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PAUL CLOKE
Country Visions
Country Visions
PAUL CLOKE
C
o
Country Visions is a highly readable, challenging and incisive
collection of essays, exploring different ways of knowing rurality;
u
of understanding the countryside. The essays suggest that we
must go beyond cultural constructions of rural idyll and their n
accompanying political, cultural and theoretical orthodoxies,
t
which risk both ‘purification’ of transgressive presences and
r
practices, and ignorance of significant agency and performance.
y
Country Visions re-views the countryside as heterogeneous,
V
dynamic and often dystopic. It is an authoritative and engaging
collection, emphasising that rural areas are not just known i
s
differently, they are also performed differently.
i
o
Country Visions can be read as a running debate, as a series of
glimpses into the nature of rural areas, each carrying a different
n
understanding of what can be known, and what should be known.
Essayists explore the different ways in which rural areas are: s
• represented and idyllised
• known and understood through practice and performance
• envisioned as theoretical and political arenas
P
It begs questions about how to read, analyse and write about the A
country; about how the countryside works for its actors; and how U
it might work better in the future. L
C
Paul Cloke is Professor of Geography at Bristol University, and L
Founder Editor of Journal of Rural Studies. O
K
E
Cover illustration
by Peter Gudynas
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Country Visions
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Country Visions
Edited by
Paul Cloke
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Pearson Education Limited
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Essex CM20 2JE
United Kingdom
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First published 2003
© Pearson Education Limited 2003
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
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ISBN 0130 89601 2
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Typeset in 10/12pt Sabon by 35
Printed and Bound in China
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For Viv, Liz and Will with love
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Contents
List of contributors xii
List of figures xiii
Acknowledgements xiv
1 Knowing ruralities? 1
Paul Cloke
Moving beyond the rural idyll 1
The country and hybridity 5
Reading country visions 7
References 13
2 Reproducing rural idylls 14
Michael Bunce
The rural idyll in the rise of urban-industrialism 15
Images of rural 19
Contemporary communication and reproduction of
the rural idyll 22
Spaces of the rural idyll 24
Idylls and counter-idylls 26
References 28
3 The rural gaze 31
Simone Abram
The gaze 32
Separating the gaze 34
Rural, urban, suburban, subrural 36
Discussion 45
Notes 47
References 47
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viii CONTENTS
4 Rural mappings 49
Catherine Brace
Introduction 49
Discovering the rural 52
Countryside and nationhood 62
Conclusion 69
Notes 70
References 70
5 Different genres, different visions? The changing countryside
in postwar British children’s literature 73
John Horton
Introduction 73
1945–1969: ‘classic’ representations of countryside 75
1970s: ‘politicised’ representations of countryside 78
1980s: ‘reactionary’ representations of countryside 83
1997–: ‘new’ representations of countryside 86
Conclusions 88
Notes 89
References 90
6 The view from Cobb Gate: falling into liminal geography 93
Mark Lawrence
Introduction: the background of the foreground 93
Moving targets: thinking about film and new visions of rurality 96
The persistence of pastoralism 99
The unfinished liminal experience of simulation 106
Conclusions 112
References 113
7 Working with crabs 116
Deborah Dixon
The where of Eastern Carolina 116
Animating the landscape 117
Locating people in the seafood sector 120
Constructing and placing ‘labour’ 122
Giving meaning to the working body 126
Conclusion 131
Acknowledgement 132
Notes 133
References 133
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CONTENTS ix
8 Landscape, performance and dwelling: a Glastonbury case study 136
John Wylie
Introduction 136
Landscape and representation: metaphor and materiality 138
Landscape from image to dwelling 141
A Glastonbury case study 147
Conclusion 154
References 155
9 Spiritual embodiment and sacred rural landscapes 158
Julian Holloway
Introduction 158
Representing the sacred rural 159
Embodying the sacred rural 163
Articulating a spiritual infralanguage 169
Conclusion 175
References 175
10 Homosexuals in the heartland: male same-sex desire in the
rural United States 178
David Bell
The homosexual rural 183
The rural homosexual 185
Conclusion 190
Acknowledgements 192
References 192
11 New country visions: adventurous bodies in rural tourism 195
Carl Cater and Louise Smith
The increasing popularity of countryside adventures 195
Adventure and nature 196
Adventurous places 198
The ‘adventure capital of the world’ 200
Inclusion and exclusion 202
Representations of Queenstown 205
Performing adventure 209
The place of a rural setting 211
New rural spaces? 213
Notes 215
References 215
