toward more sustainable farming projects are scarce, show conflicting evidence (Corsi et al., 2021; Kovách et al., 2022), and lacking a holistic and intersectional approach to the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainability (Suess-Reyes et al., 2016). Moreover, as some authors argue, young people’s perspectives are underrepresented and often studied as passive and homogeneous subjects of the farm transfer, rather than actors shaping the future of their farms (Cassidy et al., 2019).

In this Working Group, we welcome submissions presenting theoretical contributions, empirical research results, or accounts of artistic or practical experiences related to any of the following sub-themes:
1. Challenges for a sustainable farmer generational renewal future in rural areas: Is generational renewal an opportunity for sustainable change? What are the trade-offs?

2. Intersectional approaches to generational renewal. What is the role of migrants, women, and other marginalized actors?

3. Imagined futures of the next generation of farmers. What are the perspectives of rural youth regarding a potential farming future?

4. Not all that glitters is sustainable. Imagined sustainable futures in the generational renewal academic community.

5. The role of policy in shaping sustainable generational renewal.

6. Intergenerational conflict in pursuit of sustainability. How to support farmer’s identity transition toward sustainability?

This topic and sub-themes engage profoundly with the conference theme “Navigating rural transitions: Exploring liveable futures” since the shape that farmer generational renewal takes, being it intensified industrial agriculture managed by corporations vs. agroecology-oriented family farming, will condition the future liveability of rural areas and contribute to or hinder the transition to a just, sustainable and worth living rural future for all.

Objectives

This WG aims to share new scientific knowledge or artistic/practical experiences and initiate debates
around specific sub-topics affecting farmer renewal and the transition to sustainable rural futures. It will also favour more direct interactions and debate among WG participants (researchers, artists, practitioners etc.), contributing to a stronger networking experience.

Format

We will split the 90-minute session into three 30-minute slots.
In each slot, three presenters will have 5 minutes to present their work orally (lightning talk). After the presentations, we will have 15 minutes in which presenters will be distributed in “speaker corners” and working group attendants can gather around those with whom they wish to engage by asking questions or sharing their own experiences. Presenters will have the opportunity to pre-circulate papers or fact sheets in advance if they wish so, to promote more engagement.

4. Intersections of life and work in agriculture: Exploring how to create livable ‘presents’ and futures

Conveners

Florence Becot, Pennsylvania State University
David Meredith, Teagasc
Sandra Contzen, Bern University of Applied Sciences
Majda Černič Istenič, University of Ljubljana/The Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts

Topic

Demographic shifts in the agricultural and rural communities, along with on-going biophysical, social, political, and economic changes are bringing up questions about who will produce our food, fuel, and fiber in the future and under what conditions. An extensive body of literature explores topics connected to economic and environmental sustainability in agriculture such as the economic performance of agricultural enterprises, optimal production practices, environmental issues, and farmers' adoption of mitigating strategies. Much less often considered are aspects connected to the social sustainability of farming and how social sustainability is influenced by and influences economic and environmental sustainability. Social sustainability is particularly important to consider given that agriculture is one of the most dangerous and stressful occupations. It is also one with low profit margins and lower levels of labor and safety protections. This proposal builds on themes we started to explore during another group during 2023 ESRS. We welcome paper submissions along with interactive session proposals that explore aspects connected to social sustainability of farming. Connecting to the 2025 ESRS Conference theme "Navigating Rural Transitions: Exploring livable futures”, this Working Group is ultimately about engaging with topics connected to the social and economic conditions of farmers, farm workers, and their families along with the attractivity of the agricultural sector has one that supports decent and fair living conditions.

Themes and sub-themes of particular interest include:
1) Intersections of life and work: Exploring the ability of farmers, farm workers, and their families to meet their social and economic needs of farmers, farm workers, and their families along the life course. For example, this includes physical and mental health, status and access to health care, adequacy of
income, caregiving responsibilities, and access to parental leave and caregiving support.
2) Working conditions and attractivity of the agricultural sector.
3) Role of informal and formal support systems to bolster social sustainability in agriculture.
4) Interactions between social, economic, and environmental sustainability at home and on the farm.
5) For all these themes, explore variations in lived realities based on gender, class, race/ethnicity, age, household structure, geographic location, farming background, and experiences, role in agriculture (i.e. farm owner operator, family member, farm workers…)

Objectives

The goal of this working group is two-fold: 1) further the scientific debates on social sustainability in agriculture with an eye towards understanding who works on the farm, under what conditions, and how to best support them and 2) develop new networks of scholars to work towards transnational and transdisciplinary collaborations.

Format

This WG will combine traditional paper format, panel debates, Fishbowl, and/or World Café sessions. The latter interactive sessions will be used as a space to discuss themes that have emerged during the paper sessions and discuss potential collaborations

5. Gaming liveable rural futures: play and games for research and education

Conveners

Federico Andreotti, Farming Systems Ecology Group, Coordinator WUR Games Hub, Wageningen University
Marta Maicas Pérez, Business Management Department, Universitat de València
Jessica Duncan, Rural Sociology Group, Wageningen University

Topic

Serious games are an increasingly used approach for exploring liveable futures across diverse contexts and scales. Yet the proliferation of games, particularly in the context of EU projects, raises questions about the development, use and effect of serious games and play. In this session we aim to focus on the role of (serious) games and play in engaging with rural futures. We invite contributions that explore different methods and approaches to game design, game play and games in and for research and education. We are also interested in the effectiveness of games or how the measure impacts, as well as methods for translating results into diverse outputs. We also want to question how games can be used as companion tools for research and education processes to support the creation and validation of future scenarios. We further welcome contributions that link artists and designers to the development of serious games, or that engage multiple stakeholders across the game development process.

Objectives

The main objective is to develop a community of practice on rural and farming games, also connecting diverse hubs and networks. Our ambition is to organize a special issue out of this Working Group exploring the dynamics, opportunities and pitfalls of serious games and play for researching, predicting and imagining rural and farming futures.

Format

We will maintain a flexible organizational structure depending on the contributions submitted. This can include, for example, a session devoted to research papers, as well as game testing and play sessions and a roundtable.

6. Criminalised and poisoned ruralities

Conveners

Irene Vélez- Torres (Independent Researcher)
Chiara Chiavaroli (The University of Edinburgh)

Topic

This research group aims at investigating the interplay between state-led processes of criminalisation of rural livelihoods and peoples, and the artisanal, corporate and military-based poisoning of marginalised rural social actors. Building a theoretical bridge between environmental justice and social science debates on criminalisation, citizenship and state violence, we propose to analyze toxic contamination as a crucial dimension of the relationship between the state and criminalised, impoverished and racialized rural social actors. It speaks to the Conference objective of engaging with justice and discrimination in marginalised ruralities, and with the necessity of strengthening social movements and new forms of rural agencies for the decriminalisation of rural livelihoods.
The Working Group will focus on the following sub-themes:

The exercise of statehood through criminalisation and poisoning
Epistemic (in)justices and the role of scientific expertise (and silence) in criminalising discourses
Gender and racial (in)justice in criminalised and poisoned geographies
Activist-research efforts and methodological challenges towards de-criminalisation and de-poisoning

Objectives

This Working Group fosters knowledge exchange among scholars with different regional expertise. In particular, it is aimed at drawing connections and comparisons among the state-led mechanisms that, in different geographical and socio-political contexts, frame rural geographies and peoples as poisonable. While consistent scholarship, in the Latin American context, has analyzed the interplay between state violence and toxic contamination, this WG aims at expanding this regional focus entering in conversation with researchers working in South East Asia and Western Africa. The output of the research group will be the curation of a Special Issue on a leading journal (i.e. Geoforum). Furthermore, the group will put together an online methodological toolkit/blog series to enhance activist-research in criminalized geographies (e.g participatory video-making, Participatory Action Research, among others)

Format

The ESRS session led by this Working Group will be based on two components:

A 90 minute traditional panel where scholars from different regional contexts will present their work
A workshop/roundtable that propales a methodological conversation around activist-research in the context of criminalised geographies

7. Can rural be the new creative centre? Place-based innovation and the transformative power of cultural and creative agents in rural areas

Conveners

Nancy Duxbury, Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra,
Ilona Asare and Ieva Zemite, Latvian Academy of the Arts, Latvia,;
Anna Hildur Hildibrandsdóttir, Bifröst University, Iceland;
Katriina Siivonen, University of Turku,
Meng Qu, Hokkaido University, Japan

Topic

Culture is an integral aspect of local sustainability, an important dimension of living in a place, and a source of embedded knowledge, memories, and place-based understanding, incorporating lessons of change and guiding stewardship. As a catalyst for socioeconomic development and a space for dialogue, culture can play a central role in supporting the transition to ensure liveable rural futures. Culture-based actions have the power to identify strategies and tactics to engage citizens, stimulate cross-sectoral collaborations, contribute to the democratisation of societies, and raise awareness about urgent issues and the need to create equitable and sustainable societies. To fulfil this role, cultural actions/activities must be accessible financially, geographically, and socially and serve as a space for new ideas and inclusive participation, ensuring that every voice is heard and engaged. In this way, rural development can incorporate place-based innovations, contemporary artistic practices, and authentic cultural traditions to maintain distinct identities while navigating modern transitions.

Coupled with this attention to the holistic well-being of communities, cultural and creative agents can play an essential role as a driver of economic and social development in less urbanised and resource constrained regions. By leveraging place-based distinctiveness for localised development, they can strengthen local identity, attract investment, and generate jobs. However, they face an array of challenges and concerns, such as connectivity, whether in terms of transport and infrastructure or links to cultural and creative agents in other regions nationally and internationally; a need for intra-regional networking among cultural and creative agents; and more robust strategic planning and effective policy-making in relation to the rural cultural and creative sector.

Although the non-urban constituency of the cultural and creative sector has grown in visibility and significance over the last decade in Europe and internationally, it is still vulnerable due to the lagging attention of research and policy to its needs, characteristics, and potential. To help ensure that culture plays a meaningful role in liveable rural futures, this situation must evolve. There is a need to encourage transformative cultural policy and a holistic approach to all public policies which regards culture as a connective tissue for social processes – an experimental, innovative, and creative realm for sustainable and resilient solutions in the public interest of communities located in rural landscapes and ecosystems.

Subthemes that could be addressed within this Working Group include:

The ability and challenges of cultural and creative agents to address local issues, including the well-being of nature, and contribute to culturally-sensitive local sustainability
How cultural and creative agents contribute to cross-sectoral spill-over effects in other spheres
Creative approaches to regenerate and revitalise natural and cultural heritage (tangible and intangible)
Drivers and particularities of place-based innovation of cultural and creative agents in non-urban areas
Ways that place-based specificities can generate value within cultural and creative work in non-urban areas Follow-on effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the needs of cultural and creative agents and culture-based businesses in non-urban areas

Objectives

The objective of this Working Group is to better understand the forms, processes, and governance needs of rural-based cultural and creative agents in order to advance their ability to act as drivers of innovation, competitiveness, and sustainability. Within this Working Group, we wish to share new knowledge and catalyse discussion and networking, with the view towards the possibility of joint publications and other future collaborations. Ultimately, the aim is to contribute to a more informed and sustainable future for practitioners in cultural and creative industries based in rural/non-urban areas.

Format

a) Traditional academic paper session(s), number depending on how many submissions received;
b) Video showcase of 12 IN SITU case studies located in non-urban areas in 6 European countries: Portugal, Ireland, Iceland, Finland, Latvia, and Croatia

8. Rural Proofing: Disclaimer of Meaningful Diversity or Promising Tool to Progress with Place-based Rural Policy-making?

Conveners

Henk Oostindie, Rural Sociology Group Wageningen University, Netherlands
Bettina Bock, Rural Sociology Group Wageningen University, Netherlands
David Miller, James Hutton Institute, Scotland

Topic

This working group aims to start from and build on contemporary rural diversity in geography, demography, infrastructure, functionalities, as well as attendant well-being, social-, spatial and environmental justice issues, concerns and performances. Recognising this diversity has the formal mantra of EU rural development policies for a longer time, with LEADER forming the prime example. Yet, at the same time and perhaps somewhat contradictory, the EU started more recently to embrace and promote rural proofing as a way forward to prevent unforeseen negative effects of general policies by extra checks on their potential effects on rural areas. An EU policy ambition that, at first sight, may be difficult to align with full recognition of meaningful rural diversity and the place-specificity of rural transition processes, prospects and problems. WG contributions and presentations could form the basis of a special issue or a policy brief to inform Europe’s Long Term Vision for Rural Areas (LTVRA) and its accompanying plea for rural proofing.

We therefore invite papers that look into the following topics:

Rural development tools that build on rural diversity while addressing territorial inequality Ongoing rural proofing efforts and experiences
Rural proofing as multi-level and multi-actor policy challenges
Promising rural proofing processes, practices and methods

Objectives

The objective of this working group is to share scholarly insights into ongoing experiences with rural proofing and compare how and under which conditions rural proofing might become a promising policy tool to co-shape rural transition processes in ways that acknowledge the place-specificity of rural dynamics, well-being performances, concerns and challenges.

Format

short presentations/pitches as the basis of round table discussions

9.From Food country to Carbon country – Rural Livelihoods and the tensions between agriculture and ‘climate-solutions’ markets

Conveners

Rudi Messne, Queensland University of Technology (Australia), Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy
Carol Richards, Queensland University of Technology (Australia), Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy
Elizabeth Ransom, The Pennsylvania State University, School of International AJairs, Rock Ethics Institute

Topic

About half of global habitable land is under agricultural production, a land-use producing vast quantities of food as well as significant environmental impacts including GHG emissions and resource depletion, but also social impacts on people, communities and livelihoods. Recent developments saw climate change and climate politics challenging agriculture with novel types of land use to decarbonise industry and human activity. Agricultural land is becoming a centrepiece of national and international net zero strategies, including the Common Agricultural Policy, as land provides climate mitigation and abatement opportunities through methods such as carbon sequestration into soil, bio-carbon-sequestration, forest regeneration, arable land conversion and grazing exclosures, and by oRering open space for wind and solar energy production. In some countries, the conversion of land-use to serve carbon markets has been causing fast rising land prices and corporate purchases of property, not only significantly transforming natural landscapes but also the lives of rural communities, farmers and their families. This session invites contributions that engage with the transformation from food land and food communities to carbon land and carbon communities.

Empty land holdings, anonymous land ownership and diminishing prospects for rural communities are already part of the fall-out from this transformation. Furthermore, the disputes and contestations between farmers and resource companies, renewable producers, carbon developers, and financial and political elites give rise to an important question about the role of food production and agricultural land in decarbonisation eRorts. This working group engages with the core themes of ‘liveable rural futures’, including the tensions between food security and decarbonisation, politics and justice, and the experiences of communities and farmers who may face uncertain futures living on the land. This working group aims to understand how communities and farmers respond to the changing natural and political environments of climate change.

Objectives

This working group aims to bring together diverse contributions, focused debate,
and also potential collaborations. For example, the convenors have chaired a session at the ISA
Melbourne 2023 on “Food System Shocks and Food security vulnerabilities (RC40)”, which
received many submissions and eventually was held in two sessions due to the high level of
interest. A selection of conference papers were included in a Special Symposium in Agriculture
and Human Values edited by the convenors, which has just started to publish the papers in the
past few weeks.

Format

The proposed format is a traditional presentation followed by discussion, with about 5-
6 papers to be delivered within 90 minutes. Depending on the contributions received and the
level of interest, an additional panel debate could be considered if it fits into the overall
conference schedule.

10. Varieties of Rural Gentrification

Conveners

Kyra Tomay, Department of Sociology University of Pécs, Hungary
Gözde Orhan; Department of Social Sciences; Altinbas University, Turkey

Topic

In recent decades, the meaning of ""rural"" has undergone significant transformation, accompanied by shifts in population composition. For various reasons such as the climate crisis, the COVID 19 pandemic, and safety concerns there has been a noticeable trend of mobility from urban to rural areas across many parts of the world. Although this movement became especially pronounced during the pandemic, certain social segments had already begun migrating to rural areas earlier, driven by factors like the desire to escape urban challenges or to connect with rural lifestyles. As urban values, habits, and people become increasingly present in rural areas, there is growing interest in exploring the impact of urban dwellers on rural landscapes from various theoretical perspectives, such as amenity migration, counter urbanization, and geoarbitrage. Our working group aims to investigate this migration phenomenon through the lens of rural gentrification theory, focusing on the relationships that urban newcomers develop with specific rural localities. We will explore their projections, expectations, motivations, and influence on these rural areas.

Objectives

Gentrification studies are typically situated within the field of urban studies. However,
gentrification is no longer an exclusively urban concept ; a considerable body of literature has
emerged that applies this framework to rural areas (see, for example, Phillips, 1993 , 2004; Smith,
2002, 2007; Guimond and Simard, 2010). The primary objective of our working group is to
demonstrate the applicability and explanatory power of the gentrification concept with in the rural
contexts, using case studies from diverse research fields with different socio economic, historical, and
cultural backgrounds.

Our second objective is to conduct a comparative analysis of rural gentrification processes across
various contexts and countries, with in Europe and beyond. In our experience, the scientific literature
is dominated by authors and theories based on Western research while researchers from the (semi
periphery often attempt to fit their research findings into these conceptual frameworks, they also
encounter significant differences alongside similarities. Our aim is to discuss the extent to which
similar trends are evident, or whether distinct variations in rural gentrification can be identified.
This collaboration was introduced at the ESA 2024 conference in Porto.

We aim to refine our research, connect with researchers from different countries who share similar perspectives, and produce joint publications or a thematic issue through the networks we will establish at the 2025 ESRS conference.

Format

Traditional academic paper sessions including 12-15 minutes long presentations and a longer (30 minutes) roundtable type discussion . Depending on the number of the abstracts , we are happy to manage more time slots as well. In line with the conference team's suggestions, we propose a photo exhibition focused on visual elements, as using comparative photographs will
effectively illustrate the gentrification process.

11.What Is, and to What End, Do We Teach Rural Sociology?

Conveners

Annett Steinführer (Thünen Institute of Rural Studies, Braunschweig, Germany)

Topic

Teaching rural sociology has always been a marginal endeavour to academic sociology whereas in the context of agricultural faculties and universities, its relevance strongly declined over time. Given the increasing societal interest in (perceived) rural-urban differences or even divides, in conflicts over land use and land rights, in transforming agrofood systems and nutrition patterns, but also with regard to changing research methodologies, time is ripe to re-reflect on teaching rural sociology. The ESRS conference is a highly appropriate forum to discuss which topics, theories, concepts, methods, methodologies and research ethics are considered necessary to be taught to future scientists, agricultural practitioners, public officers and lobbyists, to mention but a few possible career paths of rural sociology students. The WG is of course also open to experiences from neighbouring social science disciplines, such as rural geography.

Against this backdrop, the WG wants to address the following questions:

Which importance is given to specific subfields of rural sociology, such as socio-spatial issues of rural areas, agricultural developments and food systems in transitions? How do they relate to each other? To put it differently: Is agriculture still considered and taught as the main topic of rural sociology?
Which ‘top-five’ concepts and theories of rural sociology would we highlight?
Are there national and international ‘classics’ of rural and community sociology that we consider relevant in teaching today (and how do the students perceive them)?
When teaching rural sociology, which relevance is given to methodological issues? Are they taught similar to general social-science methodologies or would we stress some specifics?
What are major learning objectives that we want the students to achieve?
Which institutional challenges does rural sociology teaching face, be it in relation to general sociology or to neighbouring academic fields?

Objectives

The aim of this WG – the title of which freely follows the heading of Friedrich Schiller’s inaugural lecture on universal history in Jena in 1789 – is to share knowledge and experiences from different countries and universities on teaching rural sociology and neighbouring social science disciplines. The WG want to inspire the further development of rural sociology curricula that take both nationally/culturally specific traditions and international debates into consideration.

Format

The Working Group is planned in two parts: The first part shall consist of short academic papers (10 minutes maximum) following a relatively structured outline (to be developed by convenor/s) in order to collect and share as many teaching experiences as possible. The second part is planned as a workshop to jointly reflect on major cross-cutting topics, concepts, theories, ‘classics’ and methods. Ideally, this workshop will be the first step on the way to a joint paper as a mid-term outcome of the WG.

12. The role played by forest and forestry in rural territories in transition

Conveners

Fátima Cruz-Souza, University of Valladolid;
Xesús Lage-Picos, University of Vigo;
María Elena Nogueira, University of Burgos;
Beatriz Izquierdo, University of Burgos

Topic

For the last few years, forestry is increasingly recognised as one of the activities to be considered in the development of rural territories. Global environmental crises are having profound impacts on rural landscapes and forest resources. Different studies have been focusing on the link of forestry with rural areas from an economic and environmental perspective, but also considering social interactions. The significance of forests in ongonig reestructuration of rural spaces, is crucial in the transition and construction of new rural spaces. A topic that is allied to theme of the 2025 Congress of the European Society for Rural Sociology.

Objectives

Taking this overall framework, some guided questions are risen: Which social factors are involved in forest management and sustainability? How do local people – forest owners and residents – connect with forest territories? Who are the main actors in forest and local governance? What does the forest represents for them? How is the women’s situation in forest sector? What are the motivations, barriers and roles played by small forest owners in forest management and making decision processes? Which is area of connections between rural development (and the rural) and forestry? This Working Group bases its experience in several studies carried out by an interdisciplinay research group for the last decade at Spain and Europe. Proposals from Sociology, Social Psychology, Forest Engineering, Environmental Sciences, and other related disciplines are most welcome.

Some of the sub-themes that are expected to be explored and discussed are as follows:

Meanings, discourses and social representations of forests.
Small forest owners and forest management.
Values and traditions in forest communities and practices.
Place attachment and forests landscapes.
Cooperation and forest governance.
Linkages between agriculture, rural development and forestry.
Forest multifunctionality: climate change adaptation, biodiversity protection, wood and non-wood production, recreation, and so on.
Gender and forestry: Women’s participation and role.
Youngs´ interest in forest issues.

Format

This WG adopts a mixed methodology; a World-cafe format will be used for the presentations, while coordinators will carry out a panel-debate closing session regarding all the interventions, ideas compiled and future proposals.

13. Social participation and rural activism in rural spaces in transition

Conveners

Beatriz Izquierdo Ramírez, University of Burgos;
Ma. Elena Nogueira Joaquín, Universidad de Burgos

Topic

Depopulation is probably one of the main challenge that most of European rural areas is facing, being also a relevant reason for their transformation. Although social sustainability of rural places relies on different factors, the resilience of rural population to resist and, even, overcome this “crisis” becomes an issue. In fact, over the last few years, some of these territories have developed an intense community dynamism that is increasing the generation of social and cultural capital, as well as forms of attachment. Taking this overall context, the expected discussions of this group are aimed to explore the identities of place (or forms of attachment to territory) and, in particular, the ‘new’ forms of collective action incorporated within social movements considered as ‘activisms’.

This WG aims to explore the processes of territorial dynamisation through the analysis of different actions developed in these areas. The novelty of the experiences lies in their capacity to involve people. These actions are aimed at ""transforming"" and ""dynamising” these rural areas in transition, but are far from the tutelage of public administrations. Indeed, the singularity of decision-making rises also as a relevant issue. The WG engages with the themes of the Conference particularly from the idea of research rural spaces in transition.

Objectives

In this WG particular attention is paid to new or reconfigured social and community networks, social participation experiences and representations, and actions regarding rural activism. Some of the sub-themes and questions that we expect to explore and discuss are as follows:

Characteristics and features of these actions. How do these experiences contribute to territorial dynamisation? What is the role of NNTT in this process? What is the particular relationship between depopulation and social participation? How is collective mobilisation transforming rural areas? Does collective mobilisation involve rural residents with the territory?
The motivation of the participants and the decision making process. Which is the main motivation for joining these organisations? Which is the socio-demographic profile of the participants? How decisions are taken in these organizations? Which are the main issues being discussed? Are these dynamics drawing different types of rural futures and, if so, what makes the difference? Can these mobilisations represent a new way of rural activism? Which are their main features?

Format

For this WG, lightning talks are particularly appropriate and case studies are most welcome. Thus, very short presentations (2-8 minutes) will be presented by authors before moving on to an open and moderated discussion involving the audience.

14. Routes to revivifying reconnection in rural community

Conveners

Harry G. West, Centre for Rural Policy Research (CRPR), University of Exeter
Catherine Broomfield, CRPR, University of Exeter
Steve Emery, CRPR, University of Exeter.

Topic

In many European countries, rural communities are heterogenous places criss-crossed by socio-economic and cultural tensions and exclusions. Modern rural communities are more commonly described by dualities of disconnection; rural-urban, local-incomer, farmer-nonfarmer. Despite concerted efforts by many in farming to reconnect, the disconnect stubbornly persists. For farmers, as with others feeling culturally isolated from the community within which they dwell, a lack of connectedness impacts individual wellbeing and the social resilience of the community itself. Assuming a return to Tonnies’ notion of tightly bonded rural gemeinschaft of kith and kin - whether real or imagined - is not an option, what, then, are the routes to reconnection within the realities of modern rural communities? Is connectedness and resilience found, as Eric Thrift suggested for cities, in ‘looser ties of friendship and conviviality’; in the everyday mundane interactions that transcend an individual’s sub-group identity and connect them as persons-in-community? Do we find a way forward by revivifying traditional rural celebrations and festivities? And what of the universality of food as a gathering place for conviviality and care? Papers are welcome on any topic related to routes to revivifying connectedness of rural communities, be it from the perspective of various sub-groups within rural communities, or through the lens of food in any of its dimensions, or approaches to interpersonal engagement and communication, or the revivification of traditional rural practices, celebrations, or any other lens that helps to bring the topic into focus.

Objectives

The main objective is to stimulate group discussion, potentially leading to a co-authored paper, exploring the topic and suggesting areas for further research.

Format

The WG will be based on an approach developed by Prof. Harry West as convenor of Exeter Food: A University Research Network, of a ‘mezze’ workshop, bringing a diverse array of short taster presentations to the table to stimulate open, convivial group discussion. Presentations will be approx. 5-10 minutes. If fewer submissions are received, this will be extended to 20 minute slots. In true mezze style we welcome presentations in a variety of formats including traditional academic, audio/visual, and oral storytelling.

15. Envisioning liveable futures for water dependent rural communities in transition

Conveners

Svels Kristina, Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke)
Barz Fanny, Thuenen Institute of Baltic Sea Fisheries, Germany
Bruckmeier Karl, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, NOVA University, Portugal, and Faculty of Economics, South Bohemian University, Czech Republic
Freeman, Richard, Newcastle University, UK, CITTA – Research Centre for Territory, Transports and Environment
Gonçalves Carla, Newcastle University, UK, CITTA – Research Centre for Territory, Transports and Environment
Martínez-Cabrera Helena, Fisheries and Natural Resource Economics Unit, University of Santiago de Compostela
Salmi Pekka, Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke)

Topic

In the context of ongoing rural transitions, the pursuit of liveable coastal and inland water futures necessitates a focused exploration of critical questions specific to water dependent natural-resource-based activities and livelihoods, local communities and to the socio-ecological dynamics that shape the contextual interactions with the rural environment. As coastal regions and inland water areas face increasing societal and ecological pressures it becomes essential to investigate how the socio-ecological transitions of the rural landscape and water areas interact and benefit the wider society. Through these explorations, we aim to illuminate pathways toward just and sustainable policies resulting in sustainable water rurality futures. By addressing the complexities of the governance of the European coastal and inland regions, small-scale fisheries and the lived experiences of other groups that use natural resources, our working group aims to contribute valuable insights into creating just and sustainable futures.

Objectives

We aim to investigate the interplay between rural coastal and inland water dependent communities and the socio-ecological challenges they face. An interdisciplinary approach will highlight how the natural and social sciences can collaborate to address both problems and solutions. We welcome papers on:

Property rights, water commons and the potential for community-led initiatives that enhance social and cultural sustainability, moving from top-down governance towards co-governance arrangements.
Successful small-scale fisheries arrangements, environmental policies, and governance structures for promoting liveable rural communities.
(Gender) equity among professional groups and the role of women in reproducing water dependent communities
Pluriactivity, multifunctionality and diversification within coastal and inland water communities and their natural-resource-based livelihoods.
Life mode diversity and changes for coastal and inland water communities and livelihoods.
The role of social capital in strengthening resilience and adaptive capacity in water-dependent communities across cultures
The socio-ecological dynamics and cultural aspects of coastal and inland water landscapes with local communities and professions.
Structural diversity and change of water dependent professions e.g. small-scale fisheries, such as shortage of young professionals.
Co-production of knowledge, participatory arrangements, and inclusion of local knowledge in coastal and inland governance e.g., within Maritime Spatial Planning, EU Common Fisheries Policy and Integrated coastal zone management.
Envisioning alternative futures, exploring innovative governance frameworks and coastal imaginaries, and aspire accompanying alternative economic frameworks such as degrowth.
Blue Justice in coastal and inland water communities.

Format

90-minute sessions featuring PowerPoint presentations and pre-appointed discussants, followed by interactive dialogue with the audience using different tools (e.g. word clouds or Kahoot).

16. Food self-provisioning and skills in rural areas: lessons for food resilience in household and community contexts

Conveners

Petr Jehlička, FoodRes Project, Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague,
Petr Daněk, FoodRes Project, Department of Geography, Science Faculty, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia
Jarkko Pyysiäinen, PROSE research group, Department of Economics and Management, University of Helsinki, Finland
Toni Ruuska, PROSE research group, Department of Economics and Management, University of Helsinki, Finland
Lucie Sovová, FoodRes Project, Rural Sociology Group, Wageningen University, Netherlands
Milla Suomalainen, PROSE research group, Department of Economics and Management, University of Helsinki, Finland
Jan Vávra, FoodRes Project, Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague

Topic

The increasing gravity of the environmental crisis and its implications for the future of the food system forces scholars to consider less conventional lines of thought. This Working Group seeks to bring to the fore three important food-related topics linked to resilience that tend to be overlooked in scholarly debates about rural communities’ liveable futures. These are food self-provisioning, a combination of formal and informal food sourcing, and skills of self-provisioning.

First, in many societies around the world including a number of European countries, the countryside is a place of thriving informal food economy that includes foraged food and food produced in gardens and other places by non-farming households and communities. Networks of exchange, gifts and sharing do not only broaden households’ food provisioning options, but they also foster social relations and connections to place.

Second, in their everyday routines, food-growing rural households and communities combine food obtained from informal sources with that acquired via formal, market channels, whether it be the conventional retail sector or alternative food networks. The ability to draw on more than one food supply chain and the possibility to take advantage of their combination strengthens these households’ food resilience. In addition, through extensive sharing and caring networks, the benefits of this more resilient food economy transcend the individual food-producing household to have a community-wide reach. Research on non-market food provision and market-based food supply has mostly developed in separation. However, most households navigate complex foodscapes featuring both types of food sources. Understanding the interdependencies between the formal and the informal food systems and the hybrid spaces in between is thus a relevant research endeavour.

Third, both the productive engagement in the informal food system and its enmeshing with the formal system - the maintenance of the resilient food system at the household and community levels – depends on several sets of well-developed skills and the ability to experiment and innovate. Skills, as elements of social practice, serve as important connectors within and between practices and affect the emergence, diffusion and performance of practices. Although skills are widely acknowledged as crucial elements of social practice, they have received relatively limited attention in empirical research both in sustainability studies and in theories of resilience.

We seek both conceptual and empirical contributions from a diversity of geographical contexts. While we welcome submissions addressing any of the three individual topics highlighted above, we particularly appreciate submissions that combine two or all three topics, including those that transcend the scope of the Working Group and take its topics in a new direction non-envisaged in this blurb.

Objectives

The objective is to strengthen, by networking and collaborations, the research on social practices, underlying knowledges and skills needed for maintaining resilient and diverse food systems at the level of rural households and communities.

Format

Traditional academic paper sessions

17. Studying the societal aspects of social-ecological transformations in rural areas

Conveners

Jens Jetzkowitz, Thuenen Institute of Rural Studies

Topic

As climate change, biodiversity loss, and other environmental challenges persist, far-reaching societal changes are increasingly discussed within European societies to promote a path toward sustainable development. These changes include the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, modifications in land use (e.g., rewetting drained peatlands previously used for agriculture or forestry, reducing livestock farming, restoring natural river courses), and the promotion of a circular economy to conserve land. These targeted changes profoundly impact the economic practices of agricultural and forestry businesses, as well as the practices and lifestyles of farmers and foresters. They also affect other rural populations by disrupting established behaviors and transforming existing social structures. Such societal dimensions are often overlooked when discussing transitions to sustainable social development in rural regions and evaluating innovation processes. Yet, managing social-ecological transformation processes requires an understanding of the conditions under which people in rural regions can embrace sustainable development concepts and translate them into viable, livable futures.

Against this background, our working group will address the following questions, using concrete examples within a European context:

What impact do transformations in land, freshwater, and marine use practices have on users and other affected populations?
What patterns of meaning, values, attitudes, and practices can be empirically observed among user groups and other population groups during social-ecological transformation processes?
Which existing socioeconomic inequalities are affected by specific social-ecological transformations, and where do new inequalities emerge?
Which research methods are suitable for studying the societal dimensions of social-ecological systems to support transformation processes?

Objectives

The aim of the working group is to share new empirical findings on the topic. It ideally brings together researchers who want to explore opportunities for future research collaboration in this thematic field. As a result of the comparative discussion, the possibilities of establishing a research network and, if appropriate, acquiring research projects are to be explored.

Format

Lightning talks – short presentations (up to 8 minutes maximum, depending on the number of qualified abstracts) will be given by the presenters before an open and moderated discussion with the audience and a collaborative visual output (e.g. mindmap).

18. Queer(ing) Agriculture and Ruralities

Conveners

Henk van Milligen, Rural Sociology Group, Wageningen University;
Clara Lina Bader, Rural Sociology Group, Wageningen University;
Laura Esche; Rural Sociology Group, Wageningen University;
Prisca Pfammatter, University of Bern, Geography

Topic

Sub-theme 1: On The Ground - Importance of Sexuality and Gender in Rural (Agricultural) Practices
Sub-theme 2: Institutional - Beyond Binary Ontologies - Social, Ecological, and Political
Sub-theme 3: Futuring - Exploring Liveable Futures: Queer Utopias

The proposed WG engages with queer (farming) ruralities to contribute to an understanding of liveable rural lives and futures in all their diversities. Ensuring liveable rural lives for all means taking seriously and placing centrally the lived experiences marginalised by i.e., heteropatriarchal constructions of “the rural”. Doing so allows for a more complex - and accurate - view of rural areas as neither conservative and traditional nor as an escape from social norms and institutional oppression. Rather, one that can bring to light the contractions underlying these assumptions and how queer rural (farming) identities persist and thrive despite, and because of, what everyday liveable rural and agricultural lives look like. More than that, in and through the working group we strive towards queering different binaries (rural/urban, masculine/feminine, straight/queer, nature/culture, private/public) and exploring the opportunities that thinking about and with “the rural” through queer lenses can contribute to liveable futures.

Objectives

Sub-theme 1. On The Ground: Gain insights into queer, rural agricultural practices; Panel Discussion
Sub-theme 2. Institutional: Spark new (necessary) debates surrounding the harm of binary, institutional systems. Incentivise organisations to not only look at ecological but also social and political diversity. Understand governance of queer lives in rural areas; Open format
Sub-theme 3. Futuring: Visibilise existing alternatives. Expanding the imagination of the possible. Challenge binary thinking; Arts-Based Approach(es)

Format

Panel discussion, Open format, Arts-based approaches

19. Back to the Future? Rural Biological Economies and Agri-Food Futures

Conveners

Damian Maye, University of Gloucestershire, UK;
Rob Burton, Ruralis, Norway;
Richard Helliwell, Ruralis, Norway;
Mark Riley, University of Liverpool, UK;
Emma Roe, University of Southampton, UK;
Eirik Magnus Fuglestad, Ruralis, Norway;
Aimee Morse, University of Gloucestershire, UK;
Philippa Simmonds, University of Gloucestershire, UK;
Jane Mills, University of Gloucestershire, UK;
Hugh Campbell, University of Otago, New Zealand

Topic

In 1987 David Goodman et al. published a landmark book on biotechnology, in response to a seemingly imminent new era of genetic engineering. They distinguished two critical processes, namely: ‘appropriationism’ (where certain agricultural inputs are replaced by industrial alternatives) and ‘substitutionism’ (where outputs utilise non-agricultural raw materials and industrial substitutes for food and fibre). The vision was to replace ‘inefficient’ natural processes through engaging non-farm expertise to bolster agri-food innovation systems. This book coincided with highly vocal GM campaigns against biological engineering and the arguments to some extent lost their salience, with a feeling that industrial food could provide the food society needed. Disruption to food systems and spikes in agricultural commodity prices, which started back as the early 2000s, and have become more volatile and systemic, now significantly question this current version of industrial food as delivering food security for the longer-term. Alongside this, we have a renewed emphasis on new forms of bioeconomy in agri-food, epitomised by alternative proteins but constituting a much wider mix of biotech innovations both upstream and downstream of farms including in the areas of food safety, biosecurity, and (genetic) precision agriculture e.g. drought-, heat-, flood- resistant seeds; farm animals less susceptible to disease or welfare problems.

Given this new generation of biological economy innovations, alongside system pressures on agri-food, we argue the time is ripe to go back to Goodman et al (1987) as a provocative and instructive guide to envision the next round of biotech-enhanced agri-food futures, mindful of the failings of the former incarnations of industrial food production intersections with biotech. The ideas are arguably more pertinent now than they were then, and these may be harnessed, and expanded upon, to assess emergent biological economy innovations in agri-food. Here we include too, for example, Le Heron et al’s (2016) New Zealand work, Burton’s (2019) work in Norway, and most recently, Wilkinson’s (2024) work in Brazil and China. In all of these works, it is noted that the basic premise of a bio(tech)economy is a highly attractive proposition – effectively combining digital, molecular and genetic innovations (Goodman, 2023) with different raw materials to produce a plethora of refined products, including synthetic foods, synthetic fuels and building materials (Burton, 2019). It includes not only agriculture, but also forestry and fisheries as industries in a new ecosystem of biotech economies - in theory enabling and creating new markets, new skills and livelihood opportunities for farmers, fishers, and foresters.

It is this economic potential that in many respects explains the wide support and excitement that we see across Europe in support of the need to develop bioeconomies. However, there are also significant conflicts in the underbelly of this promissory narrative. This is not simply because they challenge rural producer identities and social norms, but also because of (future) disruptions to how producers produce, where the value added eventually ends up, and the balance between ‘appropriationist bioeconomies’ (that augment conventional agriculture) and ‘substitutionist bioeconomies’ (that threaten to put agriculture at the bottom of the value chain). We call for papers, then, that engage critically with rural bioeconomies and their place in rural areas in the past, now and in the future. Papers do not necessarily have to apply Goodman et al as their framework, but we aim for papers that develop critical sociological theory and apply novel methodologies via empirical cases and data to uncover what these economic relations mean for agricultural and bio-production sectors in Europe.

Objectives

Given a concomitant emphasis on planetary climatic concerns and a need to harness biological resources through science and technology to address those concerns, this working group aims to critically explore new (and old) forms of biological economy practice emerging in and through rural space and the implications this has for rural economies and livelihoods, with a call for a return back to early seminal rural sociology theory to examine these relations and futures.

Format

Traditional workshop session/s: 3-4 papers presented by authors in advance of opening to the floor for Q&As. We plan to submit a selection of papers as a special issue to a top tier journal.

20. Reframing transitions in rural spaces: Livelihood opportunities and everyday life in Southern Europe

Conveners

Fatmanil Doner, Public University of Navarre (UPNA), Spain;
Elisabete Figueiredo, University of Aveiro;
Maria Jesus Rivera, Public University of Navarre (UPNA)

Topic

The impact of the economic and financial crisis, pandemic, wars and conflicts, climate change has become a key issue for the understanding of contemporary transformation in European countries. The problems arisen under this transformation are an issue of growing academic interest, primarily looking at the negative impacts on population: increase in social inequalities, new agenda of neoliberal policies, economic recession, cuts in social services, changes in the labour market, transformation of migration patterns, and so on. Similarly, some studies have been focused on the positive effects: resilience of communities, solidarity, collective action, emergence of new labour relations and new jobs, mobility, development of new economic and cultural activities, among other.

However, when compared with the study of the consequences of the transformation for urban spaces, little attention has been paid to the specific impacts on rural territories, and existing literature is dispersed and lacking an integrative vision. In the case of rural spaces of Southern Europe, the lack of an integrative vision is still more evident. Two are the main reasons that make the study of these areas of paramount relevance. Firstly, most of these territories were still in a process of development initiated during the last decades of the past century and some of the implemented policies entailed the slowdown of development policies. Secondly, these countries suffered the implementation of the deepest austerity plans within Europe. They share a lower level of development than Northern European countries and they also share a higher impact of the transformation. This Working Group aims to shed light on the possible effects of transformation in Southern and Mediterranean Europe from a broad perspective. Looking at this region from an integrative perspective will allow us to see similarities and dissimilarities in relation to the impact of the transformation as well as in relation to resilience and livelihood strategies to ensure liveable rural futures. Furthermore, it will pave the way to analyze the current transformation of these rural spaces from a regional and global perspective instead of focusing on only local perspective.

Objectives

It is expected that the contributions will be based on empirical case studies conducted in different rural spaces of Southern and Mediterranean Europe. Some of the contributions will explore the challenges presented by the uncertainties and tensions while other contributions will more focus on resilience, livelihood strategies, and survivable futures.

Format

Our working group will welcome the discussion of diverse issues, such as: the emergence of new ruralities and mobilities; the exploration of the processes of labour and land use; patterns on rural governance for the new context; the motivations of the back to the countryside dynamics; the adaptation strategies, among other relevant issues are empirical analysis of different rural territories along the Southern and Mediterranean countries. Considering the format, we intend to integrate classical academic paper sessions and full paper debate sessions.

21. Bio-region as a strategy towards liveable rural communities: seeking balance between social, economic, and environmental futures

Conveners

Līga Paula, Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies
Līga Proškina, Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies
Kaspars Naglis-Liepa, Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies
Anne Põder, Estonian University of Life Sciences
Elgars Felcis, Ecovillage ""Zadiņi"", University of Latvia
Weronika Felcis, Ecovillage ""Zadiņi"", University of Latvia
Jostein Hertwig, Global Alliance for Organic Districts

Topic

An urgent necessity to preserve biodiversity and landscapes and develop resilient social systems, local cultures and economies determines the need to seek new paradigms for the development of rural areas. To manage and coordinate a holistic transition to liveable comprehensive local systems involving a wide range of local agents based on their voluntarily coordinated alliance and ecological consciousness, the concepts of bio-region or organic district are useful. The idea of a bio-region is aimed at boosting the local economy in a certain non-administrative but functional geographical area in a way that it is friendly to society and nature, fostering the production and processing of local food, preserving traditional landscapes and cultural heritage. Thus, a synergy is created based on biological principles and production and consumption practices (organic agriculture, short food chains, organized supply and demand groups, quality restoration). Bio-region, however, cannot be treated as a radical tool without respecting conventional farming as a tradition in a certain community, therefore an alliance is established between farmers, residents, tourism operators, associations and public administrations for sustainable resource management, thus seeking balanced solutions and transition models for a common liveable future. The bio-region approach can balance the interests of a wider public in preserving natural resources and ecosystem services with the local community’s goals of economic growth and cultural development.

Along with the topics already mentioned above, we would like to encourage discussions on a wide range of practical experiences and challenges of the existing bio-regions, eco-regions or organic districts in Europe and other parts of the world. We are interested in social movements that stand up for local food, reduce the ecological footprint of farms, support the community agricultural sector, contribute to food and cultural or culinary tourism, and preserve local landscapes and biodiversity thus leading to a tipping point for change and a transition to developing new bio-regions. Studies focusing on all aspects of the social, economic, environmental, institutional and cultural dimensions of existing and potential bio-regions are welcomed.

Objectives

The main objective of the WG is to promote networking between researchers and practitioners and facilitate discussions around the experience of bio-regions (also eco-regions, organic districts) in different countries as well as the challenges that communities face during the transition period when becoming a bio-region. The results of the discussions could later be integrated into a joint publication such as a journal article.

Format

The session welcomes papers based on both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Studies focusing on bioregions from a multidisciplinary perspective are especially welcomed. The WG aims to generate discussion among the participants about the above-mentioned topics. We plan to mix the traditional presentations with interactive Word Café format (researchers and practitioners divided into small interactive groups where some of the key issues emphasized by the presenters will be discussed).

22. Knowledge Economies and Cultural Crossroads: Migration and the Transformation of Rural Europe

Conveners

Gusztáv Nemes, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, HUN-REN, Budapest, Hungary;
Chris High, Department of Sociology, Linnaeus University, Sweden;
Jakub Stachowski, Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway

Topic

This working group will explore the transformative role of migration in diversing rural knowledge systems in Europe. As new populations, including urban gentrifiers and immigrant groups from within and outside of the EU relocate to rural Europe, they bring unique cultural perspectives, expertise, and sustainable practices. These new actors not only alter the social fabric but also contribute distinct knowledge economies and sustainable practices, which can redefine local development paths.
Through this working group, we aim to investigate how these new knowledge systems influence rural economies, sustainability efforts, and the viability of rural living. Sub-themes include:

The integration of sustainable practices through knowledge exchange among migrants and local communities.
The impact of diverse cultural perspectives on rural economic and social development.
Potential tensions and synergies arising from these encounters, particularly within the contexts of rural industries, sustainable agriculture, eco-friendly practices, and rural innovation.
The potential future scenarios for rural societies including processes of rural social change, diversification, social divisions or (de)peripheralization.

Objectives

Our goal is to facilitate an interdisciplinary exchange that brings together researchers and practitioners focused on rural migration, knowledge economies, and sustainable living. We hope this dialogue will lead to:
1. A deeper understanding of the role diversifying knowledge systems play in shaping rural Europe.
2. Networking and collaborative opportunities for future research projects.
3. Insights that could inform policy, community engagement, and sustainable practices in rural areas.

Format

The session will open with brief presentations to introduce key insights (Pecha Kucha, or lightning talk format), followed by a round-table discussion or interactive workshop. This format will allow participants to collaboratively explore themes and identify opportunities for a special issue or collaborative publications. Presenters will be encouraged to bring visual, audio, or cultural artifacts that reflect the knowledge exchanges within these communities, enriching our collective understanding of the topic.

23. Rolling out digital infrastructures for liveable farming futures?

Conveners

Barbara Van Dyck, ULB (BE);
Daniel López-García, IEGD-CSIC (ES);
Soledad Cuevas Garcia-Dorado IEGD-CSIC (ES)

Topic

The European Union’s effort in reinforcing digital infrastructure across regions and sectors is decidedly reflected in its agricultural agenda. According to policy documents, investment strategies, foresight exercises and what not, expanding digital infrastructure ostensibly holds important promises for the pursuit of liveable rural futures. Many of these documents reflect a view that assumes that digitalising agriculture - premised on automation and on big data collection about farmers’ and consumers’ behaviour, soil and climate conditions, living organisms’ genomic structures, and the growth of plants and animals, in combination with dedicated infrastructures, finance and policy mechanisms - will necessarily benefit the farming sector and society. Negative aspects recognized in both policy and corporate documents, as well as a wide array of research strands, are limited to misuses, technical flaws, lack of investment or lack of skills which can be fixed. Meanwhile, a body of critical scholarship in rural sociology, agrarian studies, political (agro)ecology, human geography and related interdisciplinary fields is emerging. They caution that the push for digital agriculture: reinforces hegemonic food systems that concentrates the political and economic power further in the hands of an increasingly small number of corporations (Pimbert 2022, Goodman 2023); raises concerns for peasant decision-making autonomy and deskilling (Stone 2022), reshapes the nature of labour and human-environment relations in agriculture in ways that reproduce colonial biopolitics and extend them in new forms of digital imperialism (Giles and Stead 2022); complicates the transformation of agriculture towards more environmental and social sustainability (Clapp and Ruder 2023, Hackfort 2023); reinforces extractivist coloniality (Arora and Van Dyck 2021); pose problems to Indigenous data sovereignty (Foster et al. 2023); may potentially accelerate the very conditions that produced the problems they are promising to solve on the farm level (Carolan 2023). Moreover, feminists have called for attention for intersectional subjectivities and the erasure of social reproduction in the approach of researching agridigital technologies (Nelson et al. 2024). In this WG we explore how these and other contributions help us - or fall short to stimulate to - think through digitalisation efforts in agriculture in relation to power concentration, fascism, coloniality, depletion of natural resources, intersectional injustice, democracy, rural livelihoods, commons, and radical care.

Objectives

We want to bring together people that study agrodigital technologies and related infrastructures as contested
terrains that are indivisible from power dynamics and the longer histories of agricultural modernisation. We
would like to take stock of the questions that are (not) asked and that may help us think in the wake of an
increasing acceleration of investment in digital infrastructures in rural Europe. More specifically, we aim to:
• map emerging counternarratives to the hype and promises;
• identify blind spots in current critical research;
• exchange ideas on research questions and methods;
• share experiences on how to set links between critical research on agrodigital technology and current
social agri-food movements.

Format

The WG will combine different tools for knowledge sharing and co-creating. Depending on the number of
contributors we imagine to intertwine standard pannel sessions with co-creation sessions, in which acendants
will share experiences, knowledge, resources and questions, supported by adapted techniques to build up a
shared, critical research agenda. More specifically, we will organize at least the following sessions:
• PhD-workshop for sharing hypotheses and methodologies;
• Workshop on strategic research mapping to build new research questions and agendas;

We welcome standard communications, as well as other contributions such as podcasts, video clips, artistic
interventions, or live performances. The WG is expected to take at least two pannel sessions (90 minutes each),
and a cocreative workshop session. The number of contributions received could make necessary more sessions

24. Frontiers in agricultural territorialization: Economic viability, socio-ecological sustainability and the future of food systems

Conveners

Patricia Homs Ramírez de la Piscina. Member of Reciprocity Studies Group and Department of Economic History, Institutions, Politics and World Economy, Universitat de Barcelona;
Will LaFleur. Member of Extractivisms and Alternatives Initiative (EXALT) and Global Development Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki;

Topic

This panel aims to discuss the situation of territorialized food systems (agroecological farming, regenerative agriculture, Community Supported Agriculture-CSA, Alternative Food Networks-AFN etc.) in the primary sector around the Global North. It explores the multiple dimensions of economic viability and the socio-ecological (un)sustainability of farms and food networks that could ensure liveable rural futures. The panel also invites researchers to critically reflect on the terminology used by academics and scholar-activists when referring to the unsustainability of small and medium-scale farming that connects with a key goal of the congress: what is the role of researchers in the future of food systems?

Small and medium-sized farms have been shown to harbor greater agro-biodiversity and even higher yields than conventional agriculture (Ricciardi et al. 2021). Yet, the number of small and medium-sized farms continues to dwindle globally, exacerbated by land-grabbing processes and financial non-viability, resulting in both a consistent trend of populations to urban centers and a reduction in people engaged in small-scale agri-food production.

Despite being financially non-viable on paper, many new territorialized farming projects—including older farms that continue to persist—consider monetary value as but one value amongst other deeply rooted social and environmental values. Such values, often associated with reproductive tasks and care, are crucial for networks pursuing a range socio-ecologically sustainable practices such as traditional knowledge recovery, the recuperation of disused land, overall biodiversity regeneration through diversified crops and soil health focus, community creation through direct relationships with consumers or collective decision making through assemblies. Although such practices can be broadly viewed as ‘sustainable’ and necessary for an agricultural transition, they are almost completely un(der)valued in global capitalist markets. That is, these practices are generally unpaid and resistant to monetary valuation, in part because they are difficult to measure from capitalist and extractivist logics. Ultimately, this means that farmers dedicate a significant amount of hours to care work that is largely uncompensated when selling into markets. In this light, and in relation to the ongoing financialization and consolidation of land (Clapp & Isakson 2018; Ouma 2020), small-and medium scale farms feel continuously squeezed, leading to analysts (and in some cases farmers themselves) to talk about ‘self-exploitation’ (Galt 2013) and burnout, while the overall number of such farms continues to decrease.

Objectives

The goal of the panel is to share new knowledge and open a debate about the multiple dimensions of sustainability and the role of researchers when defining them. The panel addresses contributions that provide ethnographic and place-based data and analysis regarding, but not limited to, the following issues:

Wht tools are farmers/food activists using to fight, resist, or challenge the constraints of their positions?
How do farmers talk about and represent the challenges, successes, and limitations of their viability and continuity? How do researchers talk about and represent the circumstances of such farmers, and in what ways do such representations matter?
How can we account for other values beyond monetary value? What are the processes of valorisation involved in these other values? When are they measurable and when are they incommensurable? What tools do we have to measure these values?
What is the role of land, infrastructures and services in better supporting such communities?
What is the role of food and agricultural policies in improving the viability of these communities? And what are members' demands to policymakers?
What are key challenges, limitations, or potentials when thinking and imagining alternative agro-food futures?a

Format

We plan to organize 1 or 2 consecutive sessions structured around a series of thematically cohesive short presentations 10-15 minutes each, followed by a 30 minute debate for each session with specific questions addressed to the speakers.

25. Quantifying the environment and the reshaping of social and natural relationships

Conveners

Chi-Mao Wang, Taiwan National University;
Ruth McAreavey, Newcastle University;
Seema Arora-Jonsson, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala;
Josepha Milazzo

Topic

This is a panel debate comprised of five panellists who will give short (five minute) presentations before opening up to discussion. The organisers will moderate the panel. The topics for panellists include rural politics and governance; epistemologies and expert knowledge; more than human relations; planetary crises. Panellists will include a range of scholars at different stages of their careers and each will be asked to respond to a specific question relating to the panel and tailored on their specific research interests. As we will engage with global debates on planetary issues, with a view to bring ideas and perspectives from beyond Europe into view.

Objectives

Discussion of global debates on planetary issues

Format

Moderated Panel

26. Gender equality and the liveability of agriculture and rural futures

Conveners

Bettina Bock, Rural Sociology Group, Wageningen University
Jessica Duncan, Rural Sociology Group, Wageningen University
Marta Guadalupe Rivera-Ferre, Research Professor, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Institute for the Management and Innovation of Knowledge
Maura Farrell, Senior Lecturer, School of Geography & Archaeology, NUI Galway Ireland
Sally Shortall, South East Technology University, Ireland/ Newcastle University, England

Topic

The future is female, or so some declare. But is that the case for rural communities across Europe? This Working Group welcomes contributions that engage with research, policy and practice on/around gender, sexual diversity and feminist perspectives as they relate to agrarian and rural futures. As such, we welcome papers and contributions that engage empirically, methodologically and/or theoretically to questions of gender and sexual diversity in the European countryside and that question the relations between gender and liveable rural futures.

Objectives

To bring together researchers working on gender, sexualities and feminist perspectives to reflect on the relationships between gender and liveable rural futures, and to examine diverse policy priorities to support enhance gender equality across Europe’s farming and rural communities.

Format

We aim to have sessions for paper presentations showcasing in particular the work of early -career scholars, followed by a dialogue, bringing together researchers active in three EU-funded projects (SWIFT, GRASS CEILING, FLIARA). The dialogue will consider how to enable rural and farm women to lead on ecological transitions across Europe. We will ask these panellist to engage directly with the papers presented in the earlier sessions, and to reflect on how these findings relate to the insights and outcomes of their projects share their insights, with a focus on policy recommendations.

27. Rural housing crisis or rural housing in crisis? International perspectives on current housing challenges in the countryside

Conveners

Aura Moldovan, Thünen Institute of Rural Studies, Braunschweig, Germany
Tialda Haartsen, University of Groningen, Faculty of Spatial Sciences, Groningen, Netherlands
Annett Steinführer, Thünen Institute of Rural Studies, Braunschweig, Germany

Topic

The image of rural housing is dominated by spacious owner-occupied detached houses with gardens, in low-density residential areas, for nuclear families. While such homes are not exclusively found in rural areas, they are perceived as the materialized conception of rurality, and they represent the ultimate goal of housing careers amongst long-term stayers and (potential) in-migrants.
This Working Group aims, firstly, to explore and challenge this idealized image of rural housing against contemporary realities. Owner-occupied detached houses are not always available, affordable or suitable for all rural dwellers and newcomers. Rental and multi-story housing are far more common in rural areas than general perceptions of rural housing would suggest, being necessary to meet the housing needs of a variety of household types beyond the nuclear family, including lower-income households, younger and older people, or single parents.
Secondly, we aim to discuss directions for future developments and transformations in rural housing. The lack of affordable housing has become a political issue across Europe. The housing crisis is interlinked with the 2022 energy crisis, leading to calls for not just affordable and adequate, but also energy efficient and sustainable housing, in terms of both the materials used and reducing new soil sealing. In rural areas, future housing developments are situated in a specific context, with more available space for new buildings and higher vacancy rates for refurbishments, as well as more resistance towards new housing structures and layouts, beyond the owner-occupied detached home.
Against this background, we invite empirical and conceptual papers which provide new insights on:

The housing realities, needs and wishes of various household types and social groups in rural areas, in the context of ageing and diminishing populations.
Current examples of non-traditional, multi-story or alternative forms of housing beyond owner-occupied detached houses, as well as the challenges and resistance they face.
Examples of innovative, climate-friendly, sustainable construction or reuse, of reducing new land take or soil sealing, and the related debates on costs, conflicts and (non)acceptance.

Objectives

The Working Group aims at collecting and sharing scientific insights from different countries and perspectives on the highly under-researched topic of rural housing to identify research gaps and to possibly initiate future collaborations.

Format

A traditional academic paper session is proposed for this Working Group. Depending on the number of abstract submissions, we could organize more than one 90-minute-session of this format.
Additionally, we propose a photo exhibit. We would invite participants to send us one or two photos illustrating their research and showing different facets of rural housing. Further details on organizing this exhibit would depend on the room availability at the conference venue.

28. Studying islands on their own terms: developing research for liveable island futures

Conveners

Ruth Wilson, James Hutton Institute
Luke Dilley, Akita International University
Laura Hodsdon, Falmouth University
Meng Qu, Hokkaido University
Ana Vuin, SRUC
Simona Zollet, Hiroshima University
Claire Hardy, James Hutton Institute
Niamh Mahon, James Hutton Institute
Erika Anne Hayfield, University of the Faroe Islands
Rosie Alexander, Danish School of Education

Topic

Islands have certain attributes that make them different from many other rural communities. Their physical separation from the mainland and from other islands presents challenges in navigating transitions and exploring liveable futures. These challenges include practical issues such as transporting human and non-human animals and goods across oceans, retaining and attracting working age populations, and developing sustainable economies. They also include less tangible concerns such as building agency to empower communities, developing meaningful social networks within, between, and beyond islands, and identifying, acknowledging and sustaining valuable cultural heritage through times of change. These challenges mean that islands need to be understood “on their own terms"" and highlight the need for solutions that are tailored to the needs of island communities.

This Working Group will explore what liveable island futures look like from the perspective of islanders themselves. It will focus on approaches to conducting research that are designed to improve outcomes for island communities by foregrounding islanders’ views and needs, whether this be through traditional, innovative or participatory methods. It considers all aspects of island social and working life, including cultural dimensions, ‘more than human’ worlds of islands (encompassing: farm, companion, and ‘wild’ animals), and people’s entangled relationships with nature, both terrestrial and aquatic. We welcome both traditional presentations that convey the lived experiences of islanders/island researchers as well as contributions that employ non-traditional, innovative and visual formats and research methods.

Objectives

The Working Group will consider what constitutes liveable island futures from a range of perspectives. It will bring together multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary researchers to share new knowledge via research presentations and other outputs and facilitate group discussion with the aim of networking and developing future research collaborations and proposals and laying the groundwork for a future special issue of a journal.

Specifically, the objectives are to:

Share knowledge of how change is affecting island residents from different demographics in different countries.
Engage with social and cultural dynamics and tensions among groups of residents and consider the importance of the cultural and natural milieux for rural and island futures and how they may be changing in response to periods of transition and crisis.
Hear from research that works collaboratively with island communities, or is led by island communities, to build agency and foster empowerment for sustainable change.
Highlight the importance of attending to place-based understandings of islands and island communities within research, engagement and policymaking.
Consider what type of actions could facilitate sustainable island futures, including scales of action that might be overlooked or understudied in more mainstream research and in national policymaking.
Present and discuss effective methods for accessing lived experiences and generating meaningful insights into different aspects of island life including the use of novel methods and different media such as photos, video and audio.
Identify collaborations among researchers interested in island life.

Format

This WG will incorporate the presentation of traditional academic papers with the exhibition of ‘artefacts’ aimed at exploring changes in island life. Prior to the congress, WG presenters will be asked to contribute artefacts (broadly defined to also include visual and audio objects and outputs) that highlight some aspect of change on islands with a view to stimulating discussion and reflection amongst attendees and presenters. WG attendees will be invited to look at the exhibit for the first 5–10 minutes of the session. This will be followed by a series of more traditional academic presentations. The final 20 minutes will be reserved for questions, discussion and reflections. Depending on the space and resources available, the exhibit will remain on display for all attendees to enjoy throughout the conference and to add feedback or contact details should they wish to be included in follow-up discussions.

29. Technological and Digital Rural Futures

Conveners

André Magnan, University of Regina
Emily Duncan, University of Regina
Oane Visser, International Institute of Social Studies
Fabio Gatti, Knowledge, Technology and Innovation group (KTI), Wageningen University

Topic

This Working Group examines the role of digital and other novel technologies in shaping rural transitions, focusing on how they transform labor, land, and knowledge. AgTech innovations—such as remote sensing, drones, GPS-guided machinery, robotics, and Big Data—have the potential to reshape social and economic relations by influencing farm knowledge and decision-making, introducing new surveillance logics and power relations, and creating new divides based on inequalities in knowledge, capital, and scale. While AgTech promises to enhance farms' economic and environmental performances, critical issues around data ownership, farmer autonomy, and power dynamics demand attention. We seek to explore how technological change impacts rural futures both on and off the farm, with a particular focus on intersections between gender, age, precarity, marginalization, immigration, and other aspects of rural life.

We invite submissions related to the following non-exhaustive list of topics:

Digital divides in rural and agricultural contexts
The impact of surveillance capitalism on rural/agricultural life
Agricultural data governance, ownership, and control
Processes of deskilling/reskilling associated with AgTech and related innovations
Farmers’ engagements with digitalization - beyond simple adoption/non-adoption models
Intersections and tensions between digitalization and agroecology
Socio-technical imaginaries of rural futures

The Working Group contributes to the conference theme ‘Navigating rural transitions’ by exploring how technological change contributes to social, economic, and political transitions in the agri-food sector and beyond. In what ways and under what conditions can new technologies contribute to liveable rural futures? In what ways and under what conditions do they reproduce or deepen the contradictions and crises affecting rural life? We welcome contributions from diverse geographical contexts, including underexplored European regions and beyond, as we aim to reduce the divide between studies of high-tech digital agriculture in the Global North and simpler, rapidly spreading technologies like mobile-based tools in the Global South.

Objectives

To exchange new knowledge and engage in critical discussions on socio-technical change and digitalization in food and agriculture.
To explore opportunities for collaborative research and potential joint publications.

Format

We invite participants to submit abstracts for traditional academic papers. We welcome contributions from practitioners (e.g., representatives from farm movements) that could enable us to bring focus on practical experiences and grassroots responses to digitalization. Depending on the number of submissions, we may organize more than one 90 minute session.

30. Building Liveable Rural Futures: Social and solidarity economy in the light of social and climate justice in rural areas

Conveners

CSURGÓ Bernadett, HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences
GRUBER Marika, CUAS Carinthian University of Applied Sciences
HOFER Katrin, BAB Federal Institute for Agricultural Economics, Rural and Mountain Research
KISS Márta, HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences
LATIFI Somaye, BAB Federal Institute for Agricultural Economics, Rural and Mountain Research
MEGYESI Boldizsár, HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences
RÁCZ Katalin, Institute of Agricultural Economics

Topic

Rural areas face a range of challenges such as social and spatial inequalities and negative effects of climate change, which have a disproportionate impact on vulnerable groups, who have limited access to resources, services, and economic opportunities. The Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) provides a vital framework to address these injustices by promoting collective action, inclusivity, local and sustainable development. Through cooperatives, community-based enterprises, NGOs and sustainable practices, SSE helps to empower marginalized populations, fosters resilience, and enhances social cohesion, contributing to greater equity in rural communities. Furthermore, a new social economy model has emerged in several European countries, closely intertwined with organic farming and sustainable production and consumption. Renewable energy production and consumption also appeared in the context of SSE's particular focus on energy poverty. Climate justice is crucial in the SSE and might contribute to the social integration of marginalised communities in rural areas.

Aligned with the conference theme of exploring pathways toward a liveable rural future, this WG will explore the role of SSE in addressing the challenges and opportunities for rural areas. Subthemes will focus on different vulnerable groups such as women, youth, ethnic minorities, migrants, people with disabilities, and older people, and the intersectionality of vulnerability. SSE not only addresses spatial, social and climate injustices, but also offers solutions for building a just and sustainable future. By promoting collective ownership, equitable distribution of resources and community-led initiatives, SSE creates opportunities for more inclusive and resilient rural societies where justice and well-being thrive.

Objectives

The WG will delve into the diverse vulnerabilities faced by rural populations and address their specific needs. The specific objectives of the WG are:
1. Discuss different theoretical approaches on SSE
2. Focus on roles, types, operational characteristics and social aims of SSE in different countries.
3. Explore the role of SSE in transition knowledge and practices toward sustainability
4. Examine the various dimensions of vulnerability affecting marginalized populations, including economic instability, social inequality, and environmental risks.
5. Showcase how the SSE provides alternative economic models that prioritize human well-being, inclusion, and sustainability over profit maximization.
6. Present real-world examples of how SSE initiatives have successfully addressed vulnerability, fostering sustainability, resilience and empowerment within communities.
7. Explore the role of renewable energy in the alleviation of energy poverty.
8. Discuss the links between SSE and organic social agriculture.
9. Promote the local economy and products for economic sustainability and contribution to sustainable local food network.

Format

We plan to mix the traditional presentations with interactive world café or round table format, depending on the number of abstracts.

31. Coalescing the Public Sphere and Policy-Making: using sociological knowledge for liveable futures?

Conveners

Maarten Crivits
Áine Macken-Walsh
Claire Bernard-Mongin
Gianluca Brunori
Joost Dessein
Jessica Duncan
Patricia Fry
Laurent Hazard
Robert Home
Martin Javornicky
Frank Vanclay

Topic

Recent societal challenges, exemplified by the 2023 -2024 farmer protests across Europe, highlight pressing need for inclusive and participatory mechanisms within rural governance and agri-food systems. These challenges expose systemic gaps in the public sphere, a space where, as Fraser (1994) defines, “a free circulation of discourses about public issues can take place,” fostering critical engagement with the state. Despite decades of reform efforts, including the EU’s governance-based initiatives such as LEADER and recent CAP instruments, farmers and other rural actors often remain excluded from meaningful deliberation. Power imbalances, administrative burdens, and norms hampering participation in established institutions continue to undermine a functioning public sphere.
Simultaneously, sociological knowledge has played a pivotal role in shaping policies like LEADER, inspiring the adoption of ‘multi-actor,’ ‘interactive,’ and ‘culture-sensitive’ approaches within the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). However, there is an ongoing disconnect between the theoretical promise of these instruments and their operational realities, which often fail to reflect sociological heuristics concerning power, agency, and representation. Bridging this gap requires not only advancing participatory policy-making but also revitalizing the public sphere as a dynamic space for dialogue, collective reflection, and dissent.

This working group will explore how sociological knowledge and social science can invigorate the public sphere and enhance the democratic, inclusive, and just implementation of EU rural and agri-food policies. By focusing on CAP instruments and other EU initiatives, the group aims to uncover pathways for fostering public dialogue, addressing power disparities, and creating mechanisms that empower diverse rural actors to realise their hopes.

Objectives

This working group aims to: explore how social science can play a renewed role in facilitating public sphere deliberation and support the transmission of ideas to institutional politics; explore the theoretical and practical intersections of public dialogue, sociological insights, and participatory policy-making; identify pathways for inclusive governance; examine how CAP instruments and other EU programmes are and can promoting inclusivity, agency, and representation in rural policy; develop strategies to meaningfully engage farmers and other rural actors in public discourse and decision-making processes; unpack power disparities and agency in the representation of diverse rural identities & hopes in policy design and implementation; and translate research into action by fostering dialogue between conference participants to co-design actionable frameworks that integrate sociological heuristics to policy evaluation and impact assessment.

Format

This WG welcomes traditional presentations of academic papers; and also three-minute ‘policy challenge’ presentations, which link sociologically-oriented problems with policy needs. Each session will include a co-design workshop, facilitating dialogue among participants to collaboratively identify operational opportunities for integrating sociological knowledge and public sphere discourse into CAP and other policies.

32. Turbulent presents and uncertain futures: How to explore and navigate agrifood system and rural transitions and multiple futures

Conveners

Jérémie Forney, University of Neuchatel, Switzerland;
Richard Helliwell, Ruralis, Norway;
Hugh Campbell, University of Otago, New Zealand;
Egon Bjørnshave Noe, Danish Centre for Rural Research, University of Southern Denmark;
Tobias Gandrup, Danish Centre for Rural Research, University of Southern Denmark;
Martin Lindhard, Danish Centre for Rural Research, University of Southern Denmark;
Annette Aagaard Thuesen, Danish Centre for Rural Research, University of Southern Denmark.

Topic

Agrifood systems and rural places are currently facing major challenges related to climate change, resource depletion, pollution and biodiversity loss. These challenges are unfolding in relation to rapidly changing economic, social and technological conditions of food production, provisioning and consumption. Combined these dynamics are opening a multiplicity of futures that are unfolding simultaneously, albeit spatially and temporally unevenly. As a response to these divisions, arguments are missing for investing in rural areas beyond avoiding trouble with protest movements like the Yellow Vests in France, farmers protests across Europe, the right turn in the eastern part of Germany, and not least, the US divide between different states.

This working group seeks to open a discussion around the role of future in the governance of rural and agrifood system transitions. On the one hand, according to the Italian sociologist Elena Esposito, and her concept of “retrospective causation”: We make our decisions based on our contemporary expectations of the future. However, at the same time, we know that the future depends on what we decide to do or not to do today. On the other hand, the complexity of current ongoing changes questions our ability to envision futures. Uncertainties abound, and we don’t know what the future will hold. From this perspective, governing transition is less a process of directing systems to certain endpoints. But rather, a practice of attempting to open certain futures through interventions in the present, whilst closing the possibility of others to be realised, in which neither are guaranteed. The pursuit of liveable rural futures and agrifood system transition therefore requires grappling with transition in a context of uncertainty, where visions of desirable futures are necessary, while human capacity to control and direct transitions remains partial and elusive. This raises the question at the heart of this panel – How do we move away from the idea that we can control transitions, to something that is suitably open and experimental (with regards to process and future endpoint) but still engages with the need to do something in relation to the future? How to question dominant expectations of the future, while still anticipating necessary changes to orient transition processes? To give up the assumptions of control and directed change not only questions the use, benefits and limits of imagination and visions. It also requires rethinking policies, institutions and practices for navigating change and uncertainty in rural places and agrifood systems.

Objectives

The objective of this working group is twofold. Firstly, we aim to engage in an empirically grounded discussion of agrifood system transition dynamics and the tensions between the need of meta-narratives to guide our understanding and decision-making regarding the rural transition and the acknowledgment of uncertainty of objectives and effects. Secondly, we seek to engage in a theoretically grounded discussion of how to navigate and foster desirable transitions under and within conditions of uncertainty.

Format

Paper presentations followed by a panel debate. We invite submissions that are both empirical explorations of rural and agrifood system transitions, and submissions interested in theorising change and futures under conditions of uncertainty.

33. Reflecting on inclusive research practices in rural contexts.

Conveners

Emilia Pietka-Nykaza, the University of the West of Scotland
Caroline Nye, Centre for Rural Policy Research (CRPR), University of Exeter
Rebecca Wheeler, Centre for Rural Policy Research (CRPR), University of Exeter
Philippa Simmonds, Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI), University of Gloucestershire
Hannah Chiswell, Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI), University of Gloucestershire
Dr. Catherine Broomfield, Centre for Rural Policy Research (CRPR), University of Exeter
Simone Sterly , Institut für Ländliche Strukturforschung – IfLS
Helena Blankenstein (Interdisciplinary Artist)
San Piere Niceto, Sicily

Topic

While promoting respect, equity, inclusion, and collaboration with participants are some of the core ethical principles for research, what this looks like in practice in rural contexts is still a matter of debate. There remains ongoing discussion around areas such as power imbalances, representation, gatekeeping, consultation fatigue, and the transactional value of knowledge. To address these ongoing ethical challenges researchers have tended to focus on developing transdisciplinary and participatory methodologies for greater inclusion of multiple rural communities and marginalised voices in the research process. A variety of terms and approaches, including creative practices, action research and co-production, are increasingly used in seeking to achieve this aim, but to what extent are they successful and what alternative challenges or trade-offs might they bring? How these methodologies work in practice - including researchers’ reflections on their feasibility, effectiveness and ongoing impact or legacy - is the topic of this session. We also wish to draw attention to how other stages of the research process, - e.g. project design, funding bodies, institutional requirements, data analysis, publication and project closure – can either promote or limit greater equity and inclusiveness in rural research.

Contributors are invited to reflect on these types of issues, drawing on their research experiences and past and present practices to help identify key barriers and consider potential opportunities for shaping a more positive, equitable and genuinely inclusive approach to rural research in the future. Submissions may choose to address a number of themes relevant to this topic or focus in on a single issue or provocation arising from a particular research project(s).

Objectives

The session will provide participants with the opportunity to share new knowledge and best practice, and provide an arena for discussion and collective reflection around applied practices to support greater inclusivity across different stages of the research process in rural contexts.

Format

The session will be divided into two parts. The first part will include a series of presentations from contributors (around 5-7 minutes). We welcome contributions that reflect on research practice-based situations (these can include all stages of research process) aiming at promoting inclusion, equity, and collaboration with participants.

While the first part will provide an arena to share knowledge and best practice; the second part of the session will include open discussion, facilitated by the convenors using participatory creative methods, to outline opportunities and challenges identified by participants and identify how we might build capacity and develop more inclusive participation practices for rural research.

34. Territorial-level agroecological transitions for liveable rural futures: directions, deadlocks, detours

Conveners

Simona Zollet, Hiroshima University
Anda Adamsone-Fiskovica, Baltic Studies Centre (BSC)
Cristian Alarcon-Ferrari, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU)
Emils Kilis, BSC
Alessandra Corrado, University of Calabria
Mikelis Grivins, BSC
Johanna Bergman-Lodin, SLU
Mario Pullano, University of Calabria
Nina Isabella Moeller, University of Southern Denmark
Margarita Cuadra, SLU

Topic

This WG focuses on the concept of agroecological (AE) transitions at the territorial level to create more sustainable, resilient and equitable agri-food systems, and on how such transitions could support liveable rural futures. In recent years, agri-food systems in rural areas have been facing increasingly diverse and intersecting pressures and crises, such as climate change and intensifying natural disasters, the decline of the farming population, socio-economic inequalities, and ecological degradation. These challenges require a complete rethinking of how we conceptualise and pursue sustainable - and ultimately liveable - agri-food futures. AE, as a science, a practice, and a social movement, offers pathways toward more resilient, just, and sustainable agri-food systems. It integrates socio-ecological principles with agricultural practices and emphasises equitable relationships within agri-food system actors, challenging dominant agro-industrial models. Yet, AE transitions are complex, and a multitude of actors need to be brought together to make difficult choices at various levels along the process of introducing and implementing AE principles and practices.

In this WG, we are particularly interested in the following topics:

Social and environmental justice in rural agri-food systems, with a focus on how can AE mitigate conflicts and promote equitable access to resources such as land and water;
The role of knowledge and collective action in supporting AE transitions, with a focus on how is AE knowledge created, contested, and mobilised across rural contexts, and what kinds of collective action support this mobilisation and diffusion;
The multiple pathways and narratives shaping AE transitions, with a focus on how different technical, environmental, social, economic, political, cultural and other forces and contexts (co)define and (co)influence the choices, strategies, and trajectories of communities, organisations, and policymakers engaged in transitioning toward more sustainable food and agricultural systems;
The lived experiences of rural communities engaged in territorial-level AE transitions, with a focus on their understanding of what makes rural areas ‘liveable’ and what contributes to rural quality of life.

Objectives

This WG aims to bring together researchers and practitioners from different disciplinary backgrounds and national contexts to take a critical look both at AE as a practice and as a study object and explore how territorial-level AE transitions may contribute to liveable rural futures. It aims to advance the discussion of the progress, challenges, and alternative approaches in the field. It serves as a follow-up to a similar WG held during the previous ESRS Congress, to support both new and ongoing research collaborations and knowledge sharing. Given the location of this ESRS congress, a separate session is planned to be devoted to relevant research from the Baltic Sea Region. We invite diverse perspectives, which address theoretical, methodological and/or practical aspects of studying AE, including both successes and failures in AE transformations. The WG also aims to more critically and deeply discuss and analyse the nexus between food security, water security and rural development at regional territorial levels.

Format

The WG will be organised as a series of moderated paper sessions structured around thematically cohesive short presentations or lightning talks (5-6 talks of 8-10 minutes each per session). We welcome talks in ‘non-traditional’ formats such as storytelling, or the use of different media such as photography or video. These talks will serve as the starting point for a moderated discussion, which will define open issues and debates around ongoing AE transitions. We also aim to discuss plans for a possible special issue or publication on territorial-level AE transition initiatives around the world.

35. Farm transformation: diversification, greening and other pathways towards social and economic sustainability?

Conveners

Melf-Hinrich Ehlers, Agroscope, Socioeconomics Research Group
Sandra Contzen, Bern University of Applied Sciences, School of Agricultural, Forest & Food Sciences
Stefan Mann, Agroscope, Socioeconomics Research Group
Mark Riley, University of Liverpool, Department of Geography and Planning
Bethany Robertson, University of Leeds, School of Sociology and Social Policy
Brian Leonard, University College Dublin, School of Agriculture and Food Science

Topic

Farms represent both a locus and agent of transformation. At the level of the farm, triggers for transformation can be manifold. Conversion to organic production, abandonment of livestock or farm diversification – the move to alternative enterprises beyond traditional forms of food production (e.g. dairying) – can be key aspects of farm transformation. Experiences of, and motivations for, such transformations vary across Europe. Farm diversification, for example, includes options such as agri-tourism, value added food production, renewable energy generation or on farm accommodation. Farms’ engagement with diversification are both influenced by, and have an influence upon, wider social transformations on the farm. Such social transformation may include the transfer of the farm from one generation to another (farm succession). Likewise, farm transformations can be part of life course occurrences at the family level – becoming parents, adult children leaving (and returning) to the farm or retirement. Social transformation of farms can also be driven by external agents such as subsidies, regulation, extension services, environmental change and new technology or internally, e.g. as part of entrepreneurial activities or business optimisation, which may include diversification. Drivers and triggers of farm transformation are likely to be filtered through, and reworked within, the prism of the farm such that their impact is likely to vary in different geographical and social contexts. It is necessary to understand how these changes become reworked at the micro-scale of the farm (family). Such an understanding would aid the assessment of current and future agricultural policy and the likely responses to the wider environmental, economic and societal challenges that agriculture will face in the coming years. This session aims to discuss the impact and potential for farm diversification and wider farm transformations to contribute to the viability and sustainability of farming and the rural
going forward. We welcome empirical and theoretical contributions dealing with various aspects of transformation of farms, such as:

The changing dynamics of (family) farm transformation
Economic, social and environmental impacts of farm diversification and other changes
Transformation potential and capacity of farms
Structures and actors that are influencing farm transformation, e.g. policy and advice
Effects of farm transformation on the farm’s social fabric, the farming community and society
Innovative approaches to studying farm transformation and/or farm diversification

Objectives

The emphasis of this WG is on knowledge sharing, exploring common research themes and approaches to create a network of researchers and practitioners in the area, with a view to longer term collaboration to develop the field.

Format

This WG will combine traditional paper presentation formats with interactive discussion sessions. The latter include short presentations (5 minutes) followed by a world café style facilitated discussion in which facilitators report back the key discussion points from their table.

36. The Political Dimensions of Rural Transformations. Exploring the Politicization of the Rural-Urban Divide and its Consequences for European Societies

Conveners

Tuuli-Marja Kleiner, Thünen-Institute of Rural Studies (Brunswick, Germany)
Larissa Deppisch, Thünen-Institute of Rural Studies (Brunswick, Germany)
Jens Jetzkowitz, Thünen-Institute of Rural Studies (Brunswick, Germany)
Michał Konopski, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization, Polish Academy of Sciences (Warsaw, Poland)
Stefan Becker, Thünen-Institute of Rural Studies (Brunswick, Germany)

Topic

Rural areas are undergoing a significant transformation, whether demographic, economic, or toward a sustainable future. These changes vary not only by rural region, but they are also perceived differently by the population, which can be reflected in election results and local protests. Terms such as 'rural revenge' or 'rural revolt' have gained prominence in political and academic discourse, also highlighting the perceived resurgence of the rural-urban cleavage. This divide is attributed in alternation to economic, cultural and political factors. Current discussions focus largely on electoral outcomes in Western democracies and may overlook the multiple ways in which this cleavage manifests itself. The dominant explanatory approaches have so far failed to provide a coherent explanation, and this may be difficult to achieve given the different national and regional contexts and auspices. Against this background, this working group aims to advance the theoretical, conceptual and empirical understanding of the urban-rural political divide by examining its forms, causes and, in particular, its consequences.

Objectives

The Working Group aims to bring together researchers investigating the different dimensions of rural transformations in European Societies. It provides a platform for the exchange of ideas and insights to identify political and societal divisions along geographical lines and to develop a better understanding of their dynamics.
Contributions are welcome that address the following questions in particular:
1. Political dynamics of rural regions:

Political attitudes and democratic support: can we identify and perhaps explain rural-urban differences?
Populism: what drives the popularity of populist movements in rural areas? To what extent do these dynamics challenge democratic principles?
Rural-urban divide and affective polarization: among other phenomena, how are political/geographical identities, cultural differences and growing hostility intertwined? (e.g., Boxell et al. 2020; Huijsmans & Rodden 2024).

2. Geographical and cultural polarisation:

Political culture: how do structural change processes influence spatial distribution of political and social attitudes?
Political communication and schemata: to what extent do urban-rural stereotypes appear in political and public discourse, and how do they affect social cohesion and democratic debate?

Format

Academic presentations

37. Arts and culture under pressure: What is their role for liveable futures in the rural?

Conveners

Dr. Gesine Tuitjer, Thunen Institute of Rural Economics
Prof. Marie Mahon, University of Galway
Enikő Veress
Ema Bašić

Topic

Europe is currently navigating transitions that bring both threats and opportunities for rural areas and impact on their liveable futures. Of concern are the disruptions brought on by events and phenomena such as climate change and environmental degradation, geopolitical conflict and erosion of democracy. How these transitions are navigated also matters; alongside governments, institutions, corporations, populist groups and civil society actors all exert increasing influence. How visions for liveable rural futures emerge is fraught with these complexities as rural populations seek to build inclusive, just and sustainable rural places and communities.

Arts and culture continue to be a resource for rural development and community building: artistic interventions can bridge divides and can bring different positions together; they can offer inroads to cooperation and communication, and celebrating heritage culture can be a means of identity formation, local cohesion and economic development. Although frequently cited in policy and strategy, support for this development potential of the arts and culture often fails to materialize beyond rhetoric. As a sector it continues to be characterized, for example, by precariousness of artists’ living and working conditions. Emerging evidence also suggests that artistic freedoms and the work of cultural organisations throughout Europe are subject to increasing political intervention. With this in mind, the session will ask in what ways arts and culture in rural areas are affected by the multiple crises outlined above and what role they play in ensuring liveable futures in the rural?

We invite contributions which:

a) Address the living and working conditions of artists in changing rural areas and under changing socio-political climates.

b) Analyze the conditions for art-making and cultural projects in rural areas from institutional, economic or political perspectives.

c) Assess the chances that participatory art projects in rural areas hold for community building, social cohesion, and local development more generally, as well as contributions which look at the challenges that participatory projects in the realm of arts and culture face.

Objectives

The WG is intended to bring together people working in the field of arts in rural development, and foster knowledge exchange and networking among them. In 2023, ESRS’s WG on Arts and Culture was highly successful and we would like to bring even more people together, and to make the 2025’s WG on Arts and Culture a seedbed for future cooperation.

Format

The format is intended as a classical presentation format with 4-5 participants for a 90 minutes slot. We want to give room for the discussion and therefore limit the number of presentations.

38. Rural population changes and challenges beyond the pandemic: renaissance, resilience or reversion?

Conveners

Neil Argent (Department of Geography and Planning, University of New England, AUSTRALIA)
Darren Smith (Department of Geography and Environment, Loughborough University, UNITED KINGDOM)

Topic

Population geography, sociological studies of population, and demography in rural settings. Migration, international and internal, into and out of rural settings, and their impacts. Ageing. Changes in family and household structures in rural households.

Objectives

As set out below.

Format

Sessions will involve a mixture of standard paper sessions, panel discussions/debates and workshops. A panel workshop on the impacts of international migration into rural areas is planned as part of the WG’s activities, if accepted.

In a supposed age of mobility (e.g. Schapendonk, 2020) and planetary urbanisation (e.g. Mould, 2023), the COVID-19 pandemic produced a sudden if temporary halt in both trajectories (e.g. Adey ey al., 2021). Exurban migration into rural areas surged, if intermittently, in many parts of the world, while international migration was largely paused (e.g. Dilley et al., 2022). Researchers, policy makers and practitioners are still coming to grips with the impacts of these changes on rural places and spaces. For example, the extent to which counterurbanisation migration will represent sustained population growth and demographic renewal for all categories of rural regions is unclear. The institutional structures governing international migration are also undergoing change as many countries review their capacity to absorb more population, on social, cultural, political and environmental grounds, even where local and regional labour market needs remain unmet, harming local and regional economies.

Despite some stereotypes, rural populations are dynamic, changing across time and space as well as in their internal characteristics. Migration and mobility processes and changes in fertility and family and household structures and living arrangements within societies help drive this dynamism. Secular trends in lifecourse and ageing, themselves tied to fertility decline and increased longevity, represent more long-term and stable forces for change. However, it is critical to realise that demographic change is expressed differently depending on, inter alia, geographical location, economic circumstances and political persuasion/objectives. Demographic change is perhaps better represented as a complex mosaic rather than a singular trajectory.

Papers that present informed, current perspectives on the changing demographic face of a diversity of rural areas in these troubled contexts are welcome.

References

Schapendonk, J., Van Liempt, I., Schwarz, I. and Steel, G., 2020. Re-routing migration geographies: Migrants, trajectories and mobility regimes. Geoforum, 116, pp.211-216.

Mould, O., 2023. From globalisation to the planetary: Towards a critical framework of planetary thinking in geography. Geography Compass, 17(9), p.e12720.

Adey, P., Hannam, K., Sheller, M. and Tyfield, D., 2021. Pandemic (im) mobilities. Mobilities, 16(1), pp.1-19.

Dilley, L., Gkartzios, M. and Odagiri, T., 2022. Developing counterurbanisation: Making sense of rural mobility and governance in Japan. Habitat International, 125, p.102595.

- Activities for early career researchers

Early career scholars (especially PhDs) are invited to apply for the ESRS summer school. This interactive and targetted session will take place on the 7th of July. It will be an opportunity to address questions of qualitative methods for livable futures, and to engage directly with editors of Sociologia Ruralis to learn about the ins and outs of academic publishing.

The maximum number of participants in these activities is limited and therefore, unfortunately, expressing your interest will not automatically guarantee you an invitation to attend the sessions designated for early career researchers.

To express your interest in the activities for early career researchers use the ExOrdo submission system.

- Advertise your book!

Did you recently publish a book that is relevant for ESRS participants? Please let us know if you would be interested in showcasing the book and we will consider your request.

To suggest a book for the showcasing event use the ExOrdo submission system.

- Poster session

If you feel that presenting your paper in any of the proposed sessions will not do justice to your work, you can apply for the poster session.