Rural Europe

Keith Hoggart, Richard Black, Henry Buller

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317859246
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Geography

Examines the interaction of the economic, political and social change processes within Europe which are bringing about fundamental transformations in rural areas. The authors expand on this view of rural Europe, and place its significance within the broader field of rural studies.

1

Globalization, nations and rural transformation

Eight years ago, two of the present authors published a volume that sought to examine rural development trajectories as generalized processes (Hoggart and Buller, 1987). In Rural development we provided an interpretation of change in rural areas that was essentially grounded in Britain and the United States, yet which drew no serious contrasts between these nations, nor sought to locate the distinctive experiences of their country areas in terms of the dissimilar structures and processes that are found in other places. This is not the only occasion on which we have provided commentaries on ‘the rural’ which offer too generalized an interpretation of the processes and patterns we have described (e.g. Hoggart, 1990). In more recent years, however, we have become increasingly aware or, perhaps more accurately, have forced ourselves to be more forthright in recognizing cross-national differences in causal processes (e.g. Buller, 1992). This recognition is not particularly original, but it is our contention that acceptance of national differences receives insufficient attention within the rural studies literature. Analysts do recognize that such differences exist, but in conceptualizing and writing on ‘the rural’ they too often soft-peddle in introducing this understanding into their contributions. As such, within writings in the English language, there is a danger that undue weight is given to an Anglo-American view of rurality and rural development. The likely effect of this is not simply to weaken, or at least isolate, the potency of processes, structures and conceptualizations that are presented in rural studies in other nations, but also to make Anglo-American images more shallow, for the limited geographical base of their supposed generalities is insufficiently recognized. In writing this volume, one of our primary objectives is to draw attention to the existence of cross-national similarities and differences in rural development, in order to emphasize the variety of rural trends and identities that exist in the European Community today.

The fact that we have focused on Europe highlights a further underpinning of our efforts. We contend that, even as the fortunes of rural areas are increasingly determined by transnational processes and structures, to understand these more ‘global’ causal forces we need to appreciate how they are grounded in nation-specific practices. In terms of the articulation of these forces, this is perhaps most evident in international political relations. As one illustration, when examining EC legislation a consideration that should be foremost in interpretations is the understanding that …‘[most] European policy is not made in the Community institutions, but rather in the national parliaments …’, so ‘Europe-wide’ legislation reflects a compromise between national objectives (Wenturis, 1994, 235).¹ Of course, when articulated through governments, a nation-specific impetus is (relatively) easy to identify and interpret, if only because there is an institutional framework which ties many actions to single nations.² Yet distinct national contributions to forces of stability and change are also manifest in the way transnational processes affecting capital and civil society are penetrated by national mores and practical adjustments. Providing insight on these phenomena for the EC appears to us to be particularly appropriate, for the present balance of work on EC affairs favours generalized accounts of European integration (e.g. Cole and Cole, 1993; Dawson, 1993) or examinations of events in specific countries that are largely taken in isolation (Brouwer et al., 1991; Rodwin and Sazanami, 1991). The intention here is not to provide a country-by-country descriptive account, as Parker (1979) has offered. Rather, our aim is to provide commentary that will help elucidate distinctions in national traditions that contribute toward an uneven pattern of rural development within the European Community. These traditions are seen as interacting with EC initiatives and transnational socioeconomic impulses to produce a complex European rural geography.

Stated in this way, our intentions might be read as a postmodern emphasis on distinction and divergence that stands in opposition to works on European integration and globalization processes. This is not our aim. We are persuaded that a deeper understanding of the words and concepts that are used by people in their daily conversations can shed light on the meaning of rurality (Halfacree, 1993). It can also contribute to theorization of behavioural differences. For example, valuable insights can be gained from analyses of the role rural householders believe women ‘should’ take in the household or on farm enterprises, even though most of this work does not trace its roots to postmodernism (Hillebrand and Blom, 1993; Haugen, 1994; Little, 1994). Indeed, there is a fear that the post modern emphasis on ‘difference’ has the potential to generate largely uncoordinated descriptive accounts, which do not take us far in understanding the genesis of the conditions they describe. Certainly, as yet, that work which has focused on individuals has generally provided uncontextualized, descriptive commentaries that offer little theoretical advancement. In good measure this arises because general trends in human behaviour are not autonomously generated from personalized actions, but are conditioned by the past and present structured circumstances of social existence.

Irrespective of whether individuals or small groups possess unique interpretations of their lived environment, we are poorly served by seeking to aggregate individual behaviour into local or national trends. The whole is much more than the sum of its parts. A simple illustration of this is seen in links between social class and electoral support for British political parties. At the level of single voters, links between class and political allegiance have weakened over time. At the level of electoral constituencies, though, they have strengthened. Manual workers might be less likely to vote Labour now than in the past, but people living in constituencies with a large manual labour population are even more inclined to support Labour (Warde, 1986). In similar vein, while analysis of personal actions provide informative insights on social differentiation, as with Schmitt’s (1994) work on differences in farming practices on female- and male-headed production units, such distinctions are heavily conditioned by long-established social structures that generate not only regional disparities in gender divisions of labour (Sackmann and Häussermann, 1994) but even cross-national divergences in gender roles (Pfau-Effinger, 1994). Put simply, personal behaviour is grounded in enduring social structures that are not static, but whose changing nature is informed by previous social practices (Sahlins, 1981).³

As such, lifestyles, worldviews and conceptions of rurality, along with the behaviour patterns that we can observe in rural areas, can be quite different or even contested in single places. However, as the totality constitutes more than its individual elements, understanding dissimilarities in paths of rural change still requires that we theorize dominant societal structures and processes. In this volume we explore such structured circumstances, by asking whether socioeconomic trends in rural Europe follow trajectories that are infused with nation-specific causal tendencies. Of necessity, we have to start such an analysis by recognizing that a multiplicity of causal processes and structures have been instrumental in bringing rural Europe to its present variegated form. These forces of continuity and change operate at local, national and transnational scales. We offer no scoring of causal priorities. Our task is more limited: it simply inquires into the extent to which understanding national-level differences helps us appreciate the socioeconomic characteristics, trajectories and identities of countryside areas in the European Community.

Theorizing nation-specific ruralities

When we first considered writing this volume, one of our intentions was to provide a strong theoretical underpinning to our assessment of dissimilar conceptions of rurality in Europe and, more particularly, of dissimilar processes of rural development. As this project progressed, this aim became ever more distant, as we realized that the problems we confronted were far too complex and under-researched for clear lines of causal accounting to be presented. It follows that any notion of theorizing in this text is more about moving toward a position where theorization is possible, rather than offering rounded explanation. As such, we cover items that need clarification, as much as we highlight issues of agreement.

The complexities of developing theoretical insight on rural development processes should not be under-stated. Socioeconomic change in rural areas inevitably covers the whole gamut of societal transformations that nations experience, yet requires a theoretician to find common cause across places whose likeness arises simply from either a shared low population density or consensus amongst its residents that their home place is ‘rural’. By itself low population density carries little theoretical weight, for we know that places of relatively sparse population incorporate a variety of socioeconomic trends, as well as experiencing or encountering dissimilar development processes and pressures (e.g. Hoggart, 1988; Hodge and Monk, 1991). Moreover, personalized views on rurality inevitably centre on a sub-plot of rural change processes. As with any sub-plot, the story line can be both fascinating and of critical importance, but of itself it is not enough; assuming the intention is not simply to understand social change in rural areas but also to theorize the causal mechanisms that lie behind them. Once again, what we are suggesting is not innovative nor new. Yet it needs emphasizing, for, in common with much research in the social sciences, rural studies are passing through something of a transitional phase. Dissatisfaction has grown over the inadequacies of prior research practices, leading to calls for new interpretive paradigms. What we fear is a repeat of the all too common occurrence of too readily rejecting the strengths of past practices owing to the appeal of a new research emphasis. This is a fear that we are not alone in recognizing (e.g. Murdoch and Pratt, 1993).

Cynics might argue that one of the characteristics of academic enterprise is for researchers to promote new areas of research endeavour, accompanying their introduction with over-exuberant attacks on previous practices to justify a change to a new mode of analysis. Certainly, at least two tendencies increase the impetus to over-emphasize the need for change in analytical approach. The first arises from the vast literature that now exists on most aspects of academic research. In combination with the growing recognition of a need for more inter-disciplinary understanding, plus sharply increasing academic workloads, the chances of a single piece of work drawing attention to itself are lessened, unless the message that is projected is somewhat ‘different’. Arguably, in presenting such differences, more attention accrues if the scale or depth of the critique of past practices is intense. The chances of such critiques drawing succour are also enhanced by the prevailing character of research communities in the social sciences. While it would be an exaggeration to divide academic investigators into either a theoretical or an empirical camp, even a cursory glance at publication records and journal entries indicates that most researchers either favour more abstract theoretical interpretations of human behaviour or engage in detailed examinations of that behaviour. For us, this division sets up a tension, in which more empirically-oriented investigators, through the very nature of in-depth analyses, are prone to realize weakness in existing theoretical perspectives. This has the consequence of leaving these researchers open to the influence of an innovative theoretical perspective that seems to offer ‘solutions’ to flaws in existing paradigms. What makes this problem worse for rural studies is the fact that the vast majority of theoretical insights are formulated with a view to addressing national or city-dominated processes and structures. This generates added difficulties for rural analysts, since the formulations are most commonly visualized at a broader geographical scale than their study sites (as for most theorizing on uneven development processes, especially when the international dimension is included). Alternatively, interpretations are produced that are of uncertain relevance for rural areas, either due to their city-focus or because they are formulated for activities that rarely occur in the countryside. It comes as little surprise, then, that rural research has often been described as theoretically retarded (Cloke, 1989a), although there appears to be chagrin amongst rural researchers over the labelling of their research field as a laggardly enterprise.

Nonetheless, the changing content of contemporary social science research would seem to place rural studies in an advantageous position. In part this is due to altered public consciousness about (so-called) rural issues, as well as to new trends in behaviour that have brought new roles for the countryside. There is no doubt, for instance, that the public has become increasingly concerned over issues of environmental degradation, with agriculture a major focus for such concerns (Comolet, 1989; Pitman, 1992; Rude and Frederiksen, 1994). At the same time, much of the European countryside is being energized by contemporary trends that affect activity spheres ranging from manufacturing to tourism, as well as from day-trips to commuting and migration (e.g. Fielding, 1982; Cross, 1990; Harrison, 1991; Chevalier, 1993). Such changes have been instrumental in increasing research attention on rural issues. Public interest in the countryside has grown not simply from its changing role in production processes and its growing importance as a site for consumption, but also from its increasing significance in policy terms. In this respect, it is particularly relevant to note trends such as greater interest in environmental issues and a growing recognition of the dramatic socioeconomic changes that the Single European Market could herald (e.g. Boussard, 1990; Grahl and Teague, 1990).

None of these trends specifically requires a change in theoretical or conceptual orientations. What underscores such analytical transformations are general adjustments in the social sciences as a whole. Here two particular tendencies favour rural investigations. The first arises from a growing interest in analyses of consumption; particularly as these relate to self-identity and place-generation (Sack, 1992; Bocock, 1993). In this mould there is an emerging interest in what rurality means for different people and how conceptions of ‘the rural’ are used for political purposes (Lowe, 1989; Mormont, 1990; Cloke and Milbourne, 1992; Halfacree, 1993). Accompanying this there is now much disenchantment with structuralist accounts of societal change, with analysts concerned over their potentially functionalist and reductionist tendencies, as well as with the difficulties of relating general abstract principles to concrete events (Wickham, 1988; Lovering, 1989). Here, as with ‘identity studies’, we detect a shift in the emphasis of rural investigations toward locally-grounded interpretations of rurality.

A seductive avenue for researchers has been an analysis of the processes of internationalization (both political and economic) and their potential spatial consequences. But top-down empirical demonstrations of the consequences of international tendencies for national, regional and local structures, which begin with descriptions of global tendencies and attempt to predict local responses, remain problematic. More compelling … is the reverse approach: seeking evidence of local action and local systems of relationships in the formation of rural localities in a more internationalized world. This perspective challenges what we regard as a former, unreflexive approach of structuralist concepts to rural change in which the distinctive role of locality and rurality in the economic restructuring and urban experience of society in the late twentieth century was to easily dismissed (Marsden et al., 1993, 172).

In their emphasis on intermediate-level conceptualizations, the ideas of Marsden and colleagues are compelling. However, we are concerned about the phrasing of their argument. As the above passage indicates, the tone of criticism of structuralist approaches often implies little more than an inversion in perspective. Thus recognition that structures are not transposed directly into individual behaviour leads us to criticize structuralist modes of explanation. But there is a risk that the babble of voices fermented by attempts to theorize by building up from the individual may lead to an impasse. Beside, it can be seriously questioned as to whether such an enterprise is at all feasible without insights on linkages between local and global being informed by an accepted theorization of structured circumstances that influence locally-grounded behaviour. In effect, while there is much merit in rejecting attempts to impose a structural explanation on the actual experience of individual behaviour, this in no sense means that we can aggregate the actions of human agents and produce an understandable theoretical whole. To be intelligible, interpretations of local actions must be informed by theorizations at the global and the national levels (Taylor, 1993).

This is not to doubt that people who live in close proximity can generate theoretically significant social action. In so far as such territorial units attain meaning for their residents and provoke communal action, they merit serious theoretical interest (Urry, 1987). However, despite an abundance of research attention in the search for such locality effects, significant question marks still surround the issue of what these actually are (Jonas, 1988; Duncan, 1989). Local sentiments can be strong, but it is unclear whether they simply provide a particular flavour to action, or represent wider ideals around which social action is organized and valued, that set one locality off against another (Cohen, 1982; Bouquet, 1986). What is lacking is clear evidence that locally-grounded socioeconomic ‘units’ carry sufficient weight to be a primary determinant of rural change.

In contrast, a multitude of studies can be cited which show that localities have long been penetrated by transnational forces. Moreover, while these can interact with local societies to create geographical differences in behaviour (e.g. MacDonald, 1963), it is at the national level that institutional and ideological capacities are more capable of imposing a distinctive character on global trends. It follows that it is at the transnational level that we should start our search for understanding socioeconomic transitions in rural areas, as it is at this level that the reality of most fundamental societal adjustment is commonly dictated (Taylor, 1993). Examples of this are provided by the impact of New World grain production on the demographic structure and agrarian economy of late-nineteenth century Europe (e.g. Beckett, 1986; Borchardt, 1991), or by the effects of the First World War on the rural landscape (Clout, 1993a). More recent international impulses include trade policies (Cloke, 1989b; Philip, 1990; Giannitsis, 1994), the new international division of labour in manufacturing (Kiljunen, 1992; CEC 1994c), European Community membership (Mykolenko et al., 1987; Maraveyas, 1994) and international migration (King, 1993; Buller and Hoggart, 1994a). While local arenas are important venues for exploring the precise impact of societal changes, the power that local communities have to direct their own futures is limited, despite their perhaps unique and certainly adaptable responses to extralocal forces. Indeed, even when local people are critical agents in local socioeconomic change, their primary role often results directly from their inability to control outside forces (Black, 1992). Only in restricted circumstances, such as under highly centralized local power structures, do we find local inputs dominating development trajectories (e.g. Kendall, 1963; Wilson, 1992). This dominance is generally short-lived, for its guiding principles almos...