Downfall of Rural Society and Rural Studies or the Imperativeness of a Revision in Approaches and Methods in Iran

This study examines the perspective in rural areas and rural studies in emerging era of globalization and information society with an emphasis on Iran. It looks at new development in technology, demographic and economic trends in rural areas and their impacts on the emergence of new possibilities and constraints in rural areas, which in turn are important for understanding and development of these areas. The present developments have highlighted the shortcomings related to theoretical, methodological and decision making issues and subsequently pinpoints the need for revising the traditional approaches and elaboration of new ones. It is expected that these revisions and adjustments are applied in development process. The present study reviews the existing rural studies and research in Iran and rejects the claim that these studies are futile and useless; It strongly believes that the shortcomings should be examined and analyzed in a more macro dimension in the country. This claim is challenged that new process has caused the downfall of rural studies and marginalization of rural areas. The issue that 30 percent of rural population still live in rural areas and new problems have been emerged in these areas, in parallel with the formation of new trends have urged the researchers to look at the shortcoming as an indicator of the imperativeness of a revision in traditional power based approach, and not as a sign of a decline in rural areas. The paradigm shift from positivism and structuralism to post structuralism and post modernism provide an enabling environment for theoretical and methodological revision.