Abstract Rural Sociology faces increasing threats of marginalization from social and economic restructuring of academia and of the larger society in which it is embedded. Contrary to some recent analyses, the problem lies more in the inadequacies of data conceptualization, production, and collection than in the theoretical vitality of the discipline. The failure to match theoretical and conceptual advances with appropriate data leaves sociologists grappling with "modern data to study a postmodern world." Research on the impact of restructuring on social and spatial divisions of labor and the contributions of feminist theory and research to the conceptualization of work and household illustrate the theoretical advances and the empirical deficiencies faced by the discipline. Disciplinary survival and development depend on meeting the challenge of matching theoretical progress with an appropriate empirical base.
AbstractThree prominent disasters in Indonesia demonstrate the importance of gender roles, relations and practices in delineating the social and spatial relations of Riskscapes, with implications for developing resilience to disaster and preparing for climate change. We build on a model of Riskscapes that incorporates power relations as a conceptual dimension and show how gender plays a central role in this, as well as intersecting with the other dimensions of Riskscape specification. We conclude with a series of hypotheses that can test the model and clarify and specify the ways gender requires incorporation into disaster and climate change Riskscape research, planning and action.