ABSTRACT
This chapter considers some of the recent literature on rural social relations in the light of contemporary debate on the process of economic restructuring and the reordering of the urban and regional systems. It reviews the history of community studies in rural sociology and human geography and argues that community studies are best approached as a method of analysis, rather than objects of study in their own right. locality studies represent an excellent vehicle for studying precisely the question of the relationship between economic and spatial restructuring on the one hand and particular forms of social action and cultural consciousness on the other. It is quite clear that the restructuring thesis offers a much more holistic account of rural social change than the 'sociology of agriculture' and 'rural community study' approaches which preceded it.
