Discourses of rurality and homelessness

In this chapter we explore some of the difficulties in bringing together the concepts of rurality and homelessness, arguing that particular cultural constructs of what it is to be homeless, and what it is to live in the countryside, serve to resist, and sometimes deny the recognition of any material reality which might be called rural homelessness. The background to this discussion is formed by the existence of privileged constructs of rural space. It can be suggested that the most identifiable and accessible group of meanings constructed and circulated about rurality in England are bound up with notions of idyll. Although it is problematic to search for any notion of a single construction of the rural as idyll, Cloke and Milbourne (1992) have suggested a number of key meanings that have come to be associated with rurality – “a bucolic, problem-free, hidden world of peace, tranquillity and proximity to the natural” (p 361). Such constructs have become reproduced directly within the dominant imagination through a range of different cultural circulations. In otherways, notions of rural idyll, and particularly ideas of problem-free country spaces, have remained largely unchallenged within academic and policy discourses. Only a handful of academic studies have addressed issues of poverty and marginalisation in rural Britain (Cloke et al, 1994, 1997a,1997b; Shucksmith et al, 1996; PSI, 1998), and these same issues have been conspicuous only by their absence within recent central policy documents on rural Britain (DoE, 1995; Welsh Office, 1996).

Such constructions of rurality have played a key role in reproducing dominant popular discourses on the British countryside. In one sense, a home in the country has become a much sought after commodity, witha recent national survey commissioned by the Countryside Commission (1997) highlighting that 54% of respondents in urban areas wish to reside in the countryside and that there is a more pronounced sense of contentment with place of residence among those living in rural areas than among those in urban and city environments. This combination of rural desires and urban discontentments has played a pivotal role in bringing about large-scale movements of new groups to the British countryside over recent years (for details of the scale of these movements, see Champion, 1994).

However, it is clear that such strong expressed desires for rural living are more easily realised by certain social groups than others.