Multiple knowledges and multiple ruralities: lessons from comparative studies of rural gentrification

This paper draws on a comparative study of rural gentrification in France, UK and USA (www.i-rgent.com) to explore relations between multiple knowledge constructions and differences in rurality. Drawing on Latour's (2005)... [ view full abstract ]

This paper draws on a comparative study of rural gentrification in France, UK and USA (www.i-rgent.com) to explore relations between multiple knowledge constructions and differences in rurality. Drawing on Latour's (2005) notion of sociologies of translation, the paper explores the geographies of the concept of rural gentrification and its relationship to the geographies of rural space. Attention is drawn to differences in the adoption of the concept of rural gentrification in each of the countries and to differences in locations being explored through rural gentrification studies. Drawing on Latour's arguments concerning processes of 'mobilisation', 'autonomisation', 'alliance-building' and 'representation', the paper explores reasons for the adoption and non-adoption of conceptions of rural gentrification. Different understandings of the concepts of both rurality and gentrification are highlighted, drawing on textual and bibliographic analysis, before the paper explores in-depth interviews with both rural researchers and residents in rural settlements in the UK. Resistance to the concept of rural gentrification related to the degree to which it runs counter to prevailing popular identities and academic constructions of processes of rural change, before highlighting how residents in rural spaces within England react to and make sense of processes of rural gentrification. The paper reflects on the extent to which different social positioning and ruralities might condition or exclude distinct conceptions of rural gentrification and the degree to which understandings of the extent and significance of the phenomenon of rural gentrification might be transformed through the employment of alternative conceptions of rural gentrification and through recognition of a range of new forms of rurality.