ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some general and spatial conceptions of rural organization and change. It deals with general conceptualizations, with a further subdivision based on whether rural people are seen as agricultural producers or as rural producers. In the opinion of many scholars, processes of agrarian change form the almost exclusive basis of rural transformation. Peasant economy is not only agricultural economy; rural transf ormation entails nonagri cultural dimensions as well. Moreover, the process of rural transformation may be shaped by factors from outside the agricultural sector. Exchange relationships are the central element around which relations between town and countryside develop. Trade and exchange in general between town and countryside tend to expand beyond an isolated micro-regional framework. This brings us automatically to the question of the sociospatial evolution of trade systems. The most important aspect of the rural transformation is that the rural society and economy are reduced to agriculture in the countryside.
