in recent years, multifunctional agriculture as a new paradigm of agriculture and rural development was introduced to the world. multifunctional indicates that the inclusion of agricultural production functions (food, fiber) and unproductive functions (field of employment and income, strengthening social capital, conservation of biodiversity and genetic enhancement of rural industries, represen...

Australia's rural hospitals face most of the same issues and challenges faced by metropolitan hospitals. However they also face additional challenges around geographic isolation, their iconic status and role as major employers in local communities, and their close relationship with community based health services. Future opportunities include more formal integration with community service throu...

This issue of SER contains three articles on public sociology and economic sociology, which all have their origin in a session on this theme that was held at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in August 2006 in Montreal. The reason for organizing this session was a sense that ‘new economic sociology’ has ignored many of the issues that are associated with the term ‘publ...

Do all disciplines fret over the state of their own intellectual and policy-relevant health? Is it a symptom of our hyper-reflexive and confessional times that collective anxiety has to be rehearsed over the track record, and present and projected performance of a group of scholars? Medical sociology’s lengthy reflections on the state of its own practice are recognizable as part of a more gener...

1. Sociology's Relevance to International Relations 2. Historical Origins of Sociological Thought 3. Historical Sociology 4. The Historical Sociology of the State and International Relations 5. Principles of Historical Sociology 6. Problems with Historical Sociology 7. Sociology of Globalization 8. Global Versus Historical Sociology? 9. The Future Sociological Agenda in International Relations ...

First paragraphs: What is farming for? are the objectives? How should it relate to nature and wider society?” (p. 121) asks Jan Douwe van der Ploeg in his new book, The Sociology of Farming: Concepts Methods. As an accomplished interdisciplinary scholar making significant contributions fields rural sociology, agroecology, peasant studies, offers emerging sea­soned scholars alike overview wide a...