Leisure Activities and Rural Community Change: Valuation and Use of Rural Space among Permanent Residents and Second Home Owners

Abstract

Rural communities are getting more diversified in terms of people's backgrounds, sources of livelihood and interests towards the rural landscape. A common way to discuss rural community change has been to contrast in-migrants and seasonal residents with long-term rural residents. In this article, we aim to challenge this segmentation. We ask what it is to be a dweller in the modern countryside and how much the residential status has to do with people's interests and use of space. Based on a postal survey in a case study area in Finland, we look into the differences in the valuation of different leisure activities performed in rural space between second home owners and permanent residents. After dividing permanent residents and second home owners into further subgroups based on their spatial and temporal possibilities to engage in rural leisure, we found that there are no specific activities or groups of activities typical for certain groups of rural leisure space users. Differences between local residents and second-home owners are rarely explained by this simple dichotomy, rather the differences are better explained by spatial and temporal accessibility.

Prioritising rural authenticity: Community members' use of discourse in rural healthcare participation and why it matters

“…In what follows, we highlight two emergent discourses that are potentially particularly 'rural' as they resonate with previously identified discourses of rural othering and authenticity (Pitkanen et al, 2014;Cassidy and McGrath, 2015;Scott and Hogg, 2015). We consider the implications of these for community participation and how discourses that have acceptance as 'truth' discourses (Cheek and Rudge, 1994), are used by participants to frame whose input into informing future health service developments is legitimate and whose is not.…”

“…Community participation often involves public meetings and thus it is hard to gather verbatim texts and people may be more guarded about what they express openly. In this paper we have tended to present discourses as distinct, consistent and dichotomised; in reality, discourses are over-layered and mutable (Pitkanen et al, 2014;GoodwinHawkins, 2015). Our findings might be specific to rural Scotland; however, they resonate with studies suggesting that rural community engagement can surface, and even reinforce, existing power divisions (Shortall, 2004;Shortall and Shucksmith, 2001).…”

Second Homes and the Management of Local Development: Local Social Relations as a Predictor of Permanent and Temporary Residents’ Participation in the Development Planning Process

“…»Novi lokalci«, »ljetni ljudi« ili »došljaci«, kako ih se ponekad naziva, u ruralne predjele, u kojima najčešće kupuju ili grade svoje vikendice, dolaze povremeno i privremeno, da bi povećali kvalitetu života i rekreirali se bježeći od gradske užurbanosti i stresa u smiraj prirode (Halfacree, 2012;Pitkänen, Adamiak i Halseth, 2014). S druge strane, pretpostavka je da stalni stanovnici imaju dugoročan i ekonomski orijentiran odnos prema ruralnom prostoru u kojem žive (Green i dr., 1996;Gallent, 2007).…”

“…Studije su pokazale da potencijalne tenzije između lokalnog i privremenog stanovništva ponekad proizlaze i iz činjenice da se njihove demografske i socioekonomske karakteristike razlikuju (Farsad i Rye, 2013;Pitkänen, Adamiak i Halseth, 2014). Na primjer, korisnici sekundarnih stanova u prosjeku su stariji, obrazovaniji i imaju veća primanja od stalnih stanovnika ruralnih zajednica (Halseth i Rosenberg, 1995;Marjavaara, 2008).…”

Indicators of post-productivism in South Africa’s “platteland”: A second home case study of Rosendal, Eastern Free State

“…Rural geographies are characterised by rural depopulation and major shifts from a space of production into multifunctional and, in many instances, post-productive countrysides (Pitkänen, Adamiak, Halseth, 2014). Second homes, as visible markers in post-productive countrysides, make a significant contribution to leisure practices (Hoogendoorn, Visser, Marais, 2009).…”