Conceptualizing New Materialism in Geographical Studies of the Rural Realm

Abstract

Geographic analysis in rural areas has been dominated in recent decades by socio-economic and socio-political perspectives. The new materialism can constitute a way of progress in rural geographical studies that involve the material and the human in the form of hybrid experiences. Materiality can be expressed in three ways: (1) the surface matter that corresponds to the traditional elements of the material rural space, (2) the materiality that would be associated with a joint and undifferentiated vision of human artefacts in a village, mainly the set of rural houses and (3) the experimental materiality that has an individual dimension, the result of the multiple processes of destruction, revival and reconstruction that simultaneously happen in one place. The experimental materiality is of the most interest for geographic analysis since it is where the materiality of the rural house and the individual are hybridized in the process of recovery of the traditional rural house. In the process of recovery of materialities, binary oppositions built in the rigid framework of modernity can be dissolved and established fluid postmodern alternatives co-produced between people and materiality. The new materialism in rural geography can be an alternative path that allows analyzing heterogeneous realities in a hybrid way and contributing in a practical context to the development of new rural policies.

Some Considerations for Research on Smart and Novelty Villages in Global Rural Areas

“…In the context of rural geography, materiality can be a notable way of studying new smart and novelty spatial processes with a socio-material expression through micro encounters (Paniagua, 2022(Paniagua, , 2023. Traditionally, the study of rural houses is framed mainly in rural politics or plans, through housing provision in a dialectic people-houses relationship.…”

Smart and Novelty Villages as the Quality Place of Virtuality

“…Smart as the sum of virtual and material is an emerging commodity in spatial terms, with multiple definitions and practices in place [8,9] and multiple and flexible local responses: (1) responses of resistance to virtual change with variable place styles of resistance and virtual austerity, and (2) responses of predilection to virtual change with multiple local styles of predilection. These strategies of resistance and predilection do not have a permanent or rigid nature; this suggests successive faces of resistance, combined with the predilection of alternative periods of territorial instability and stability.…”

“…[9] (p. 2). In this scenario, some European countries such as Spain are not excellent examples of change for the rural population; they are adequate examples of change in rural materials [8]. In some depopulated and peripheral rural areas, the process of new materialities and virtualities [3] is not associated with newcomers to the rural community; on the contrary, it is linked with the renovation of houses and is associated with new virtualities in the context of open rural houses and social movement without permanent occupants.…”

Geographical Global Rural Cultures and Cultures in Particular Geographical Realities: Some Particular Ideas for a Global Debate

“…Rural localities condition representations and daily lives and this virtuality suggests a certain cultural typology of rurality associated with the place. But a strictly cultural vision of rural spaces may perhaps be very rigid and it is necessary to adopt more hybrid approaches that bring together different elements, recovering and integrating rural (im) materiality (Paniagua, 2023). It is possible to argue that there are, at least, two more than binary circuits in rural cultures: (1) Global-essential and (2) micro-macro and intermediate levels.…”