In Moving Water: Managed Retreat of Wester Agricultural Water Rights for Instream Flows, authors Stephanie Stern (Arizona Law) and A. Dan Tarlock (Chicago Kent College of Law) discuss the current state of water rights in the West and advocate for a change in federal policy to reallocate Western water rights to address the effects of the “megadrought.”

In Reimagining Rural Health Equity: Understanding Disparities And Orienting Policy, Practice, And Research In Rural America, Anne N. Sosin and Elizabeth A. Carpenter-Song (Both Anthropology, Dartmouth College) argue that advancing rural health equity beyond the pandemic requires understanding the underlying problems that create rural disparities and redesigning the policies and practices that encourage the rural disadvantage. 

In Fears and Fences: Social and Material Barriers to Plains Bison on the Canadian Prairies, authors Forrest Hisey, Melissa Heppner (both Geography, Geomatics, and Environment, University of Toronto, Mississauga), and Andrea Olive (Political Science, University of Toronto, Mississauga) conduct a qualitative study to determine the largest barriers to the “rewilding” of bison on the Canadian Great Plains with a particular focus on the colonial attitudes that conflict with Indigenous groups’ efforts to reintroduce bison.

In Shared Stewardship, Elizabeth Kronk Warner and Jesús A. Salazar (Both Law, University of Utah) challenge the trend of excluding tribes from participation of co-stewardship of national lands.  The authors examine the existing standards and offer creative solutions to forging a path to tribal co-stewardship.

In Uneven Growth and Unexpected Drivers of Ethnoracial Diversity across Nonmetropolitan and Metropolitan America, Matthew M. Brooks (Sociology and Center for Demography and Population Health, Florida State), J. Tom Mueller (Population Heath, University of Kansas Medical Center), Brian C. Thide (Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education and Population Research Institute, Pennsylvania State), and Daniel T. Lichter (Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell) bring attention to ethnoracial diversity in Nonmetropolitan America by providing an updated statistical portrait of ethnoracial diversity in the United States since 2000.  

In For Growth or Equity: A Taxonomy of ‘Bidenomics’ Place-Based Policies and Implications for US Regional Inequality, Grete Gansauer (Earth Sciences, Montana State University) develops a new taxonomy for classifying major place-based policy approaches passed during the Biden administration which were intended to promote national economic development while also providing investment for left-behind places.

In Disputes of Adverse Possession on Forestland and the Determinants of Case Outcomes, authors Hui Wang (School of Economics and Management, Beijing Forestry University) and Changyou Sun (Department of Forestry, Mississippi State University) examine the statistics of winning and losing adverse possession claims on forestland in the United States.

In The ‘Second Amendment of Food’: Some Reflections on American Liberalism, Mathilde Cohen (Connecticut Law) and Amy Cohen (Temple Law) explore Maine’s new “right to food” amendment by considering the history of the conception of the right to food, the legislative history of the amendment, and future implications as additional states begin to grapple with similar constitutional amendments.

In ‘A Dead Sea of Solar Panels’: Solar Enclosure, Extractavism and the Progressive Degradation of the California Desert, Alexander Dunlap (Global Development Studies, University of Helsinki), Benjamin Sovacool and Bojana Novaković (both Institute for Global Sustainability, Boston University) discuss the spread of solar energy projects in the Mojave desert and the overlooked negative impact both on the environment and the people who live there.  

In Conservatism, the Far Right, and the Environment, Jesse Callahan Bryant and Justin Farrel (both Environment, Yale) review and integrate sociological research with multidisciplinary literature on conservative and far-right environmental thought.  

In The Role of ICT in Maintaining Social Cohesion: Understanding the Potential of Digital Incentives for Social Networks in Rural Areas, Rita Helena Phillips (Educational Sciences, Alpen Adria University) examines the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in preserving social and community relationships during the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Empty Fields, Empty Promises: A State-by-State Guide to Understanding and Transforming the Right to Farm, Loka Ashwood (University of Kentucky, Sociology), Aimee Imlay (Mississippi State University, Sociology), Lindsay Kuehn (Farmers Legal Action Group), Allen Franco (Federal Public Defender), and Danielle Diamond (Harvard, Animal Law and Policy) use a mixed method approach to analysis and compare state right-to-farm (RTF) laws in practice.   

In Gleaning Rural Journalism: Rural Journalists' Agricultural and Environmental Reporting Utilizing Community Storytelling Networks, authors Jessica Walsh (University of Nebraska-Lincoln), Mildred F. Perreault, Greg Perreault (both of University of South Florida), and Ruth Moon (Louisiana State University) examine how rural journalists report to their communities about the environment.

In Regulating Location Incentives, Brian Highsmith (Harvard Law) develops a historical, economic, and institutional case for using the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Act to study the market consequences of inefficient incentive megadeals.

In External Costs of Water Pollution in the Drinking Water Supply Sector, Astrid Cullmann (Econometrics and Business Statistics, Technical University of Berlin), Julia Rechlitz, Greta Sundermann, and Nicole Wägner (all Energy, Transportation, Environment, German Institute for Economic Research - DIW Berlin) quantitatively analyze the costs of groundwater pollution on the provision of public water supply.

In Sacrifice Zones, author Johnathan D. Rosenbloom (Albany Law School) proposes a new way to address issues present at the intersection of climate change and land zoning laws.

In Re-Placing Property, Jessica A. Shoemaker (Nebraska Law) explores how property law shapes our attachments to place and considers the consequences of the property system prioritizing the first possessor regardless of an increasing disconnect between place-based relationships. Shoemaker focuses on understanding the historical impact of property systems and the continuous reshaping of property ownership while proposing ways to promote more equitable relationships to property that focus on personal relationships to land.

In Land for Whom? Diversity, Land Trusts, and Farmers and Gardeners from Marginalized Backgrounds in New England, Julie C. Keller (Sociology and Anthropology, University of Rhode Island), Blake Harrison (Political Science, University of Rhode Island), and Corey Lang (Environmental and Natural Resource Economics, University of Rhode Island) explores the extent to which land trusts in New England have been able to meet the needs of farmers and gardeners of marginalized backgrounds.

In The “Finance-Extraction-Transitions Nexus”: Geographies of the Green Transition in the 21st Century, Tobias Franz (Economics, University of London, UK) and Angus McNelly (International Relations, University of Greenwich, UK) break down the relationship between finance capital, mineral extraction, and the environmental and the societal implications of the green transition.

In Critical Rural Theory: A Decade of Influence on Rural Education Research author Wendy Pfrenger (Dept. of Higher Education, University of Mississippi Division of Outreach) examines both the key elements and influences of Critical Rural Theory in rural education and research.

In Unlikely Alliances in Action: Balancing Alignment and Autonomy in Rural-Urban Water Conflicts, Sophia Borgias (Public Service, Boise State University), Kate Berry (Geography, University of Nevada-Reno), and Dalten Fox (Arts and Sciences, University of South Alabama) emphasize the positive impact of “unlikely alliances” arising from efforts to tackle critical environmental issues. The authors employ a “place-based and historically embedded” approach to explore the internal dynamics of alliances among groups that have traditionally been in opposition.

In ‘We Are Here Our Hearts Are There’: Rurality, Belonging And Walking Together, Henna Asikainen (independent artist) and Ruth McAreavey (Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University, UK) present their findings from a series of collective walks taken with diverse groups of migrants to encourage a greater sense of belonging in rural spaces.

In Navigating Legal Geographies, Ann M. Eisenberg (West Virginia University Law) summarizes the aims and objectives of law and rurality scholarship as opposed to legal geography scholarship to identify the underlying themes of each and build an understanding of how these two frameworks might interact with each other.

In Eliminating Stereotypes: Villages as Desirable Spaces for Partying among Spanish Youth, Laura Pavón-Benítez, Nuria Romo-Avilés (both Women and Gender Studies, University of Granada, Spain), José Manuel Álvarez-Montoya (Social Anthropology, Basic Psychology and Public Health, University of Pablo de Olavide Sevilla, Spain), and Penélope Sánchez-González (Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Granada, Spain) contrast the discourse and assumptions that young people have regarding sociocultural opportunities for social life  in Spanish villages, specifically leisure activities in the form of partying and local festivals.

In Rural Development in the Digital Age: Exploring Information and Communication Technology through Social Inclusion, John J. Green (Agricultural Economics, Mississippi State University) addresses the Rural Sociological Society as President of the organization to encourage research into how information and communication technologies (ICTs) might foster social inclusion at the local and regional level, especially for often-overlooked places.

In Law in Place: Reflections on Rural and Urban Legal Paradigms, Nestor M. Davidson (Urban Law Center, Fordham) and Alan R. Romero (Rural Law Center, University of Wyoming) reflect on the ways in which rural and urban settings shape the law and its application. The authors draw from their own experiences, approaching legal research as scholars and directors of their respective centers.

In Do Rural Places Matter?, Stephen Clowney (University of Arkansas Law School) explores various arguments in support of continued investment in rural places. Clowney questions the strength of these arguments but ultimately endorses renewed investment in rural spaces by proposing a new approach to addressing the challenges facing rural communities.

In Adapting to Water Restrictions: Intensive Versus Extensive Adaptation Over Time Differentiated by Water Right Seniority, Dietrich Earnhart (Economics, University of Kansas) and Nathan P. Hendricks (Agricultural Economics, Kansas State University) explore the adaptations farmers have had to make to accommodate groundwater use restrictions.

In Setting Data Free: The Politics of Open Data for Food and Agriculture, Madeline Fairbairn (Environmental Studies, University of California) and Zenia Kish (Media Studies, University of Tulsa), explore the assumptions and values underlying the promotion of open data in the context of food security and agricultural development. This exploration is conducted through a document-based case study of the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) initiative, interviews with open data practitioners, and participant observations at open data events.

In Economic sanctions and agricultural trade, authors Mario Larch (Department of Law, Business Administration, and Economics, University of Bayreuth, Germany), Jeff Luckstead (School of Economic Sciences, Washington State University), and Yoto V. Yotov (School of Economics, Drexel University) discuss the impact of economic sanctions, particularly for farmers and agricultural trade.