Neglected rural geography: Exploring the quiet politics of ‘out-dwelling’

Abstract

Taking the example of leisure in rural Scotland this article makes a call for a renewed appreciation of a radical rural and a subsequent recognition of the potential for quiet politics. In doing so it addresses the overlooked, yet potentially progressive, even radical, nature of 'out-dwelling' as a political endeavour. These 'out-dwellings' are twofold, encompassing the distinct yet complementary cultures of Huts and Bothies in rural Scotland. There is within these cultures a rising tide of discontent with contemporary society and a subsequent push for change. These political eruptions emphasise the spatial politics of everyday leisure and land where alterity to the imagined geography of a static, wild, romantic Scotland, driven by the landedestates, emerges as a key driver for change. This argument for a radical rural will be structured around four themes; political 'out-dwelling', transgressive mobility, conspicuous consumption and land ownership.

Micropolitical practices of multispatial metagovernance in rural Denmark

“…By focussing on micropolitical practices in rural communities, our findings respond to questions around the agency of ostensibly disadvantaged and marginalised actors that previous studies largely leave in the dark (cf. Hunt, 2019; Dobbin and Lubell, 2019). Three prominent topics are worth discussing at length: (1) how local agency relates to neo-endogenous normativity and how local actors practice metagovernance in neo-endogenous ways; (2) how micropolitical practices may be put in their place by drawing on the Gramscian notion of the integral state and (3) how metagovernance from below may be captured by the notion of enveloping rural places as an act of collibration and territorialisation.…”

“…This does not preclude the possibility of collaborative governance arrangements, but it does mean that creating and maintaining them require a commitment to treating power as ‘our mundane, pervasive, uneven milieu’ (Gibson-Graham, 2006: 8). It is an issue that can never be fully resolved but which demands continuing attention and action, not least where the representation of marginalised groups is concerned (Hunt, 2019; Dobbin and Lubell, 2019). The groups with which this paper is concerned empirically are marginalised only in the sense of their disadvantaged positionality vis-à-vis the state apparatus and its decision-making processes.…”

Stable Mobilities and Mobile Stabilities in Rural Estonian Communities

“…We found this paradigm very useful, particularly in terms of revealing the dynamics of community processes in these types of settlements. Besides the community development processes, it helped to shed light on the importance of everyday materialities (Bell et al, 2010), their meanings in these dynamics, and the impact of mobilities on social relations and hierarchies (Halfacree & Rivera, 2012;Hunt, 2019). Material objects, such as buildings (school, library, block of apartments), village roads or border signs, and their social or physical transformation (e.g.…”

Everyday materialities, territorial bordering, and place-identity defined by recent administrative reform: reactions from Estonian dispersed ruralities

“…Endogenous, network-oriented development is an integral part of the post-productivist countryside that emerged in the 1990s in tandem with counter-urbanisation processes (Šimon 2014;Hunt 2019). Studies focusing on rural mobilities have indicated how the post-productivist countryside has brought along new forms of local attachment and collective place identity.…”