Trial by space for a ‘radical rural’: Introducing alternative localities, representations and lives

Halfacree, Keith

doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2006.10.002

Cited by 239 publications

(223 citation statements)

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“…Recent work has focused on such issues as changes in rural populations (Dorling and Rees, 2003), shifts in rural social geographies (Smith and Holt, 2006), the wider spatial mobilities and social networks involved in rural living (Marsden, 2006), and 'radical rural spatialities' (Halfacree, 2007) -all of which challenges any notion of a homogenised, bounded English countryside. As Smith (2007:280) states, population flow into rural areas particularly:…”

Section: Towards the Transruralmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crossing divides: Ethnicity and rurality

Askins

2009

Journal of Rural Studies

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This paper draws on research with people from African, Caribbean and Asian backgrounds regarding perceptions and use of the English countryside. I explore the complex ways in which the category 'rural' was constructed as both essentialised and relational: how the countryside was understood most definitely as 'not-city' but also, at the same time, the English countryside was conceived as part of a range of networks: one site in a web of 'nature places' across the country, as well as one rural in an international chain of rurals -specifically via embodied and emotional connections with 'nature'. I argue that alongside sensed/sensual embodiment (the non-representational intuitive work of the body), we need also to consider reflective embodiment as a desire to space/place in order to address the structural socio-spatial exclusions endemic in (rural) England and how they are challenged. I suggest that a more progressive conceptualisation of rurality -a 'transrural' open to issues of mobility and desire -can help us disrupt dominant notions of rural England as only an exclusionary white space, and reposition it as a site within multicultural, multiethnic, transnational and mobile social I explored issues regarding ethnicity, rurality and national belonging in contemporary England, and was tasked with writing a policy report alongside the thesis 2 . As I read the academic work around my research, I increasingly became aware of a dichotomy. There was a rich body of literature around ethnic identity, diversity, hybridity, multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, etc., including critical perspectives problematising these concepts and how they play out in society, but always and only embedded in the urban sphere (eg. Alexander, 2000;Amin, 2002; Back and Solomos, 2003;Brah,et al. 1999;Hesse, 2000;Mirza, 1997;Parekh, 2000a;2000b). At the same time, especially within geography, there was interest in the ways in which rurality/rural space is implicated within national identity construction, notions of belonging and spatial practices 3 . In the English context, the national imagery of rural space appeared to exclude ethnic minorities, among other groups, from accessing the countryside, both physically and emotionally (Cloke & Little, 1997;Milbourne, 1997). The connection between the rural as the 'genuine' England and not multicultural was highlighted in the Henderson and Kaur, 1999;Kinsman, 1995;Malik, 1992). However, there had been a lack of empirical work at that time to examine these issues further: ethnic minorities were perhaps too easily theorised and written as excluded 'rural others'. Indeed, Little (1999:438) voiced concern regarding the use of the term 'rural others' in general, "the lack of theoretical discussion around 'the other' and 'the same'", the paucity of recognition of the power relations complicit in such a categorisation, and the "static treatment of both individual and group identity".

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Section: Towards the Transruralmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crossing divides: Ethnicity and rurality

Askins

2009

Journal of Rural Studies

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“…Their development model is specific, valorising resources with no market value. The opportunities for reworking of rural space expansion based upon low impact development are well shown by Halfacree (2007).…”

Section: Conclusion and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Input of Communal Forests to Sustainable Development of the Rural Population: Study Case of Northern Portugal and Galicia

Lopes

Diaz-Maroto

2018

Proccedings of International Scientific Conference "RURAL DEVELOPMENT 2017"

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Communal forests occupy one million hectares in the Northern of Portugal and Galicia. Since centuries ago, "Baldios" and "Montes Veciñais en Man Común" (MVMC) played an essential function in the economy of their owner communities. This role was lost all through the last century due to the enormous afforestation and the decrease of agriculture. The restitution of democratic regimes returned the communal forests tenure to the communities. Given the extension and high average area, our paper aims to research its potentialities and limitations of contribution to rural development. Two case studies, one in North Portugal and another one in Galicia, allow identifying the individual and collective traditional uses and the achievements made with revenues linked. Both Galician and Portuguese realities exhibit similarities and complementary benefits, and needing social and economic innovation to make a better use of rural resilience. Communal lands and small-scale business projects could maintain the network of local produce markets with attractive aesthetic values as well as biodiversity conservation. The comparison of the different criteria shows economic aspects are the most valorised by the stakeholders. The management decision of collective forests was the alternative mixed by the communities and the Forestry Services as the best one to complete the main objective of sustainable rural development. As a final conclusion of our work, remarking that the communities owning these forests currently seem to have the conditions to successfully manage their properties if the commoners are able to mobilize and adequate organize the communities.

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“…For the interpretation Keith Halfacree's radical rural locality concept provided an excellent framework, which describes a special community-based and socially critical, environmentally embedded, decentralized relatively self-sufficient form of rural life and the attitude to it (Halfacree 2007).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…3 New social movements enter the focus of space and place studies due to their special ways of interpreting locality (see Castells 2006, Escobar 2001 (Escobar 2001, Horlings 2015, 4 and regaining control over the place (Castells 2006 (Halfacree 2007: 132). Halfacree sees and lists many perceptions of the way of thinking on the rural world in the contemporary interpretation of it, such as the productivist countryside (which is characterized by a food production oriented industry in the typical capitalist mould); super-productivism (agribusiness, GMO, biotechnology); consuming idylls (its key spatial practices are consumption-orientated: leisure, residence, counterurbanisation, dwelling, contemplation) and so forth (see, inter alia Halfacree 2001Halfacree , 2003aHalfacree , 2003bHalfacree , 2006Halfacree , 2007. 5 The best expression of radical rural space (or radical rural locality) is what is known as low impact development (LID), but other more specific activities that inscribe the locality belong here as well.…”

Section: 'Where Is the Large Garden That Awaits Me?'mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Kisfalu these symbols include the above-mentioned kiln for baking bread, as well as the village gate set up in 2015. In the literature dealing with people moving from the city to a village it is not unknown that of the opposition of various spatial imaginations can be the discussion between the newcomers and the locals regarding the development of the settlement (see Halfacree 2007: 130, Murdoch-Marsden 1994. This debate is therefore an ideal forum for assessing a variety of spatial imaginations.…”

Section: "Favouring the Place" Is Actually Questioning Is The Loss Ofmentioning

confidence: 99%

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‘Where is the large garden that awaits me?’ Critique through spatial practice in a Hungarian ecological community

Farkas¹

2016

Socio.hu

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Trial by space for a ‘radical rural’: Introducing alternative localities, representations and lives

Cited by 239 publications

References 44 publications

Crossing divides: Ethnicity and rurality

Crossing divides: Ethnicity and rurality

Input of Communal Forests to Sustainable Development of the Rural Population: Study Case of Northern Portugal and Galicia

‘Where is the large garden that awaits me?’ Critique through spatial practice in a Hungarian ecological community

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