Rural Brexit? The ambivalent politics of rural community, migration and dependency. (February 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Neal, Sarah; Gawlewicz, Anna; Heley, Jesse; Jones, Rhys Dafydd
• Is Part Of: Journal of rural studies. Volume 82(2021)
• Page Start: 176
• Page End: 183
• Publication Date: 2021-02
• Subjects: Rural -- Brexit -- Community -- Migration -- Dependency -- Diversity -- National identity; Sociology, Rural -- Periodicals; Country life -- Periodicals; Rural development -- Periodicals; Land use, Rural -- Planning -- Periodicals; Rural conditions -- Periodicals; Sociologie rurale -- Périodiques; Vie rurale -- Périodiques; Développement rural -- Périodiques; Sol, Utilisation agricole du -- Planification -- Périodiques; Conditions rurales -- Périodiques; Country life; Land use, Rural -- Planning; Rural conditions; Rural development; Sociology, Rural; Periodicals; 307.72
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2021.01.017
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0743-0167

Abstract

Abstract: This paper investigates the relationship between rural space and Brexit. It uses the 2016 UK Referendum outcome and the ongoing processes of Brexit as an optic though which to explore the changing configurations of rural communities and the ways in which they both reinforce and problematise the politics and geographies of Brexit. Taking as its starting point the 'take our country back' nationalism of the 2016 Referendum the paper considers how the anti-migrant, defensive Brexit positions folded into dominant rural imaginaries. Arguing that these imaginaries have always been fractured, the paper shows how this has intensified through the ruralisation of migration in the 2000s. In this context Brexit can be understood as rupture more than a confirmation of nationalist or exclusionary rural imaginaries and the complex intra-rural Leave/Remain geography is indicative of this. Drawing on a small set of in-depth interviews with expert 'policy actors' from rural community and migrant organisations in rural regions in of Wales, England, and Scotland the paper reflects on the rural-Brexit relationship by exploring rural diversity, perceptions of the impacts of Brexit on rural places and rural-migrant dependencies that are social as well as economic. It identifies the interconnected precarity of rural communities' well-being as the decisions of (and constraints on) rural migrants in the post Brexit, re-bordered UK disrupt and affect rural livability. In doing so, it emphasises the ambivalence in the everyday 'rural Brexit' and calls for closer attention to the ways in which rural communities are constitutive of and respond to political turbulence. Editor highlights: Develops the nascent debates around the relationship between Brexit and the rural. Examines the complexity of that relationship across three national contexts. Brings together the sociological literature around Brexit with insights from rural sociology. Explores the lacunae between the rural as an expression of nationalism and the rural as a lived and fluid space. Draws on and presents situated policy responses from an exploratory empirical study. Reflects on emergent senses of rural precarity and the importance of rural interdependencies.