CFP: The 'Small Worlds' of Rural Europe: social networks, social capital and enterprise

The European Society for Rural Sociology is holding a conference that seeks to look at how social networks can help rural Europe. This call for papers officially closes next week, but have a look at the whole picture. The conference is the XXI Congress, A common European countryside?, "Change and continuity, diversity and cohesion in the enlarged Europe," 22-27 August, 2005 Keszthely Hungary.

Final CPF - ESRS (European Society for Rural Sociology) Working Group 2:

The 'Small Worlds' of Rural Europe: social networks, social capital and enterprise

Recent studies have reflected on the importance of both social networks and social capital in the small and medium land based enterprises that form the core of the social economy of rural Europe. With increasing policy emphasis placed on the multifunctionality of agriculture and the development of the food chain, the role of networks and the social capabilities represented by social capital have taken on a fresh importance. This panel seeks to explore the interconnections between social networks, social capital and rural development, with an explicit focus on the enterprise and its principals.

To that end we invite papers that explore:

• The modalities of social networks in rural areas, with particular references to networking between enterprises in the food chain.


• Explorations of the utility of the concept social capital in rural communities and the contribution it can make to analysis the process of rural development.
  
• Considerations of the different forms of networks or community building dynamics in both 'new' and 'old' European countryside.


• Empirical studies of the networks of rural enterprises,particularly adaptive responses by enterprises in the face of either new technologies or policy initiatives.


• Papers that seek to extend the existing methodology of networks through the modelling of social networks, ethnographic exploration or other innovations.

Our aim is to instigate a dialogue between the existing scholarship on role the enterprise in rural communities and extend it through new methodologies that reflect the impact of the economic forces of globalisation and the opportunities presented by policy initiatives. We would welcome contributions from postgraduate students as well as more established colleagues.

Please send, by 15 April 2005, your abstract for a paper (not longer than 300 words) to the working group convenors.