No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

I n this paper I examine the relationship between sexual identity and the social construction of rurality. Specifically, I discuss the centrality of particular embodiments of heterosexuality to rural masculinities and femininities and to gender relations within the rural community. In so doing I wish to build on existing work on gender and rurality and, in particular, to use theoretical discussions concerning the performance of sexual identity and its relationship with gender identity to inform the understanding of social relations within the rural community. The importance of the relationship between space and sexual identity has been argued at length by it has been shown that space may be coded in sexual terms with sexual identities being manifest in different ways in different landscapes. In the paper I argue that the rural provides a valuable context for the discussion of heterosexuality, reflecting and incorporating, as it does, highly traditional attitudes and expectations about the notions of masculinity and femininity and broader ideas of the family and gender relations.Over the past 20 years work on gender by rural social scientists has drawn attention to the importance of the nuclear family and to the acceptance of stereotypical gender roles within both the rural household and rural economy. Work has identified the durability of notions of rural 'womanhood' with their support for women's domestic and nurturing roles (see Hughes 1997) and shown how the social relations within the rural community have been founded on a set of hegemonic gender relations in which women's position at the centre of both the rural family and community is unquestioned. From early work on gender roles (particularly the gender division of labour on the farm) to more recent research on rural identity, emphasis has been on the identification of a set of patriarchal power relations which, while slowly changing, continue to promote the nuclear family as the dominant (and often exclusive) model of social and community organisation in rural areas.Despite emphasising the importance of the family and women's roles as mothers to rural gender relations, there has been little discussion within existing writing on the relationship between gender and sexual identity. What limited work has

This paper responds to the scarcity of work on rural embodiment. We argue that a consideration of ‘the body’ can contribute significantly to an understanding of rural social relations and communities. In particular, this paper provides an additional critical dimension to the understanding of the relationship between changing femininities, masculinities, rurality and the performance of sexuality in rural areas. It shows how dominant constructions of rural masculinity and femininity incorporate highly traditional assumptions about the body and reflect conventional attitudes to sexuality and gender identity. This paper gathers together some partial and underdeveloped ideas and data in the production of a more coordinated and sustained consideration of embodiment and rurality, and details some emerging research directions.