Introduction

This book sets out to reunite the urban and the rural areas in the study of development across the developing world. Most approaches in development studies – both theoretical and empirical – are based on the premise that there is a clear distinction between the urban and the rural. However, this distinction has been challenged. There is research on ‘rural’ activities in ‘urban’ spaces, urban activities in rural spaces, and on the changing interface between urban and rural spaces and on the increasing interdependence between these two realms. There is therefore a need to bring these disparate themes together in one volume.