The rural arena: The diversity of protest in rural England

In the past 15–20 years, the rural areas of England have been used by a wide diversity of groups as the stage for their protest activities. Some have argued that this is due the rise of a rural social movement; this paper contends that rural areas have become both available and advantageous as the locale of protest through a range of interlocking factors. Firstly, that the rise of the network society has repositioned the societal importance of rural areas. Secondly, that the governance of rural areas has changed, allowing the social stake of rurality to be more widely contested. Thirdly, that opportunities to protest have shifted in favour of rural spaces, in terms of technology and policing. Through a discussion of recent changes in rural England and three case studies, The Land is Ours, Farmers for Action and the Organic Food and Farming Movement, this paper examines these changes and what they mean for the future of rural England.     

Post-productivism and rural land use: cul de sac or challenge for theorization?

Post-productivism is a contested concept, and some argue that it should be abandoned. In this paper, a more focused definition for post-productivism is suggested. Evidence for change in forestry and agriculture that could be categorised as post-productivist is presented, in relation to both the narrower definition and to characterisations suggested by other authors. A reduced (relative) emphasis on material production, combined with an increased emphasis on the provision of environmental services, has characterised rural land use at the end of the 20th century in parts of the developed world. In this sense, post-productivism is a reality, and should not be abandoned. It may have utility in relation to our understanding of land-use change in developed countries, and in that respect to the generating of questions that would amount to a formidable research agenda.     

Expanding exotic forestry and the expansion of a competing use for rural land in New Zealand

Significant areas of rural land in New Zealand have been turned over to non-agricultural use in the last 25 years. This study examines an historically specific development, the expansion of exotic plantation forestry (primarily Pinusradiata), through an interpretive framework which uses categories specific to world capitalist production and to the New Zealand experience. The approach followed considers organisations and their potentially contradictory relations in various spheres of society as the means by which the social uses of land, consistent with capitalist relations of production, may be reached. The paper examines ‘organisations’ in theoretical terms as diverse and constrained social agencies and uses this interpretation when analysing the historical development of rural land use goals in New Zealand. The focus then shifts to contemporary structural relationships, especially in agriculture and forestry.     

Understanding the relationship between social change and its impacts: The experience of rural land use change in south-eastern Australia

This study investigated socio-economic impacts of land use change, giving explicit attention to the relationships between independently observed land use change and associated socio-economic changes, perceived land use change and socio-economic change, attributed cause of change, and experienced impacts of change. Using a case study region in south-east Australia, we examined the impacts of growth in use of land for dairy farming, cropping, blue gum plantations and rural residential development on (i) rural population trends, and (ii) the amount and nature of employment available in the study region. Perceptions and impacts of change were assessed using multiple qualitative and quantitative methods. Results demonstrate that local residents were not always aware of the extent and nature of land use change, and had difficulty attributing social changes and their impacts to the land use changes that underlie them. Furthermore, the felt impacts of land use change appeared dependent on a person's awareness of that change, and on their beliefs about the causes of social change. These findings highlight avenues for theoretical development to better specify the processes by which social change processes are experienced as human impacts. The findings also have implications for land use policy and social impact assessment, illustrating the importance of understanding both perceived and actual social change.     

The use of the dream in the promotion of ego development

Two functions of dreams, described but not stressed by Freud—the dream as a way of remembering early childhood experiences and the dream as an attempt to master painful stimuli—are considered in this paper in terms of their significance in the treatment of patients whose preoedipal developmental difficulties have resulted in distortions or deficiencies in psychic structure. By providing access to that period of life before semantic communication a time of profound developmental import, certain dreams can illuminate critical experiences of that period. They may lead to the discovery of positive experiences which can be utilized as a starting point for the fostering of more positive object representations or they may lead to the understanding of early traumatic experiences which can be dealt with retrospectively in the therapeutic situation.     

The economic diversity of rural England: stylised fallacies and uncertain evidence

Debate about rural policy is often based on persistent presumptions about conditions in ‘rural England’, generally associated with economic decline, low incomes, and a lack of services. Such generalisations are rarely justified for rural areas as a whole and we term them as ‘stylised fallacies’. The impression of their relevance is perpetuated by the selective comparison of statistics for ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ areas. The paper reviews the evidence on a number of such fallacies: the economic impact of agriculture, depopulation, low incomes, rural labour markets, house prices and service provision. In each case, the position is far more complex than is commonly recognised in policy debate. The rural character of an area does not in itself offer a rationale for policy intervention. Rather, discussion could be supported through the characterisation of different types of local area. This might be approached either through statistical analysis or through qualitative analysis of emerging social and economic patterns of differentiation. In practice, each approach needs to be supported through the other.     

Understanding the use of rural space: the need for multi-methods

Although the late 1990s saw increasing use of qualitative data in rural studies and a turn towards issues such as identities and the construction of rurality, many rural researchers still rely on a range of different methods and use both qualitative and quantitative data. However, the challenge of combining quantitative and qualitative data and using different methods is a theme not often dealt with in rural studies, at least not explicitly. This paper (re-)turns the attention to implications of using various methods and combining different types of data for studying a subject matter called ‘the use of rural space’. It concerns both physical land use and the practice and values of individual actors influencing the land use. We emphasise interplay between methodology and philosophy throughout the research process and argue for using multi-methods without compromising the integrity of the different methods. The methodological approach is a combined study of practice and values of individual actors. Two examples—one concerning Senegalese pastoralists’ livelihoods and their use of mobility and one concerning landowners’ location of field afforestation in Denmark—illustrate how the approach facilitates quite different studies of both practice and values and how quantitative and qualitative data can be combined in a non-eclectic way.     

Civilizing Northumberland: Representations of Englishness in the Tudor State

Taking Northumberland as a case study, this paper explores the wider implications of the Tudor strategy of reform by centralization, uniformity, and cultural imperialism. It reappraises the notion that the growth of centralized government at the expense of regional magnates was unambiguously a form of modernization; and argues that the essential character of the Tudor state and the radical nature of Tudor reform have been obscured by the historians' practice of viewing developments in terms of the rise of the nation.     

Regulating the new rural spaces: the uneven development of land

With the demise of agricultural productivism, that set of economic and political arrangements which made food production the overriding aim of rural policy, new forms of regulation have come into existence. These are linked to new patterns of development in rural areas which have arisen as economic actors seek to exploit the opportunities presented by the crisis in agriculture. Both development and its regulation have become localised — that is, detached from the national regime associated with productivism. This is leading to increased differentiation. We examine three land development sectors — minerals, farm building conversion and golf — to illustrate how the processes of differentiation are driven by a variety of economic, political and social actors. These are assessed using the notion of ‘arenas of representation’. Two arenas are identified — those of the market and regulation — showing how uneven development of the countryside can be understood as arising from action-in-context. Such differentiation, or the emergence of new rural spaces, is inevitable in the post-productivist era.     

Keepers of the land: Ideology and identities in the Scottish rural elite

This article examines how members of the rural elite in Scotland defend their ownership of large tracts of land in the face of powerful class and nationalist critiques. Referring to unique interview material throughout, we outline the key elements of how owners attempt to legitimate their landed interests. Their response to these two critiques relates to estate economics and more generally the ideology and rhetoric of “responsible” stewardship. The latter allows owners to create a distinct status group identity for themselves as “keepers of land,” one that is cohesive and subordinates any expected differences between them in terms of their residence characteristics, how they acquired their land, and their national identity. This is explained with reference to a diminishing system of private estates in Scotland and the need for landowners to maintain a united ideological front as they defend themselves in the face of mounting political pressure and land reform.     

Karma eaters: the politics of food and fat in women's land communities in the United States

Why is thinness so important among women who have largely rejected mainstream definitions of femininity? The idea of health has great cultural power and has come to symbolize not simply bodily but also spiritual, social, and moral well-being. These ideas permeate U.S. culture, and in women's land communities, the virtue of hunger and the morality of health take on differently inflected but no less potent meanings. Ironically, in a context where women reject many gender restrictions--restrictions increasingly, as Sandra Bartky notes, focused on the female body-the importance of the thin (and thus properly feminine) body persists through the symbolism of health and virtue.     

Small business development in remote rural areas: The example of mature manufacturing firms in Northern England

There is a growing interest in the potential contribution of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to rural economic development, as reflected in the Rural Development Commission's strategy for the 1990s. Using some evidence on the development of mature manufacturing SMEs in remoter rural areas during the 1980s and comparing them with similar urban based firms, the paper shows that whilst there was little difference between the rural and urban SMEs in terms of their growth performance when measured by sales turnover, the rural firms generated significantly more jobs. This indicates a different relationship between SME growth and employment generation in different geographical environments. SMEs in remote rural areas are shown to pursue rather different development paths than their urban counterparts resulting from the way in which they adjust to the opportunities and constraints afforded by their local operating environments. The main section of the paper focuses on three particular kinds of adaptation: (i) to local market conditions, and in particular on the ability of SMEs to make the transition into national and international markets; (ii) to local labour market conditions, including various qualitative characteristics of rural labour such as skill levels and functional flexibility; and (iii) to the lack of an industrial milieu, especially the limited opportunities for externalising production. The paper concludes by raising some concerns about the longer term competitiveness of SMEs in remote rural areas including low levels of labour productivity, technological backwardness and skill levels within the workforce.     

Local perspectives on rural housing affordability and implications for the localism agenda in England

Drawing on consultation meetings with eight community groups across rural England, this paper examines local perspectives on housing affordability, and the consequences of low levels of ‘within area’ housing access for rural economies and communities, contrasting the reflective understanding of residents with normative and established perspectives on the same issues. Because it now seems likely that rural planning policy in England will, in some measure, be reconstructed from the bottom-up, prioritising local control, an analysis of residents' perspectives gives some insight into the shape of future policy intervention. The research reveals a highly nuanced understanding of affordability and the development needs of villages. Sometimes local views – particularly those of commuting or retired households – are dismissed as being motivated by NIMBYism. But this is a partial truth, with rural residents displaying reflective dissatisfaction with official perspectives on rural housing problems.     

The evolution of federal agricultural land use policy in the United States

The United States government has a long history of involvement in the planning and management of rural land resources. During the American Civil War, the basic institutions concerned with agricultural land use were established. The conservation responsibilities of the agricultural establishment were greatly expanded during the New Deal. Broader resource concerns and new non-agricultural federal institutions were introduced during the 1970s. From 1981 to the present, there has been an attempt to withdraw federal involvement in traditional agricultural land use activities. Nevertheless, new conservation measures were adopted by the U.S. Congress in 1985 during the 50th anniversary year of the Soil Conservation Service. This paper provides a review of the evolution of activity in agricultural land use and soil conservation by the federal government of the United States.     

The Development of Employment-Based Education on Substance use for Social Workers in England: Embedding Substance use Training in Frameworks of Continuing Professional Development

Service users in the social care sector affected by substance use need a workforce which is skilled at protecting and supporting them, and who are able to carry out their roles and responsibilities with confidence. Workforce/Learning Development departments in children's and adults' services in England play an important role in preparing social workers to engage effectively with service users and to develop as practitioners. Drawing on data from a survey of 94 Workforce/Learning Development departments, this article examines the development of employment-based education on substance use. Only 33% of these departments had a dedicated training strategy or series of programmes on substance use, although more than half (59%) provided tools for identifying and assessing substance use. A wide range of professionals were involved in the development of this training, particularly those in specialist safeguarding and substance use roles. Social work and substance use textbooks are the main source of materials accessed to support training development. A lack of strategic engagement with substance use in social care was one of the barriers cited to adequate training provision. Implications for social work education include the importance of embedding AOD education in post-qualifying training frameworks at both university and employer levels.     

中国农村土地制度变迁60年回眸与前瞻

土地问题无疑是当前中国农村最为基础、最为广泛,也最为复杂和棘手的经济社会问题之一．而土地制度则是一切土地问题的缘起和总根源。为此,本文着力还原不同历史时期具有代表性的中央决议、法律文件等,以期从政策法规视角来审视中国土地制度的历史变迁过程。由于社会制度是一个渐进式的演进过程．存在必然的“路径依赖”．而很难在短期“脱胎换骨”。     

Cultural archaeology and historical geographies of the black presence in rural England

This paper focuses on the exclusion of black peoples from the English countryside. It particularly considers how white imaginaries of the English rural have ignored historical geographies of the black presence. Firstly the paper reflects upon the heritage of Englishness as represented in and through the rural tradition. It then presents some cultural excavations of black history undertaken by academics, community scholars and local history groups and asks how the histories they reveal challenge ideas of rural histories of England. The paper then considers how historical geographies of anti-racism may complement these new takes on rural heritage and provide a counter narrative to ’traditional’ English rurality.     

The affective politics of hatred: implications for education

This paper argues that using the notion of ambivalence in understanding ethnic hatred can be helpful to educators who struggle to address the pedagogical implications of students’ feelings of hatred. It is suggested that, although hate feelings are difficult to change, unraveling the ambivalence in the affective politics of hatred creates possibilities for enriching educators and students’ perspectives on mutual understanding and solidarity with others. Drawing on insights from an action research project conducted in a higher education institution in the ethnically‐divided Cyprus, the author shows how the notion of hatred as ambivalence constitutes an important step in initiating a subversive analysis.