Planetary rural geographies

Abstract

This paper proposes planetary rural geographies to counter the narrative of planetary urbanisation, which has contended that the whole planet has been urbanised and can be understood through urban theory without an outside. Whilst critics have challenged the metrophilia inherent to planetary urbanisation, advanced post-colonial critiques, and posited alternative models of ruralisation, we argue that these responses fall short of fully embracing the radical potential of a planetary perspective. We call for planetary rural geographies that examine rural places as sites of interaction between diverse more-than-human relations that extend above and below the Earth surface and contend that the configuration of human–environment interactions at the ‘rural’ end of urban–rural relations is critical to addressing planetary crises. We elaborate this argument by focusing on three geographies of planetary rurality: as a space of crisis, as a space of conflict, and as a space of hope, evidenced by examples drawn from the global rural literature.

Branding the ‘VBA’ (Village Basketball Association) to revitalise a Miao village: Platform ruralism in the making

“…As a new endogenous development model that incorporates rural autonomy and situated practice has been called for (MacKinnon et al, 2022), digital platforms are being recognised as a viable option for enhancing rural resilience, addressing the deficiencies in rural areas in terms of the access to knowledge and market, and promoting the socio-economic development of rural communities (Singh et al, 2023). To further address this issue, we need to acknowledge that the rural is not a peripheral territory subjected to the hegemony of urban (digital) cultures, but a heterogenous and variegated entity that manifests itself through the diversification of economic, social and cultural activities, practices and lifestyles (He & Zhang, 2022;Wang et al, 2023).…”