The book brings together rural scholars from the Global North and the Global South, who have contributed chapters based on their own contexts. The book aims to provide a general picture of how rural communities are responding to challenges in a global context. This general picture can be presented through three specific research questions, namely (1) What is the socio-economic status of rural development in the country? This research question tends to explore the socio-economic status of rural development in the contributor's country or in the country of study. It highlights the challenges to sustainable rural development in the country. (2) How are rural communities responding to these challenges? This research question focuses on analysing how rural communities are responding to challenges such as depopulation, spatial compression, economic marginalisation and climate change. (3) How can rural resilience to risks and future challenges be built? This research question aims to discuss possible approaches and actions to build rural resilience to current challenges and to seek transformation to better cope with and adapt to future challenges and unexpected risks.

The target audience of this book is researchers, postgraduate students and government officials in the field of rural and agricultural development. Readers can expect to gain a basic knowledge of rural resilience, a deeper understanding of rural development around the world, and different approaches to building resilience to challenges and shocks.

Autorentext

Yuheng Li received his Ph.D. from the Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden) and did post-doctoral research at the Stockholm School of Economics. He joined the Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences as a rural geographer in 2012. Dr Li's research focuses on rural transformation, rural resilience and poverty alleviation. To date, he has published 104 academic papers, half of which have appeared in world-renowned journals such as Nature, Land Use Policy and Applied Economics, etc. He initiated and co-founded the International Geographical Union Commission on Agricultural Geography and Land Engineering, Alliance of Poverty Reduction and Development. He is the Secretary General of both organisations. Besides, Dr Li also serves as the Associate Editor of Journal of Rural Studies, which is the top journal in rural research field across the world.