Insights from past and present social science literature on the (unequal) development of New Zealand's rural communities

Abstract

A review of social research on rural New Zealand undertaken as part of the National Science Challenge (NSC 11) "Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities" allows a fresh look at rural development within the context of New Zealand's colonial history. The research suggests that government development programmes and legislation privileged those responsible for producing the bulk of New Zealand's export income. Cultural attitudes, structural inequalities and a failure to understand how the character of, and social relations in, rural areas have changed has impeded particularly M aori economic growth, the participation of women, and non-farm sectors of rural society, to the detriment of all. K E Y W O R D S community development, M aori, resilience, rural, social research

Rural media studies: making the case for a new subfield

“…Rural, remote and wild environments are too often overlooked by urban biases or shoehorned into particular frames. For example, the rural is regularly conceptualized as, primarily, a space for agricultural production (cf Pomeroy, 2019). The wild, in comparison, is considered as a space for nature conservation (cf Navarro and Pereira, 2015).…”

Jenniferann.com, regional development, and realising the aspirations of mana whenua in Pōkeno

“…As the Waikato District Council (, p. 57) reports, “By the mid‐1960s… the pace of life in Pōkeno had begun to slow a little, with the population having reached a plateau and only a modest level of building activity. Between 1961 and the century's end the village population settled between 500 and 600 and there was a gradual ebbing away of shops and services.” Agricultural deregulation and public sector reform both had direct impacts on rural communities and were key drivers of so‐called rural decline (Pomeroy, ). For communities such as Pōkeno, this decline was accentuated by its status as a service town and its reliance on neighbouring rural areas.…”

Reframing the rural experience in Aotearoa New Zealand: Incorporating the voices of the marginalised

“…The New Zealand government-funded National Science Challenge (NSC) 'Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities ' (2018-20) provided an opportunity to explore research on New Zealand's rural communities. Among other things, the NSC research brief sought information on regional inequalities and local well-being/disadvantage in the small towns and rural districts which constitute non-metropolitan New Zealand, particularly following the introduction of neoliberal policies after 1984 (Nel and Connelly, 2019;Pomeroy, 2019b). Sociological exploration of New Zealand's rural societies is sparce (Carter and Loveridge, 1991;Crothers, 2012;Loveridge, 2016), so the review used a range of disciplinary viewpoints.…”

“…Application of Bourdieu's (1977) concept of 'doxa' (self-evident, unquestioned truths) also helps explain the emphasis on farming in New Zealand's rural research, and tendency to see rural inequalities in economic terms (Pomeroy, 2019b). Certainly, most rural studies from the 1980s concentrate on the political economy of agricultural production (and consumption) in an era marked by, as Alison Loveridge described it: 'the resurgence of rural sociology as sociology of agriculture' (Loveridge, 2016: 214).…”