L26 Rural Idyll

Utopian - vision,  

Idealised - when it starts influencing our ideas.. idealised 

Geographical imagination

By the end of the lecture you would be able to:

•Conceptualise ‘rural idyll’

•Appreciate its ‘persistent presence’ in our society

•Understand ‘geographical imagination’

What was London Olympics' opening ceremony theme?

•The term ‘Idyll’ refers to an extremely happy, peaceful, or picturesque period or situation, typically an idealized or unsustainable one.
- wish this was the case

•The rural idyll remains strongly evocative in most industrialized societies.
- strong powerful memory

•It has become fashionable for people to find, or in some cases create, the perfect rural environment, especially in an era of reverse urbanization (of the wealthy) aided by technological advancements.
- good road networks, wifi
- peoples desire go back to the rural
- < people buy home- rural areas - counter urbanisation

•It is a small but fundamental part of Human Geography.

If you’ve see the ‘The Vicar of Dibley’, you already have some sense of it. 

Rurality (2)

Rurality is defined in opposition to ‘the urban’.  Conceptualized as a clear, bounded space – distinct from urban. - cultural 'other' defined by what it is not

 Two main areas of distinction:

1.Strong ‘sense of community’
2.Closer to nature

But these notions are increasingly contested – many rural geographers challenge universality of the concepts of ‘urban’ and ‘rural’.

What difference(s) can you spot here?

There are cultural differences : different cultural norms/behaviours/practices

 own clothing reinforce indiginity of rural 

   tradition  dancing

   mixedd gender/race

•‘Rural’ represented as natural or pure environment against the artificiality of the city.

•Antidote to the oppressive, busy aspects of city life.

•Countryside constructed as utopian space with potential for experimenting with alternative lifestyles.

•Appreciated as a leisure space – space for activity and relaxation. •london fast busy

Can you spot the difference?

this road dissected landscape

•We all have ‘pre-influenced perception’ of what we feel the rural lifestyle should be like.

•We carry around with us an idyll-ised sense of what our rural areas look like… and, it is this idyllic cultural image that transfers itself into broader society (Cloke 2004).

•These geographical imaginations are shaped by the small but powerful minority which grab the imagination of what countrylife stands for.

Three examples

1.  Jeremy Burchardt (2002) in Paradise Lost: Rural Idyll and Social Change since 1800 observes the following factors:

•Industrialisation and technological change •Occupational structure and age demography

2.  Matt Baker in Countryfile (2009) observes:

•Commodification of the countryside •Professional, successful people sometimes go quite a distance in order to not just find, but create their rural idyll

3. Research by Campaign for Better Transport in the UK finds (just  yesterday, 4th Feb 2016) declining levels access to public transport:

•Council cuts threats to rural bus services

Three examples

1.  Jeremy Burchardt (2002) in Paradise Lost: Rural Idyll and Social Change since 1800 observes the following factors:

•Industrialisation and technological change
•Occupational structure and age demography

2.  Matt Baker in Countryfile (2009) observes:

•Commodification of the countryside - use countryside to create economy
•Professional, successful people sometimes go quite a distance in order to not just find, but create their rural idyll

3. Research by Campaign for Better Transport in the UK finds (just  yesterday, 4th Feb 2016) declining levels access to public transport:

•Council cuts threats to rural bus services

Top left corner- Cornwall beautiful place to go stunning physical geography, the rural is commodifying th elandscape and bringing different services

good life, live close to nature - geographical imagination is crafted- 

There are two country-side living exotic houses built- Iceland most exclusive writing happens home he can go to and write. rent some of these houses and do you stuff that you cannot do in urban busy life. 

endless way of us going to the rural without us having a home or farm, various ways we as a consumer can consume rural places at a cost

. that is why rural is getting money and also getting additional pressure.

•The green belt in the UK has doubled in size in the last 20 years, it’s 4 million acres now.

•1% of green belt was released for building, it would be enough for up to one million new homes.

•Teresa May has set a target of building a million new homes by 2020.

•This requires a shift from Nimbyism (not in my backyard) to Pimbyism (please in my backyard).

How dreams of a rural idyll can end in nightmares

Telegraph (2007)

oRural communities can be a “haven for gossip [… as in The The Vicar of Dibley] , backbiting and social exclusion for those who did not fit the mould of the perfect village resident”.

oResidents who were gay, divorced, childless and even single were victimised and even outcast by other villagers.

Two pieces of work are relevant here:

1.Geographies of Exclusion: Societies and Differences in the West (David Sibley, 1995)

oFragmentation between insider and outsider
oFor some the rural life isn’t appealing as it can be socially exclusive, discriminative and incompatible with many creeds and backgrounds

2.Out of Place in the Country: Travellers and the ‘Rural Idyll’ (Keith H. Halfacree, 2006)

oThe rural idyll is a selective representation. It is exclusive in its class, race and status connotations, is profoundly conservative and demands conformity

•Lack of employment

•Lack of childcare

•Poor transport

•Lack of free entertainment

- Think about rural idyll as constructed and to a large extent imagined (idealised and unsustainable)

- There are different aspects in this idyllised image of the rural; it varies across context

- Ask the tricky question:  What is future of rural idyll, given the rapid and diverse changes facing it?