Martin Piotrowski
Research Interests
I am a recent graduate from the University of North Carolina, now working as an assistant professor in the sociology department at the University of Oklahoma. My research interests focus on demographic and social processes in settled agricultural regions of developing countries. These include the social and environmental determinants and consequences of rural-to-urban migration; household and family change in areas experiencing social, demographic, and economic transition; and intergenerational relations across the life course. Theoretical perspectives influencing my work include the life course perspective, household economic models, social capital and social network theories, as well as work on economic development, social change, and economic restructuring (especially the transition from a rural agrarian subsistence to an urban industrial market economy). In previous research, I used data from Nang Rong, Thailand, a relatively poor, agrarian district in the northeast region. My most recent work has used data from the Chitwan Valley Family Study, an ongoing data collection effort situated in South Central Nepal. While both settings where frontier regions up until the 1970s, rapid development in association with the spread of non-familial service organization and institutions have dramatically affected the lives of residents in both contexts.
Related Publications/Presentations
Piotrowski, Martin, Dirgha J. Ghimire, and Ronald Rindfuss. 2013. "Farming Systems and Rural Out-Migration in Nang Rong, Thailand, and Chitwan Valley, Nepal." Rural Sociology. PMC Journal - In Process.
Piotrowski, Martin. 2010. “Mass Media and Rural Out-Migration in the Context of Social Change: Evidence from Rural Nepal.” International Migration.
