‘Respect the life of the countryside’: the Country Code, government and the conduct of visitors to the countryside in post‐war England and Wales

Abstract

Geographers examining the spaces of government and governance, and in particular those drawing upon the writings of Michel Foucault on government and governmentality, have tended to overlook the importance of different media, technical devices and practices of self‐government to specific rationalities and programmes of government. In this paper I argue that the materialities and immaterialities of many mundane media technologies, the way they articulate and translate particular programmes of government, and the way they instil practices of self‐government in citizens, are important but frequently overlooked dimensions of the geographies of government. I focus on the codes of countryside conduct – The Country Code/Countryside Code – that have been published in England and Wales since 1951. I examine how the National Parks Commission, and subsequently the Countryside Commission and Countryside Agency, identified the potential strengths and limitations of using the Country Code booklet to govern the conduct of visitors to the countryside. The paper shows how the material form of the booklet and methods of distributing and promoting it were seen to matter, and examines how civil servants attempted to extend the ‘reach’ of the Code and articulate its message through a diverse range of media which entailed different kinds of performative encounters in different spaces.

‘An instruction in good citizenship’: scouting and the historical geographies of citizenship education

“…This notion of the regulated self‐governed subject ties into broader debates on subjectification and conduct (Foucault 1988; Rose 1996) and, in particular, on the position of youth as governable citizen‐subjects. Indeed, one could see the ideology of scouting – with Baden‐Powell stressing ‘self‐control not only enables you to master bad habits, but also gives you command of your very thoughts’ (1922a, 86) – as an early form of self‐governance that pre‐dates neoliberal forms of governing at a distance (Cobb 2007; Merriman 2005). The second tenet of Baden‐Powell’s citizenship model –‘duty to others’– referred to a Scout’s responsibilities for his local neighbours, fellow Britons and imagined ‘others’ of the Empire, embodied in the practice of doing a ‘good turn’ (explored later in the paper).…”

“…This paper therefore seeks to extend this work through examining one example of an alternative arena where youth citizenship was enacted and mobilised – the Scout Movement. Other historical geographical research (Matless 1995 1998; Merriman 2005) has highlighted the various spaces and mechanisms through which young people were introduced to ideas of (rural) citizenship such as the Youth Hostels Association and the Country Code. However, these studies are small in number and there remains a dearth of work on the different spaces in civil society where ideas on citizenship were communicated to youth and the role of practices and spatialities in the performance of citizenship education.…”

Ways of knowing for ‘response‐ability’ in more‐than‐human encounters: the role of anticipatory knowledges in outdoor access with dogs

“…Codes have long played a central role in governing outdoor access. They are devices of self‐governance designed and employed to influence conduct at a distance, especially where mobile or diffuse practices are involved (Merriman 2005). They can also be seen as technologies of anticipatory governance (Massumi 2007; Anderson 2007 2010) in that they seek to shape action in the present based on possible futures, in this case, to avert harm or alarm to humans and nonhumans.…”

“…Reliance is placed upon the ordering engendered by mundane, everyday practices and norms. Yet most studies of outdoor access have focused on the official scriptings contained within laws and Codes (Merriman 2005; Parker 2006; Mackay 2007), with little attention paid to how governance is enacted through bodily practice.…”

Youth organizations and the reproduction of nationalism in Britain: the role of Urdd Gobaith Cymru

“…As individuals and as broader populations, young people are encouraged to act in particular ways, through direct guidance and, importantly, self-regulation (Foucault, 2002(Foucault, [1970Merriman 2005;Gagen, 2015). Particular mechanisms have been used to achieve these goals.…”