Rural Communities

Mark Shucksmith
School of Architecture, Planning & Landscape,
Newcastle University,
Claremont Tower,
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 7RU.

m.shucksmith@ncl.ac.uk
+44(0)191 222 6808

Nicola Thompson
Centre for Rural Economy,
Agriculture Building,
Newcastle University,
Newcastle,
NE1 7RU.

nicola.thompson@ncl.ac.uk
+44 (0)191 222 6623

Synopsis

In the global north, popular and public policy discourses construct rural places as
inhabited by communities characterised by continuity, stability and self reliance, and
perhaps as emblematic of national identities. Paradoxically, and partly because of this
construction, rural communities have been subject to major social, economic and
demographic restructuring, becoming less reliant on primary industry and more like
urban economies and societies. In this context, academic debate has focused on the
usefulness and appropriateness of the concepts of rurality and community. These
concepts nevertheless retain symbolic power which can be used to mobilise people,
whether towards sectional interests or for wider development objectives.

Keywords
Rural. Communities. Countryside. Pastoralism. Pre-modernity. Rural development.
Regeneration. Community development. Sustainable communities. Agriculture.

Glossary

Gemeinschaft and gessellschaft: terms introduced by Tonnies to distinguish between

supposedly different sets of social relations in pre-industrial (gemeinschaft, rural,
community) and industrial (gesselschaft, urban, association) societies.
Multifunctional countryside: the argument that rural places (and specifically farmers)
convey numerous benefits to society, extending beyond food production to include
landscape, biodiversity, recreation and others. Often there is an implicit argument
that society should pay farmers for these multifunctional benefits.
Post-productivist countryside: some writers have argued that rural areas are no longer
principally places of production (of food, for example) but have become spaces of
 consumption (of landscape etc) by middle-class residents and tourists. Others argue
that this shift is over exaggerated and point to the continuing and evolving ways in
which food production shapes the rural economy and environment.
Rural Development: a contested term, generally actions to increase the quality of life
of rural residents. Some take rural development to mean territorial policies, as
opposed to sectoral (especially agricultural) policies. Rural development policies
encompass interventions aimed at improving economic welfare but also include
social, cultural and environmental dimensions.

1. Perspectives on Rural Communities

The concept of ‘rural communities’ is notoriously difficult to define. Despite

critiques, rural and urban continue to be portrayed, if not as polar opposites, then at
least as distinctly different entities. A dominant discourse is the notion of the rural as
epitomising the good life and being the antithesis of change; a category defined in
opposition to modernity (Ward and Ray 2004). Attempts to define rural are often set
against the supposedly creative, dynamic, innovative and fluid nature of urban
relations. Whilst some have argued that the city is a reserve of creativity, ideas,
enthusiasm, diversity and differentiation which helps to nurture a good quality of life
(see for example Vega 2001), such approaches tend to be overshadowed by the
dominant narrative of the rural idyll, places dominated by supposedly stable and
secure social relations (Bengs and Schmidt-Thomé 2005a).

Intricately associated with ideas about rurality, is the concept of community. Modern
perspectives on community emerged in the 19 th century in the context of
industrialisation and a desire to re-establish more immediate or local social relations.
The Romantic Movement for example adopted the emblem of community to signal
the demise of the rural idyll (Newby 1980). From these foundations of nostalgia for
the old have emerged enduring cultural associations of the greater authenticity of rural
relations. Tönnies used the terms gemeinschaft and gesellschaft to distinguish
different sets of social relations or forms of human association characterising pre-
industrial and industrial society respectively. For Tönnies, industrialisation
threatened the stability created through intimate and rigid gemeinschaftlich relations
often associated with kinship or church. Tönnies’ model has in a sense been ‘hi-
jacked’ as a device for describing social relations in the form of a rural-urban
continuum and the assumption that ‘where people live determines how they live’
(Newby 1980: 23). The assumed relation between community and locality began to
be challenged by the community studies of the 1950s and 1960s. Specifically, Pahl’s
1965 study ‘Urbs in Rure’ revealed the extent of the mobility, anonymity and
isolation (ie. gessellsschaft features) of rural life in Hertfordshire, while Young and
Wilmot’s studies of east London found intimate social relationships more akin to
notions of rural communities (ie. gemeinschaft features) in the city.

Two main conflicting narratives shape our perceptions of rurality – these are
narratives of pastoralism and pre-modernity (Murdoch 2003). Pastoralists often see
rural areas as repositories of cultural values or even national identities and seek to
protect their romantic notion of rural life from outside influences. In contrast,
modernists see rural areas as essentially backward and needing transformation and
development to enjoy the tangible benefits of the modern world.
Whatever problems may be experienced in rural areas it remains the case that in many
contexts the rural is seen as offering a better quality of life and in particular, a better
quality of family life. It has been argued that it may be time for academic analysis to
‘do away’ with rural which as a category is ‘obfuscatory and often atheoretical’,
imbued with implied meaning and overlooking causal relationships (Hoggart 1990).
This position may be given more weight by commentators who argue that processes
of rural restructuring have led to the blurring of urban-rural distinctions and
boundaries. There is now a growing concern with the interconnectivity of urban-rural
(see for example Bengs and Schmidt-Thomé 2005), which is increasingly reflected in
contemporary policy agendas.

There have been several distinct phases in attempts to unravel the concept of rural.
Halfacree in 1993 identified descriptive studies, spatial determinism, rural locality
studies and finally, social constructivist approaches (where rural is a site of social
struggle; both symbolic and transformative).

The first of these, descriptive studies, includes all indicator based studies. Halfacree
argues that these are tautological since they rely on an intuitive sense of what rural is
and so become self-fulfilling. In this sense, studies in this category may contribute to
understanding at a descriptive level but do not contribute to conceptually defining the
rural. An example would be Cloke’s (1977) index of rurality for England and Wales.

Another group of approaches can be described as a spatial determinism approach,

which imbues the environment with the power to determine social behaviour and
relations. This type of approach produces many of the urban-rural oppositions such as
secular against sacred, rational against traditional, unstable against stable and
geschellschaft against gemeinschaft.

These types of approach indicate a search for rurality in particular spaces and
functions, often with the outcome of ‘mapping’ rural areas. Rural identity is
connected with open spaces and small settlements, combined with certain behavioural
patterns (Bengs and Schmidt-Thomé 2005a). Whilst such approaches have been
criticised, the tendency to appeal to a rural identity remains important not least
because of its common sense appeal.

Such approaches are commonly used by supra national organisations, governments

and other public agencies seeking to define the boundaries of the rural in order to
develop and deliver rural development policy. Bengs and Schmidt-Thomé (2005b)
illustrate this with reference to the EC commissioned report The Future of Rural
Society (CEC 1988) which offers some ‘standard types’ of rural areas: rural areas
under pressure; rural areas in decline and very marginal rural areas. Another example
given is the OECD 1993 report What Future for our Countryside? This classified
rural areas according to their degree of accessibility to urban centres; whilst
recognising that some ‘remote’ areas were increasingly economically integrated
whilst retaining a rural population density. Bengs and Schmidt-Thomé (2005b)
suggest that these approaches could be conceived of as a useful first stage, helping to
build scenarios but which need to be supplemented by spatially specific data using
quantitative indicators and analysis. Other implicit approaches tend to work using
quantitative based differentiation of places and are often generated by policy agendas
and the identification of specific problems to be addressed through spatially targeted
measures.

An increased interest in rural locality studies arose during the 1980s through work
on rural restructuring. Structuralist political economy approaches, with their focus on
national and international economic processes, undermined the concept of rural.
Changes in specific places were seen as arising through shifting economic processes
and relations. Rural locality studies attempted to demonstrate how forces of global
restructuring had clear local manifestations and that these were different in rural
areas. Work by Hoggart and Halfacree (see Shucksmith 1994) concedes that, to a
degree, rural space has a particular role in private and collective consumption. This
indicates that cultural constructions of the rural idyll are alive and well and being
actively mobilised in new forms of commodification of the countryside for urban
consumption (Valentine 2001). However, in conclusion, Hoggart argues that causal
processes are not confined by rural-urban divides and that the restructuring thesis does
not add weight to the notion of rural-urban distinction. Therefore it is argued by
Hoggart and Halfacree that rural cannot be understood as a specific type of space –
but rather as social representation. This argument also applies to urban space and to
cities as social imaginaries (Amin and Thrift 2002).

There has been growing interest in the rural as social representation; in other words
the rural is a social construct. Social constructivist approaches have reinvigorated
rural studies by examining what rurality means. Attention is focussed upon the
different social spaces and relations which overlay physical space; and upon the
interconnections between different meanings of rurality and the institutional structures
and processes of rural change. Building upon this are the deconstructivist approaches
which stress the detachment of symbols of rurality from the practices of everyday life.
This opens up the complexities and ambivalences of rurality and offers new ways of
exploring it through, for example, deconstructing different rural texts.

An example of a deconstructivist approach is Halfacree’s model of the rural network,

which focuses on the interplay between everyday experiences of (rural) life, informal
and formal representations of rurality, and the images and symbols which surround
this. Within this the symbolic begins to take precedence over the material and
therefore makes the definition of rurality something which is contested between
different groups – it becomes a site of social struggle with very real consequences.

Exploring how society constructs and represents rurality can be useful for
understanding political mobilisation around the rural. In the UK recently for example,
the rural lobby has, through the Countryside Alliance, opposed urban interference in
rural matters, arguing that metropolitan central government (and specifically a Labour
Government) lacks understanding of rural lifestyles and livelihoods (Woods 2004).
Similarly, across Europe, farmers’ organisations have sought to present rural as
identical to agricultural. This illustrates how the rural can be an issue around which to
organise and a symbol which may be mobilised in support of particular interests.
Such mobilisations manipulate concepts of rural identity and space (Woods 2004).
Public agencies also have a long history of using particular constructions of the rural
in policy and practice.
In summary, academics tend now to reject the idea of essential differences between
rural and urban areas, largely because economic and social processes transcend such
boundaries and empirical studies have exploded simplistic rural/urban dualities. The
social constructivist arguments which are the basis of many contemporary academic
approaches to the ‘rural’ instead view rurality as an imaginary which has different
meanings to different people, and whose meanings and symbols may be manipulated
and contested as part of social struggles. Against this, ‘rurality’ has a powerful and
continuing resonance in lay discourses, such that rurality may be invisible only to the
clever (Shucksmith 1994).

2. Changing rural communities

According to the EU Commission, “agriculture and forestry no longer form the

backbone of rural economies.” Even in the EU’s predominantly rural regions, 82% of
employment and 95% of value-added came from non-agricultural activity by 2009.
The declining importance of agriculture and other primary activities has been more
than offset in many rural areas by the growth of services. Rural areas are also
experiencing demographic, social and cultural changes. Migration flows are critical to
economic and social change and, while some areas continue to lose population, in
many parts people are moving into rural areas because of the new values placed on
rural space. Across the EU27, 36% of predominantly rural regions and 56% of
significantly rural regions grew faster than the national average from 1995-2004.

Cloke and Goodwin (1992a,b) and Goodwin et al (1995) have drawn on regulation
theory to examine the changing function and position of rural areas in Europe, along
the three dimensions of economic change, socio-cultural recomposition, and re-
engineering the role of the state. In terms of governance and the role of the state, they
see a transition from a hegemonic dominance of farmers or landed elites (Newby et al
1978) to a commodified, multi-functional countryside associated with the image of
‘middle-class territory’. However, Hoggart and Paniagua (2001) rightly point out that
the validity of this account varies considerably from place to place, and Shucksmith et
al (2009) suggest that such a change is more typical of the richer countries.

There are also significant intra national differences. In an English context, Murdoch et
al (1993) proposed that the interaction of social relations with broader political and
economic relations was shaping differentiation in rural development trajectories. For
example, the rural coalfields of the north of England may be officially classified as
rural but face significant and long term regeneration challenges that are distinctive
from those of many other areas. The rural coalfields bear no resemblance to the
popular and political perception of the rural as a pastoral landscape and ‘middle-class
territory’. In most of the rural UK, on the other hand, housing market processes are at
the heart of social change, as poorer groups are systematically excluded from
residence in the countryside (cross-ref Rural Housing section).

That quality of life and rural lifestyles are undergoing transition are self-evident from
the processes of restructuring and demographic ageing which typify rural
communities. In key EU agricultural areas including Greece, Portugal and Ireland,
mechanisation of agricultural and associated primary industries have meant a loss of
localised employment. While an ‘agro-industrial’ dynamic remains dominant in
many parts of rural Europe, in others a ‘post-productivist’, consumption dynamic has
emerged through falling agricultural employment, increasing farm diversification,
repopulation of rural areas by service classes, out-migration for young people and a
widening gap between rich and poor. In addition Marsden (2003) has identified an
emergent ‘rural development’ dynamic arising in a few rural areas of Europe around
short food-supply chains, organic agriculture and ecological modernisation.

In southern Europe new forms of indigenous industrialisation have emerged and some
service functions have relocated to rural areas (Hoggart, Buller and Black 1995: 5).
ICT and biotechnology have also created new opportunities and contributed to the
increasing value of rural living space by creating an urbanising dynamic – even in
relatively remote places, such as the isle of Skye in Scotland (Dargan 2006). Others
may be looking for more self-sufficient ways of living (‘radical rural’). Alongside
this are the politics of a new environmentalism and a new consumerism. The growth
of the agro food industry and the desire for cheap food now sit alongside demands for
food which is simultaneously, traceable, produced to high environmental standards
and through a claim to localness ‘reconnecting’ the urban and rural. Hence new
patterns of consumption are emerging driven by a range of different forces and
demands for different ruralities. These are helping to produce new representations of
living, working and playing in rural areas. Elsewhere people are finding themselves
in increasingly peripheral places lacking employment opportunities and services.

3. Mobilising Rural Communities

The belief that rural communities are characterised by strong community spirit and a
capacity for helping themselves has been a major influence on rural policy in the last
two decades. The idea that rural communities have distinctive characteristics that can
be actively used in economic development and service delivery persists in many
countries. Indeed, community mobilisation has been integral to many national and EU
rural programmes since the 1990s. Examples include the EU LEADER programme,
Canada’s Community Futures and the Landcare programme in Australia.
Furthermore, much of the activity of rural voluntary and community organisations
across the global north is premised on assumptions about community spirit and
capacities for self help.

The continuing resonance of rurality in lay discourse has a powerful influence on the
behaviour of those who live in rural areas. Many of those who choose to migrate to
rural areas actively reproduce the concept of the rural idyll adopting forms of
behaviour which support their preconceived notions of rural living. Notions of
cohesive rural communities can bring together people who have diverse material,
social and cultural interests. This can be positive and negative, particularly with
regard to housing development in the countryside.

There are strong commonalities in the experience of community mobilisation in rural

areas across the global north. Themes of participation and partnership are evident in
the policy approaches adopted by governments across Europe, America and Australia,
while Nordic countries have sought to bend these models to their own traditions of
democratic local associations (Thuesen 2010). Many rural communities have
benefited from more responsive and adaptable community based development
initiatives based on participatory partnership arrangements. However, it tends to be
the already powerful groups that are able to take advantage of the opportunities that
community mobilisation can bring. Conversely those already experiencing social
exclusion frequently struggle to have their voice heard. There are also major
differences in the extent to which communities are able to access support and to take
on responsibility for their own development. There are numerous problems associated
with both partnership working and community participation identified in research in
rural communities. One of the most important problems has been reliance on fixed
term funding with the result that most partnerships in rural areas tend to be short term,
lasting as long as specific funding programmes. Partnerships also tend to be unevenly
spread with many communities ending up left out or unable to attract any money for
their initiatives.

In the UK the promotion of community self help has been achieved predominantly
through facilitating partnership working and encouraging community based parish
and town planning. The result has been more community planning in rural areas
including extensive use of parish plans developed using techniques such as ‘Planning
for Real’. In recent years rural communities have also played a growing role in the
direct ownership and management of assets and resources. This has been most clearly
seen in Scotland where an increasing number of communities have exercised new
rights to buy the land on which they live and work. There is also a growing use of
community land trusts throughout the UK particularly as a means of providing
affordable housing. This has been accompanied by significant developments in the
use of community based social enterprises in service delivery and retail.

In Australia rural community self government has been widely promoted. Here many
community based groups have taken over the work previously done by local
government. However, there are growing problems of ensuring the accountability and
legitimacy of many of these community groups and increasing problems with
securing long term funding. Conversely recent research undertaken in rural Poland
has highlighted the problems of overreliance on the public sector in the delivery of
social and economic development in rural localities. Despite a rhetoric of the
importance of developing community capacities, the structuring of key rural funding
programmes has systematically channelled money into local government dominated
partnerships. In Poland it has proved difficult for community groups to receive
funding and develop community resources. Hence the international experience of
rural community mobilisation points to the need to effectively integrate and support a
variety of organisations across all sectors through strong metagovernance. Such
integration helps to simultaneously ensure legitimacy and accountability in the use of
public funds while also harnessing the capacities and energies of community
members.

Analysis of rural development initiatives across the developed world demonstrates the
need to support resources ‘within’ communities using additional knowledge and
investment from outside the locality (Shucksmith 2010). Community mobilisation
benefits from the involvement of professionals from a variety of backgrounds and
organisations to facilitate/animate rural development but can be undermined by
overreliance by any one organisation or an exclusive grouping within a rural
community.

The rural policies of the past have implicitly idealised rural communities as stable,
unified, self organised, unchanging. However, the changes outlined in section two are
fundamentally altering the composition of rural communities. Despite these major
social and demographic changes, the dominant social construction of rurality as a
space of strong community relations, continues to act as a point of unification for a
rural population employed in an increasing range of economic sectors and from a
growing diversity of social and cultural backgrounds. The power of the idea of rural
community to mobilise rural residents has many tangible social and economic benefits
for rural development. The ideal can also create challenges in ensuring that
community based activity is genuinely inclusive and does not merely serve the
material interests of the relatively wealthy. This is particularly important in the
growing number of localities in the global north where the relatively wealthy form
majorities within rural communities.

4. Community Participation – a case study.

Mobilising communities to achieve rural development objectives is in an international

trend that has been achieved in different ways, and to varying degrees, across the
global north. This final section focuses on a specific example of an English initiative
to involve rural communities in planning for their futures – parish, or community led,
planning. The case study highlights some of the specific tensions and questions that
have arisen on the use community participation in housing and planning policy.

The parish is one of oldest geographical entities in England. A parish covers a defined
territory usually associated with one or more settlements. Parish councils are the
smallest unit of democratically elected government in England. They consist of
community members from within the parish territory. Parish councils have no
statutory planning powers but have been encouraged by government to engage in the
planning process as a means of giving voice to rural communities in the planning
process. Over the last two decades parish based community groups have been
producing ‘parish plans’. Provision has been made for statutory planning authorities
to take into account these plans. In practice this ‘taking account’ has been both open
to interpretation and difficult to achieve in practice.

Parish planning has a twenty year history. However, it was not until 2001 that a major
programme of public investment in community led planning ensured resources to
formulate local planning documents. The Countryside Agency’s ‘Vital Villages’
programme ran over a four year period between 2001 and 2004 and provided £4.35
million of investment. ‘Vital Villages’ aimed to support parish planning which:
reflected the views of the whole community; identified features and characteristics
that people valued; identified local problems and opportunities; spelt out how
residents wanted the community to develop in future and; prepared a plan of action to
achieve a shared vision. Around 1,200 parish based community groups were funded to
produce parish plans under the Vital Villages programme. Since 2004 central
government and the voluntary sector have provided money and professional support
to facilitate parish planning with the result that by 2010 between 3,000 and 4,000
communities had undertaken some kind of community based planning exercise.

The Vital Villages programme was based on a series of assumptions about the
capacities and capabilities within rural communities. In particular it was envisaged
that community groups would be able to formulate plans that could be clearly
integrated with the statutory planning system. In reality in the vast majority of cases
this was not achievable without the input of an outside professional with relevant
planning expertise. Communities and those supporting these local groups, were often
faced with a dilemma – to maintain a high degree of community involvement to
produce plans that were by and of local communities or to accept the necessity of
extensive professional input on the basis that this would give more ‘weight’ to the end
product in the planning system. Further dilemmas commonly arose on the role that the
public authorities with planning responsibilities should play in the development of
parish plans. These authorities usually had resources and incentives to support parish
planning but risked undermining community participation and ownership if their
involvement became too explicit and directive.

Following extensive research on the experience of parish planning Gallent et al

examine the tension between ensuring genuine community ownership of parish plans
and the formulation of documents that explicitly integrate with the statutory planning
system. They conclude that the planning system should be concerned with mediating
between and incorporating different values. It is more appropriate for planning
authorities to ‘bridge’ to community led plans rather than attempt to directly intervene
in the process of parish plan development in order to impose integrative framings. To
date the reality has been that many parish plans are ignored by planning authorities
whilst others are selectively and spasmodically used. Evaluations have concluded that
overall parish plans have little influence in the planning system.

The experience of parish, or community led, planning in England highlights the

contradictions between policy rhetoric and experience. Politicians and policy makers
remain committed to the notion of empowered communities able to mobilise
resources from within but in the case of planning it has proved difficult to achieve
tangible community level influence. Less well researched is what would happen if
community planning was effective and the implications this would have. Rural change
has resulted in the dominance of higher income groups in most areas of rural England.
The question therefore remains as to what extent parish planning has involved the full
range of socio-economic interests in the countryside. What visions and actions plans
emerge from rural community planning? Whose construction of rurality do they
reflect?

Cross references

Communities and neighbourhoods

Rurality and Housing
Dimensions of social exclusion
Sustainable communities
Rural Housing
Housing and social cohesion
Social sustainability
Second homes
Housing for older people
Housing inequalities
Housing and social exclusion
Further Reading

Bengs C and Schmidt-Thomé K eds (2005) Urban–Rural Relations in Europe

ESPON 1.1.2 Part 2: Results of the Project
Gallent N, Satsangi M and Bevan M (2010) The Rural Housing Question, Policy
Press.
Halfacree K (1993) Locality and Social Representation: space, discourse and
alternative definitions of the rural, Journal of Rural Studies, 9, 1, 23-37.
Murdoch J (2003) Co-constructing the Countryside: hybrid networks and the
extensive self in Cloke P (ed) Country Visions London: Pearson Edwards
OECD (2006) The New Rural Paradigm: Policies and Governance, Paris, OECD.
Shucksmith M (1994) Conceptualising Post-Industrial Rurality, pp. 125-132 in
Bryden J (ed) Towards Sustainable Rural Communities, University of Guelph.
Shucksmith M, Cameron S, Merridew T and Pichler F (2009) Urban-Rural
Differences in Quality of Life across the EU, Regional Studies, 43, 10, 1275-90.
Shucksmith M (2010) Disintegrated Rural Development? Neo-endogenous rural
development, planning and place-shaping in diffused power contexts, Sociologia
Ruralis, 50, 1, 1-15.
Woods M (2004) Rural Geography, Sage.

Relevant Websites

http://www.oecd.org/gov/ruraldevelopment
http://enrd.ec.europa.eu/
http://www.ruralcommunities.gov.uk/