Class, Power and Social Construction: Issues of Theory and Application in Thirty Years of Rural Studies

Distant bodies ? Rural studies, political–economy and poststructuralism

“…The second debate can be seen to be more rather specific in that it focuses on the issue of rural class analysis. However, as this paper and others (see Miller, 1996a;Murdoch, 1995b;Phillips, 1998b) have argued, there are important lines of connection between the conduct of rural class analysis and changes in the philosophical discourses of the social sciences. In particular it is suggested that the future of class analysis, both within and beyond, rural studies, has tended to be constructed as a dualistic choice between a 'modernist class analysis', generally employing some variant of a political-economy perspective, and a postmodernism/ poststructuralism in which class has completely receded from view, to be replaced by a focus on the discursive construction of largely non-class identities.…”

“…So, for example, notions of 'de-traditionalisation' and 'new-sociations' suggest, amongst other things, that neither a person's self-consciousness identity nor their activity patterns need to be tied necessarily to class relations. One consequence of this has arguably been the 'retreat' from class analysis as discerned by Miller (1996a) or more precisely, I would argue, a dualistic construction of the future of class analysis whereby researchers are presented with "a stark choice" between a 'modernist class analysis' or a 'postmodernism' [or poststructuralism] where class has completely receded from view (Phillips, 1998a, p. 412). Such a dualistic choice is unhelpful, not least in that it ignores: i) the similarities between modern and postmodernist or poststructuralist analyses; ii) the differences within each perspectives; and iii) the important silences within both perspectives (Phillips, 1998a).…”

“…The research projects on which this paper draws are: i) an ESRC funded study of 'Local impacts of the middle class in rural areas' (Ref: R000231209) conducted under the direction of Paul Cloke and Nigel Thrift (see Cloke et al, 1994Cloke et al, , 1995Cloke et al, , 1998Miller, 1996a;Miller, 1996b;and also Pahl, 1995;Phillips, 1993); a study of 'Recent social change in the Leicestershire and Warwickshire countryside' funded by Coventry University and conducted in collaboration with Leicestershire and Warwickshire Community Councils (see Agg and Phillips, 1998;Phillips, 1999) and iii) an ESRC Research Fellowship on 'The processes of rural gentrification' (Ref: H53627500695). The paper also draws on some work undertaken by Rob Fish, University of Leicester, and his permission to use this material is gratefully acknowledged.…”