Holmes, G orcid.org/0000-0002-5393-5753, Clemoes, J, Marriott, K et al. (1 more author) (2022) The politics of the rural and relational values: Contested discourses of rural change and landscape futures in west wales. Geoforum, 133. pp. 153-164. ISSN 0016-7185
Abstract
Across Europe, rural landscapes and communities are changing, following local, national and global pressures. The future physical makeup of these landscapes, the species, landforms and land uses that are present, and the relationship between these landscapes and local communities, is uncertain. At the same time, rural politics has moved from debates about agricultural production to broader considerations of ways of life, and who and what is appropriate in the countryside. As different visions for the physical makeup of landscapes are being proposed and negotiated, it is worth understanding how they fit into broader rural politics, and the values that underpin them, particularly relational landscape values. The purpose of this work is to understand contests over the future of landscapes in west Wales, with particular focus on the relational values that underpin different visions for the landscape. We use image based Q methodology to analyse different visions. We find two distinct visions which we name socio-ecological rebalancing and maintaining heritage farming landscapes. We find that relational and eudemonic values underpin these visions. Despite claims by participants and stakeholders to speak for rural communities, we find important difference within rural communities. We find that disagreements on the environmental and social future of the landscape are based on shared facts but divergent values and relationships with the landscape. These findings have important implications for the future of contested projects aimed at transforming the landscape of this region, and relevance for wider European landscape change. Our conceptual approach, which combines a focus on the politics of the rural with relational values, and our methodological approach, of image based Q methodology, have great potential for understanding debates over the future of rural landscapes.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) |
Keywords: | Landscape; Politics of the rural; Q-methodology; Re-wilding; Values; Wales |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 06 Jun 2022 13:13 |
Last Modified: | 06 Jun 2022 13:13 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.05.014 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:187611 |