Call for papers: Epistemologies of the Hinterland: The Making of Rural Knowledge in the 20th Century and beyond
The publication project aims to analyze epistemic complexes that defined rurality along several hierarchical divides: civilization/nature; science/belief, the individual/community; urban/rural; system/habit; measurement/experience; rationality/emotion etc. We want to bring together case studies from different contexts of rurality that offer a new perspective on rural knowledge. We are looking forward to proposals that discuss the “how” of knowledge production in all its contradictions and inherent power relations.
15 November 2026: abstract submission deadline
June 2027: in-person author workshop in Vienna
For more details see below.
Call for papers
Epistemologies of the Hinterland: The Making of Rural Knowledge in the 20th Century and beyond
Today’s rural environments mirror long historical processes. Especially since the industrial revolution, they can be conceived as the outcome of social, administrative-technological, political, and scientific interventions in a taken-for-granted nature. In our publication project we aim to reconsider these interventions as epistemic complexes that defined rurality along several hierarchical divides that also carved out European modernity: civilization/nature; science/belief, the individual/community; urban/rural;
system/habit; measurement/experience; rationality/emotion etc.
Focusing on examples from the area of rurality, we want to search for encounters between bodies of knowledge that have historically been perceived as incommensurable and look at the practices, subjects and objects of knowledge production. We envision analyses of incommensurability narratives to open perspectives on developments since the early 20th century, but also on the most recent global climate debates and their often very local pinpoints as well as on recent political attempts to re-naturalize complex histories as national cultures.
We want to bring together case studies from different contexts of rurality that offer a new perspective on rural knowledge. At the centre of our attention is on the “how” of knowledge production in all its contradictions, perceived incommensurabilities and inherent power relations. We are focusing mainly on the 20th century, with some sojourns into the 21st century, and on Europe situated within its imperial, colonial, and global context, and the neo-national backlash of re-naturalizing complex histories as national cultures. The significance of science is a central, but not the only aspect.
We are seeking to publish the contributions as a special issue of an international peer-reviewed journal such as Knowledge or Science in Context.
Topics can include but are
not limited to:
- researching rurality from different disciplinary perspectives
- relations between the researchers and the researched
- historicity of wilderness, nature, and rural spaces
- knowledge production and gender
- hygiene and eugenics in colonial contexts
- knowledge production about precarious agricultural regions (mountains, tundra)
- agricultural modernization
- education in rural areas
- environment, growth and the EU
- global aspects of climate debates and their local contexts
- media and knowledge dissemination
To ensure a concise and coherent publication, we will organize two meetings (online and in person) to work on questions and concepts, drafts and pre-circulated papers. The author workshop will take place in Vienna in June 2027.
Preliminary timetable:
15 November 2026: abstract submission deadline
December 2026: online meeting over concept of special issue
June 2027: in-person author workshop in Vienna
Please send your abstract of 500 words max. to dietlind.huechtker(at)univie.ac.at.
The deadline for abstracts is the 15th November 2026.
Image: Unkown author, One of the new pavilions of the University of Agriculture, pl. Grundwaldskim in Wrocław, 1967, © Wikimedia Commons.
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