This article considers how structures of community feeling and ways of belonging are produced, maintained and recreated in local rural environments. It argues that rural social organizations, which operate through, and are embedded in, notions of conviviality and community, have taken up a particular role in this process. While using the concept of community with all the usual sociological caveats in place, the article seeks to emphasize a) the importance of the sociality of community and b) the need to understand the ways in which this sociality is continually shaped by the potent imaginary of what `community' and, more specifically, what `rural community' mean and represent. Drawing on a qualitative data set the article details the emotional connectivity participants made between the local and the social and the everyday routine practices involved in constructing a community sensibility. It concludes by examining how ambiguity and governance are part of these processes.
Alleyne, B. (2002) `An Idea of Community and its Discontents: Towards a More Reflexive Sense of Belonging in Multicultural Britain', Ethnic and Racial Studies25(4): 607-27.
2.
Amit, V. and N. Rapport (2002) The Trouble with Community: Anthropological Reflections on Movement, Identity and Collectivity. London: Pluto Press.
3.
Anderson, B. (1991) Imagined Communities. London : Verso.
4.
Back, L. (1996) New Ethnicities and Urban Culture. London: University College Press.
5.
Barth, F. (1969) Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. Boston: Little Brown.
6.
Barth, F. (1994) `Enduring and Emerging Issues in the Analysis of Ethnicity', in H. Vermeulen and C. Grovers (eds) The Anthropology of Ethnicity: Beyond `Ethnic Groups and Boundaries'. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis Publishers.
7.
Bauman, Z. (2001) Community: Seeking Safety in an Insecure World . Cambridge: Polity.
8.
Bell, D. (1997) `Anti-Idyll: Rural Horror', in P. Cloke and J. Little (eds) Contested Countryside Cultures. London: Routledge.
9.
Bell, C. and H. Newby (1971) Community Studies. London: Unwin.
10.
Brah, A. (1996) Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities . London: Routledge.
11.
Bunce, M. (2003) `Reproducing Rural Idylls', in P. Cloke (ed.) Country Visions, pp. 14-28. Essex: Pearson Education.
12.
Chavez, S. (2005) `Community, Ethnicity and Class in a Changing Rural California Town', Rural Sociology70(3): 28-49.
13.
Clarke, J. (2005) `Fantasies of Community and Community as Governance', Paper presented to ESRC Policing in an Age of Diversity Seminar, University of Leicester.
14.
Cloke, P. (2003) Country Visions. Essex: Pearson Education.
15.
Cloke, P. (2004) `Rurality and Racialising Others: Out of Place in the Countryside?', in N. Chakraborti and J. Garland (eds) Rural Racism , pp. 17-35. Devon: Willan.
16.
Cloke, P. and J. Little (eds) (1997) Contested Countryside Cultures: Otherness, Marginalisation and Rurality. London: Routledge.
17.
Cohen, A. (1985) The Symbolic Construction of Community. London: Routledge.
18.
Countryside Agency (2004) State of the Countryside Agency Report. Yorkshire: Countryside Agency Publications.
19.
Crow, G. and G. Allan (1994) Community Life. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
20.
Etzioni, A. (1995) The Spirit of Community. London : Fontana Press.
21.
Gilroy, P. (2004) After Empire: Melancholia or Convivial Culture?London: Routledge.
22.
Goffman, E. (1963) Behaviour in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organisation of Gatherings. New York: The Free Press.
23.
Gupta, A. and J. Ferguson (1997) `Culture, Power, Place: Ethnographies at the End of an Era', in A. Gupta and J. Ferguson (eds) Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in Critical Anthropology. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
24.
Halfacree, K. (1997) `Contrasting Roles for the Post-Productivist Countryside: A Postmodern Perspective on Counterurbanisation', in P. Cloke and J. Little (eds) Contested Countryside Cultures, pp. 70-93. London: Routledge.
25.
Hillery, G.A. (1955) `Definitions of Community: Areas of Agreement' , Rural Sociology20: 111-23.
26.
Laurier, E. and C. Philo (2006) `Cold Shoulders and Napkins Handed: Gestures of Responsibility', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers31(2): 193-208.
27.
MacGregor, S. (2001) `The Problematic Community', in M. May, E. Brunsden and R. Page (eds) Understanding Social Problems, pp. 187-204. London: Blackwell .
28.
Murdoch, J. and A. Pratt (1994) `Rural Studies of Power and the Power of Rural Studies: A Reply to Philo', Journal of Rural Studies10: 83-7.
29.
Neal, S. (2002) `Rural Landscapes, Representations and Racism: Examining Multicultural Citizenship and Policy-Making in the English Countryside' , Ethnic and Racial Studies25(3): 442-61.
30.
Neal, S. and J. Agyeman (2006) (eds) The New Countryside? Ethnicity, Nation and Exclusion in Contemporary Rural Britain. Bristol : The Policy Press.
31.
Neal, S. and S. Walters (2006) `Strangers Asking Strange Questions? A Methodological Narrative on Researching Belonging and Identity in the English Countryside' , Journal of Rural Studies22(2): 177-89.
32.
Pahl, R. (1968) `The Rural-Urban Continuum', in R. Pahl (ed.) Readings in Urban Sociology , pp. 263-305. Oxford: Pergamon.
33.
Philo, C. (1992) `Neglected Rural Geographies: A Review', Journal of Rural Studies8: 193-207.
34.
Putnam, R. (2000) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster .
35.
Ritzer, G. (2000) Sociological Theory, 5th edn. Singapore: McGraw-Hill.
36.
Sibley, D. (2003) `Psychogeographies of Rural Space and Practices of Exclusion', in P. Cloke (ed.) Country Visions, pp. 218-31. Essex: Pearson Education.
37.
Stacey, M. (1969) `The Myth of Community Studies', British Journal of Sociology20: 134-47.
38.
The Guardian (2005) `Meet the Most Dynamic Political Group in Britain. And Yes They Make Jam Too', 3 November.
39.
Thrift, N. (2005) `But Malice Aforethought: Cities and the Natural History of Hatred', Transaction of the Institute of British Geographers30: 133-50.
40.
Tönnies, F. (1963) Community and Society. New York : Harper and Row.
41.
Wallman, S. (1986) `Ethnicity and the Boundary Process in Context' , in J. Rex and D. Mason (eds) Theories of Race and Ethnicity, pp. 226-45. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.
42.
Weeks, J. (2000) Making Sexual History. Cambridge : Polity Press.
43.
Williams, R. (1979) The Country and the City. London : Chatto and Windus.
44.
Woods, M. and M. Goodwin (2003) `Applying the Rural: Governance and Policy in Rural Areas', in P. Cloke (ed.) Country Visions. Essex: Pearson Education.
