
Southern Rural Sociological Association
...an educational and scientific organization established to foster the study, understanding, and application of rural sociology in the South.
Annual Meeting Registration-Open
Hotel Information
Annual meeting is held concurrently with the
Southern Association of Agricultural Scientists
The SRSA registration policy for the annual meeting is that all participants at the annual meeting must pay the registration fee either in advance or on-site. No exceptions.
The registration form will navigate you to the payment page upon completion. If you are paying by check, send payment to:
Robert Zabawa: SRSA Treasurer
Department of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences
Tuskegee University
201 Campbell Hall
1200 W. Montgomery Rd
Tuskegee, AL 36088
The registration fee includes:
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admission to all SAAS/SRSA concurrent sessions, panel discussions, poster sessions, and keynote addresses
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admission to the SRSA awards luncheon and Presidential address
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a one-year membership to the Southern Rural Sociological Association
Abstract Submission Closed
Questions: Contact Marcus Bernard, SRSA 2023 Program Chair Marcus.Bernard@kysu.edu

SRSA 2023 Conference Theme
Social Justice Praxis, Community Development and Building Resilient Communities in the Rural South.
Dr. Anne Cafer, SRSA President
Social justice is a critical and increasingly utilized frame for organizing scholarly endeavours. As such it is important for scholarly communities, such as the Southern Rural Sociological Association, to have meaningful conversations about the implications of social justice activities in their praxis. To pursue a social justice mission, is to, conceptually, level the playing field for society’s participants. This is done by ensuring both good and bad experiences are equally distributed across members of society and that the political processes that dictate these experiences are accessible to all members of the society. This equitable access ensures democratized, or equal, decision-making. While there are many forms of social justice-oriented work, community development (CD) provides a compelling avenue for pursuing social justice in a way that achieves, simultaneously, scholarly and community-derived goals. CD within scholarly arenas is often pursued as a form of participatory action research or community-based participatory research. This type of participatory community research is shaped by numerous critical theories (e.g. Marx, Du Bois), prioritizes community autonomy, agency, authority, and expertise, and works against hegemonic ideologies. The Southern Rural Sociological Association (SRSA) 2023 Annual Meeting calls for all forms of scholarly work, but particularly for those works that examine the role of scholarship in supporting community social change through both empirically and theoretically diverse lenses. Additionally, SRSA anticipates papers and panels that discuss the potential risks to communities by social justice-oriented work and welcomes those works that engage critically with emerging themes in social justice and community development. Understanding the role of scholars in supporting community-driven development through equitable partnership and community-led research process is critical to building stronger, more resilient communities in the rural South.