Social transformation in rural Canada: community, cultures, and collective action

This book is a collection of eighteen articles whose authors studied different aspects of social transformation taking place in Canada’s rural communities. Rural Canada faces demographic challenges resulting not only from fertility decline but also from youth out-migration. Together, these two phenomena are resulting in more rapid aging of the rural than of the urban population. As a consequence, changes in social and cultural relationships are shaping a new pattern of rural life in Canada. The articles are written by 19 scholars from a variety of fields, including economics, sociology, history, geography, environmental science, political science, anthropology, and communications. Some authors are also themselves community leaders and builders. In their introductory chapter, the editors take a broad view of social transformation, describing it as a set of events and processes of social change that defines it as a political project connected to power, privilege, and challenge and is therefore more complex than an economic transition or a demographic shift. They are also aware of several definitions of “rural” in the literature, but for this collection, all regions and territories of Canada outside major urban areas are considered rural. Perhaps this refers to all three gradations of rural and small towns (RST) used by Statistics Canada (2009), i.e., weak, moderate and strong Metropolis Influence Zone (MIZ). I would have liked it better if they were more explicit in this regard. The eighteen chapters, which explore and present new insights into community, culture, and collective action taken by rural communities, are grouped into seven thematic parts, starting with a historical context beginning in 1851. Then, about 90 percent of Canadians lived in rural Canada; the 2011 census found only 18.9 percent live there today (Statistics Canada 2012). However, Sandwell reports that the number of farm households actually grew during the 100-year period ending in 1971, with a decline recorded for the first time only in 1976.1 He also notes that in the early decades of the twentieth century, rural farmers were able to lobby for political support for rural ways of living, and farm subsidies to protect their interests. In my opinion, their population strength provided them the political strength to achieve this goal, despite faster urbanization of the population. In the modern era, globalization and widespread use of technology have provided greater exposure for rural areas. Southcott considers, for example, the increasing influence of Aboriginal peoples over the past 30 years in the political, cultural, social, and economic affairs of Canada’s Territorial North as a result of greater exposure provided by globalization. Rural-urban inequalities are now viewed as a human rights issue, according to Southcott. Another impact of globalization is the greater movement of people around the world. While international migrants continue to settle largely in urban areas, the greater exposure rural areas are getting in host

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