Sara Bissen

Sara Bissen has built action-oriented research in relation to the rural-urban conflict. Her transnational perspective on land and dispossession has informed her transdisciplinary work on rurality—from a pre-industrial country, such as Guatemala, to the developing and post-industrial countries of Turkey and Italy, respectively. Within this frame, her work has addressed the following contemporary topics: forced migration; urban decay; transnational peasantry; urban informality; farmer suicide; and rural transformation. Through The Ruralist Body, Sara has published over 20 disseminative and scientific writings on social, economic, political, and anthropological factors from the vantage point of the rural world. Her published books include Topsoil (2015), The City Smells of Decay (2016), and This Is Not Topsoil (2024).