More than the Soil focuses on the social, cultural, economic and technological processes that have transformed rural areas of Southeast Asia. The underlying premise is that rural lives and livelihoods in this region have undergone fundamental change. No longer can we assume that rural livelihoods are founded on agriculture; nor can we assume that people envisage their futures in terms of farming. The inter-penetration of the rural and urban, and the degree to which rural people migrate between rural and urban areas, and shift from agriculture to non-agriculture, raises fundamental questions about how we conceptualise the rural Southeast Asia and the households to be found there.The book makes extensive use of case study material to illustrate and support the arguments presented. There is also a conscious attempt to bridge the apllied-conceptual divide and to embed the Southeast Asian experience within the wider context of the rural South.Jonathan Rigg is a Lecturer in the Department of Geography, University of Durham. He has had a long-standing interest in rural development in Southeast Asia and has published widely on the subject with reference to the region.