Agricultural History, Rural History, or Countryside History?

Abstract

This article assesses the state of modern English rural history. It identifies an ‘orthodox’ school, focused on the economic history of agriculture. This has made impressive progress in quantifying and explaining the output and productivity achievements of English farming since the ‘agricultural revolution’. Its celebratory account was, from the outset, challenged by a dissident tradition emphasizing the social costs of agricultural progress, notably enclosure. Recently a new school, associated with the journal Rural History, has broken away from this narrative of agricultural change, elaborating a wider social history. The work of Alun Howkins, the pivotal figure in the recent historiography, is located in relation to these three traditions. It is argued that Howkins, like his precursors, is constrained by an increasingly anachronistic equation of the countryside with agriculture. The concept of a ‘post-productivist’ countryside, dominated by consumption and representation, has been developed by geographers and sociologists and may have something to offer historians here, in conjunction with the well-established historiography of the ‘rural idyll’. The article concludes with a call for a new countryside history, giving full weight to the cultural and representational aspects that have done so much to shape twentieth-century rural England. Only in this way will it be possible to move beyond a history of the countryside that is merely the history of agriculture writ large.

A Cat with Nine Lives. Rural History in the Netherlands after 1900

“…Again, the Netherlands is not unique in this -in England the situation is the same. 82 However, that should not prevent us from doing something about it. What is also lacking is a history of horticulture.…”

Deconstructing place identity? Impacts of a “Racino” on Elora, Ontario, Canada

“…In its material form, this "multi-sensory landscape" (Daugstad, 2008) offers a triad of distinctive products, dining venues, and experiences that build on the qualities, or "cultural markers" (Ray, 1998), of a specific place. Included here are: traditional foods (Everett and Aitchison, 2008;Sims, 2009), music and dance (Gibson, 2002;Gibson and Davidson, 2004;Knox, 2008), arts and crafts (Halpern and Mitchell, 2011), agricultural practices (Walmsley, 2003), extractive production techniques (Ballesteros and Ramirex, 2007;SummerbyMurray, 2007;Stern and Hall, 2010), significant flora and fauna (Halpern and Mitchell, 2011), and, more generally, rural heritage (Kneafsey, 2001;Burchardt, 2007;Carter et al, 2007), with its "traditional cultures, national identities, and authentic lifestyles" (Kneafsey, 2001, p. 763). Each of these qualities provides the foundation for creation of a place of consumption that is both morally good (Sack, 2003), and heterotopic (Foucault, 1986;Halfacree, 2009), in its ability to provide guests the opportunity of seeing "through to the real" (Sack, 2003, p. 155; see also Gill, 2005).…”

Consumer attitudes towards nanotechnologies applied to food production

“…Such developments in agriculture are accompanied by a more diverse, structured and rigorous regulatory system with increased environmental regulation of agriculture and greater consumer engagement at all stages of the food-chain. This is particularly relevant in relation to issues of food quality, safety, and choice (Burchart, 2007;Burton & Wilson, 2006;Ilbery & Kneafsey, 1998;Lowe, Murdoch, Marsden, Munton, & Flynn, 1993). Technological innovation in the agrifood sector must, refocus on the develop-ment of foods and food commodities that deliver specific benefits in line with stakeholder and consumer expecta-tions, as well as deliver adequate, safe and nutritious food..…”