Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Running Wild in the Country?: Mobilising Rural In-Migration

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Shaping Rural Areas in Europe

Part of the book series: GeoJournal Library ((GEJL,volume 107))

Abstract

This chapter calls for a conceptual rebalancing within scholarship of how rural in-migration is presented and understood. Whilst the considerable work done in this area to date is not erroneous, its foci have been too narrowly specified and delineated. The predominant framing of migration in general as an immediate, instrumental, bounded action is first presented. This is then deconstructed to arrive at the proposition of migration as a longitudinal, elusive and incomplete event. Such a framing also requires us to acknowledge migration as lived more-than-representationally. The conceptual argument is then illustrated using counterurban migration, first introducing supporting sources of evidence for taking this different perspective and then extracting five key themes regarding the impact of the more-than-representational, notably rural affect, on in-migrants. The chapter concludes by arguing for the active rural voice revealed here to be recognised within the shaping of any rural future.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Thanks to Richard Yarwood for this observation.

  2. 2.

    Grateful acknowledgements to the Leverhulme Trust for award F00391H.

  3. 3.

    This takes us back to the idea of sedentarism, of course, but it is a sedentarism attained rather than assumed; it is a stability-within-movement (Sheller and Urry 2006). Together with the previous theme, we have both roots and routes (Clifford 1997).

References

  • Anderson, B., & Harrison, P. (2010). The promise of non-representational theories. In B. Anderson & P. Harrison (Eds.), Taking-place: Non-representational theories and geography (pp. 1–34). Farnham: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bell, D. (2006). Variations on the rural idyll. In P. Cloke, T. Marsden, & P. Mooney (Eds.), Handbook of rural studies (pp. 149–160). London: Sage.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Bell, M. M. (2008, March). Mobilizing the countryside: Rural power and the power of the rural. Paper presented at Agrarian Studies Seminar (Online document). http://www.yale.edu/agrarianstudies/colloqpapers/22bell.pdf. Accessed 10 Aug 2012.

  • Benson, M. (2009). A desire for difference: British lifestyle migration to southwest France. In M. Benson & K. O’Reilly (Eds.), Lifestyle migration: Expectations, aspirations and experiences (pp. 121–136). Farnham: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benson, M. (2011). The British in rural France. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benson, M., & O’Reilly, K. (2009). Migration and the search for a better way of life: A critical exploration of lifestyle migration. The Sociological Review, 57, 608–625.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blackman, L., & Venn, C. (2010). Affect. Body and Society, 16, 7–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blythe, R. (1969/2005). Akenfield. London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowler, I. (1985). Some consequences of the industrialisation of agriculture in the European Community. In M. Healey & B. Ilbery (Eds.), The industrialisation of the countryside (pp. 75–98). Norwich: Geo Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyle, P., & Halfacree, K. (Eds.). (1998). Migration into rural areas. Theories and issues. Chichester: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bunce, M. (1994). The countryside ideal. Anglo-American images of landscape. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bunce, M. (2003). Reproducing rural idylls. In P. Cloke (Ed.), Country visions (pp. 14–30). Harlow: Pearson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bunting, M. (2008). We need an attentiveness to nature. In R. Petrie & M. Wainwright (Eds.), The Guardian Book of the countryside (pp. 292–295). London: Guardian Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burnett, F. H. (1911/2007). The secret garden. London: Walker Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carolan, M. (2008). More-than-representational knowledge/s of the countryside: How we think as bodies. Sociologia Ruralis, 48, 408–422.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clifford, J. (1997). Routes: Travel and translation in the late twentieth century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cloke, P. (2003). Knowing ruralities? In P. Cloke (Ed.), Country visions (pp. 1–13). Harlow: Pearson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cloke, P. (2006). Rurality and otherness. In P. Cloke, T. Marsden, & P. Mooney (Eds.), Handbook of rural studies (pp. 447–456). London: Sage.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Cocker, M. (2008). Crow country. London: Vintage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Commission for Rural Communities. (2005). The state of the countryside 2005. Wetherby: Countryside Agency Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cowley, J. (2008). The new nature writing. In J. Cowley (Ed.), The new nature writing. Granta 102 (pp. 7–12). London: Granta.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crang, M. (2001). Rhythms of the city: Temporalised space and motion. In J. May & N. Thrift (Eds.), Timespace: Geographies of temporality (pp. 187–207). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cresswell, T. (2006). On the move. Mobility in the modern western world. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dirksmeier, P. (2008). Strife in the rural idyll? The relationship between autochthons and in-migrants in scenic regions of Bavaria. Erdkunde, 62, 159–171.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edensor, T. (2006). Performing rurality. In P. Cloke, T. Marsden, & P. Mooney (Eds.), Handbook of rural studies (pp. 484–495). London: Sage.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Fielding, T. (1998). Counterurbanisation and social class. In P. Boyle & K. Halfacree (Eds.), Migration into rural areas. Theories and issues (pp. 41–60). Chichester: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gosnell, H., & Abrams, J. (2011). Amenity migration: Diverse conceptualizations of drivers, socioeconomic dimensions, and emerging challenges. GeoJournal, 76(4), 302–322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Halfacree, K. (1994). The importance of ‘the rural’ in the constitution of counterurbanization: Evidence from England in the 1980s. Sociologia Ruralis, 34, 164–189.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Halfacree, K. (1996). Out of place in the country: Travellers and the ‘rural idyll’. Antipode, 28, 42–71.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Halfacree, K. (2004). A utopian imagination in migration’s terra incognita? Acknowledging the non-economic worlds of migration decision-making. Population, Space and Place, 10, 239–253.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Halfacree, K. (2008). To revitalise counterurbanisation research? Recognising an international and fuller picture. Population, Space and Place, 14, 479–495.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Halfacree, K. (2012). Heterolocal identities?: Counter-urbanisation, second homes and rural consumption in the era of mobilities. Population, Space and Place, 18, 209–224.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Halfacree, K. (forthcoming). Magic of The Secret Garden?: Acknowledging more-than-representational rurality. Paper available from author.

    Google Scholar 

  • Halfacree, K., & Boyle, P. (1993). The challenge facing migration research: The case for a biographical approach. Progress in Human Geography, 17, 333–348.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Halfacree, K., & Rivera, M. J. (2012). Moving to the countryside… and staying: Lives beyond representation. Sociologia Ruralis, 52, 92–114.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Halfacree, K., Holloway, L., & Maxey, L. (2010). Rooted in the Earth? Going back-to-the-land in millennial Britain. Leverhulme Trust Award F00391H, Final Report.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoey, B. (2005). From pi to pie: Moral narratives of noneconomic migration and starting over in the postindustrial Midwest. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 34, 586–624.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hoey, B. (2006). Grey suit or brown carhartt: Narrative transition, relocation, and reorientation in the live of corporate refugees. Journal of Anthropological Research, 62, 347–371.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horton, J. (2003). Different genres, different visions? The changing countryside in postwar British children’s literature. In P. Cloke (Ed.), Country visions (pp. 73–92). Harlow: Pearson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horton, J. (2008). Producing postman pat: The popular cultural construction of idyllic rurality. Journal of Rural Studies, 24, 389–398.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ingold, T. (1995). Building, dwelling, living: How people and animals make themselves at home in the world. In M. Strathern (Ed.), Shifting contexts: Transformations in anthropological knowledge (pp. 57–80). London: Routledge.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Ingold, T. (2008). Bindings against boundaries: Entanglements of life in an open world. Environment and Planning A, 40, 1796–1810.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, O. (1997). Little figures, big shadows. Country childhood stories. In P. Cloke & J. Little (Eds.), Contested countryside cultures (pp. 158–179). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lorimer, H. (2005). Cultural geography: The busyness of being ‘more-than-representational’. Progress in Human Geography, 29, 83–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mabey, R. (2005). Nature cure. London: Chatto and Windus.

    Google Scholar 

  • Macfarlane, R. (2012). The old ways. A journey on foot. London: Hamish Hamilton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Malkki, L. (1992). National geographic: The rooting of peoples and the territorialization of national identity among scholars and refugees. Cultural Anthropology, 7, 24–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Matless, D. (2009). Nature voices. Journal of Historical Geography, 35, 178–188.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ong, A. (1999). Flexible citizenship: The cultural logics of transnationalism. London: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paniagua, Á. (2002). Counterurbanization and new social class in rural Spain: The environmental and rural dimension revisited. Scottish Geographical Journal, 118, 1–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parsons, L. (2002). ‘Otherways’ into the garden: Re-visioning the feminine in The Secret Garden. Children’s Literature in Education, 33, 247–268.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rivera, M. J. (2007a). Migration to rural Navarre: Questioning the experience of counterurbanisation. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 98, 32–41.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rivera, M. J. (2007b). La Ciudad No Era Mi Lugar. Los Significados Residenciales de la Vuelta al Campo en Navarra. Pamplona: Universidad Pública de Navarra.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rolshoven, J. (2007). The temptations of the provisional. Multilocality as a way of life. Ethnologia Europaea, 37(1/2), 17–25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sheller, M., & Urry, J. (2006). The new mobilities paradigm. Environment and Planning A, 38, 207–226.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stockdale, A., Macleod, M., & Philip, L. (2012). Connected life courses: Influences on and experiences of ‘midlife’ in-migration to rural areas. Population, Space and Place, 19(3), 239–257. doi:10.1002/psp.1709.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thrift, N. (2003). Still life in nearly present time: The object of nature. In P. Cloke (Ed.), Country visions (pp. 308–331). Harlow: Pearson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thrift, N. (2007). Non-representational theory: Space, politics, affect. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Urry, J. (2007). Mobilities. Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilkie, C. (1997). Digging up the secret garden: Noble innocents or little savages? Children’s Literature in Education, 28, 73–83.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Woods, M. (2003). Deconstructing rural protest: The emergence of a new social movement. Journal of Rural Studies, 19, 309–325.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Woods, M. (2005). Contesting rurality. Politics in the British countryside. Aldershot: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The author thanks María Jesús Rivera Escribano for her earlier critical insights and both Luís Silva and Elisabete Figueiredo for enthusiastically bringing me on board in this book project.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, Swansea University, Swansea, Wales, UK

    Keith Halfacree

Authors
  1. Keith Halfacree
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Keith Halfacree .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. , (CRIA/FCSH-UNL), Centre for Research in Anthropology, Rua Quinta dos Cedros 1, Lisbon, 6360-220, Portugal

    Luís Silva

  2. , DCSPT, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, Aveiro, 3810-193, Portugal

    Elisabete Figueiredo

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Halfacree, K. (2013). Running Wild in the Country?: Mobilising Rural In-Migration. In: Silva, L., Figueiredo, E. (eds) Shaping Rural Areas in Europe. GeoJournal Library, vol 107. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6796-6_2

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation