Estrategias de reproducción social de mujeres jóvenes rurales frente al narcotráfico
The drug trafficking was installed in the Tierra Caliente region since the sixties and has remained as a viable and legitimate alternative employment in rural areas of the region. Drug trafficking is a phenomenon primarily androcentric, but what is the role of young women in it? While the direct link in drug distribution activities is rare among young rural women of this region, their participation through the relationships established with the men involved in these activities promotes social mobility and the maintenance of social and family structures within of rural communities.
Aproximaciones al arraigo y al desarraigo femenino en el medio rural : mujeres jóvenes en busca de una nueva identidad rural
Los estudios cuantitativos sobre la juventud rural constatan una preferencia de las mujeres jovenes por el abandono del medio rural. Hemos querido explorar aqui los aspectos cualitativos del desarraigo femenino. Las mujeres rurales que hemos estudiado, de una comarca del Principado de Asturias, viven en una sociedad abierta y global y se ven afectadas por esta apertura, por lo que conforman una percepcion de la ruralidad que es nueva. En este escenario, las jovenes deben tomar decisiones sobre su futuro, deben decidir si permanecer o marchar del territorio donde han nacido. Hemos encontrado mujeres que tienden al arraigo y otras que se orientan hacia el desarraigo, pero todas ellas se han visto afectadas por un conjunto de factores identicos, caracteristicos de una sociedad rural en transformacion. En este articulo constatamos que las jovenes hacen una analisis diferente de una misma realidad social. De momento, las mujeres que han optado por el arraigo reconocen decidir a contracorriente ; de forma poco objetiva, al margen de las opciones mas visibles y dominantes de insercion social y laboral. Aun asi, son ellas quienes nos estan dando las claves para comprender de que modo el medio rural puede convertirse en la mejor opcion , pues estas jovenes construyen su propia identidad en torno a la ruralidad.
Rural studies: Modernism, postmodernism and the ‘post-rural’
Abstract In response to Philo [(1992b), Neglected rural geographies: a review. Journal of Rural Studies 8 , 193–207), who calls for rural studies to take the study of ‘others’ more seriously, we argue the need to take postmodernism more seriously. The paper focuses upon the production of knowledge about rural areas by academics. In the narrative that we provide here, the ‘rural’ had a strong presence until Pahl's critique of the rural-urban continuum which both diminished the status of the rural and emphasised the role of class in shaping particular spaces. Newby and his colleagues applied class analysis to agriculture, likewise undermining the significance of the rural. Further applications of general social theory, such as the political economy and restructuring approaches, show how modernist rural studies seem to be fighting a losing battle to posit the indispensability of the significance of the urban-rural division as an explanation; articulating and rearticulating the divide within a whole range of processes: economic, social and cultural. Rural social scientists have woven this modernist narrative, but, as Philo shows, one effect has been the neglect of certain social groups, cultures and identities. However, in contrast to Philo, we argue that a rather fundamental reassessment of social scientific approaches to the rural is required if these ‘neglected others’ are to be satisfactorily considered. We believe a ‘sociology of postmodernism’ would offer a more reflexive perspective on the processes which give rise to ‘the rural’. We thus call for an end to the use of universal or global concepts such as ‘rural’ (or the ‘urban’) and for a concern with the way places are ‘made’. This will entail a focus on ‘power’ as certain actors impose ‘their’ rurality on others. We term this the study of the ‘post-rural’.