Jesse Heley

Governing beyond the metropolis: Placing the rural in city-region development

Despite a select group of urban centres generating a disproportionate amount of global economic output, significant attention is being devoted to the impact of urban-economic processes on interstitial spaces lying between metropolitan areas. Nevertheless, there remains a noticeable silence in city-region debate concerning how rural spaces are conceptualised, governed and represented. In this paper we draw on recent city-region developments in England and Wales to suggest a paralysis of city-region policymaking has ensued from policy elites constantly swaying between a spatially-selective, city-first, agglomeration perspective on city-regionalism and a spatially-inclusive, region-first, scalar approach which fragments and divides territorial space along historical lines. In the final part we provide a typology of functionally dominant city-region constructs which we suggest offers a way out from the paralysis that currently grips city-region policymaking.

Growing older and social sustainability: considering the ‘serious leisure’ practices of the over 60s in rural communities

The important role which older people play in rural community development through their various activities has become a substantive area of interest across social science disciplines, including gerontology, sociology, psychology and human geography. Reflecting the demographic shift of an ageing countryside within many parts of the global north, the future of rural social policy initiatives will increasingly depend on a nuanced appreciation of the social and voluntary activities undertaken by the growing older population. We seek to expand this focus to consider the social value of these practices for both the individual and the particular communities of which they are a part, and make a case for ‘serious leisure theory’ (Stebbins 1982) as a potentially rich seam for exploring these relations. This is put into practice through a case study involving the over 60s residents of a village in rural Wales, and through in-depth interviews we draw attention to their role in securing socio-economic sustainability in the locality through voluntary, hobby-based and amateur pursuits. In conclusion, we consider the analytical merits and limitations of serious leisure theory and, more broadly, the implications of the political fashioning of community-engaged older people as exemplar public citizens in the context of ongoing neoliberal welfare reforms.

Rounds, Range Rovers and rurality: The drinking geographies of a New Squirearchy

In an article detailing the ‘cultural terrain’ of the village inn, Maye, Ilbery, and Kneafsey (2005) recently argued for the need of more culturally informed geographical work on the changing nature of the public house. A possible avenue of investigation, it is suggested, is a consideration of how various consumers make ‘sense’ of their pubs, and how different practises and meanings overlay each other within this quintessentially rural setting. In undertaking such studies, notions of heterogeneous association and ‘lifescape’ may be usefully employed in shedding light on the peculiar mixture of people, objects and interactions within this space. Drawing upon ethnographic research undertaken in a Bedfordshire pub, the ‘Six Tuns’, this paper will consider a collective labelled the ‘New Squirearchy’; a fraction of local residents who may be loosely defined through their apparent efforts to recreate the perceived roles and lifestyle of the archetypal English country gentleman. Here it is argued that the public house acts as a key space in which this identity is overtly negotiated and played out, and one that is appropriated within the midst of other pub-dwellers by these ‘New Squires’.

Between Man and Nature: The Enduring Wisdom of Sir Halford J. Mackinder

ABSTRACT This article argues for the continued relevance of the work and theories of the British Geostrategist Sir Halford J. Mackinder (1861-1947). It asserts that commentators and scholars who seek to marginalise Mackinder have too often dismissed his theories without setting them in the context of their continued endorsement in crucial areas of the globe. After 1945, despite his theories being tainted by association with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, both Moscow and Washington recognised the utility of Mackinder’s work and tailored policy accordingly. The end of Cold War saw Mackinder fall out of favour as his model was deemed unsuitable for policy analysis by a number of influential thinkers. It is argued here that, in recent years, the arena of international politics has seen a rehabilitation of Mackinder, accompanied by a resurgence of interest in Geopolitics. Finally, the piece examines those areas of the contemporary globe where Mackinder’s influence is greatest.

Cultures of local economy in a Celtic fringe region

This paper seeks to help reconceptualize the spaces of local and regional economies by developing the idea of the ‘compound economy’. It is set in the context of a growing body of work in geography that emphasizes the importance of culture as a factor shaping differentiated local and regional economic development and, correspondingly, as an important dynamic informing the ability of localities and regions to negotiate economic forces operating at national and supranational scales. Exploring both dominant and counter-hegemonic economic imaginaries as articulated in academic debates, we draw on the case study of Central Wales and demonstrate how these imaginaries are variously manifested in government policy discourse of the National Assembly for Wales and in the understandings and practices of business stakeholders in the region. Through comparing and contrasting these representations, we provide an empirical illustration of what, building on the work of Gibson-Graham and others, we term the ‘compound economy’, whose drivers, relations and logics are far more diverse and complex than mainstream and alternative models tend to suggest. We conclude by assessing the implications of the compound economy for both economic policy and geographical theory.

Woolworths and Wales : A multi-dimensional analysis of the loss of a local brand

In this paper we present a multi-dimensional analysis of the closure of Woolworths in Wales and the way in which the loss of this familiar high-street brand can be accounted for at a number of levels and within different social arenas. Primarily, the paper demonstrates how Woolworths is positioned as a symbol of a previous era of consumption centred upon community and place based notions of nostalgia and community. What is striking in the analysis is the similarities in the way in which Woolworths is mobilised as a symbol by the general public and elites; albeit with varying outcomes and affects. In presenting the analysis the paper demonstrates a processual framing as providing a fruitful approach to the combination of different approaches and fields of inquiry (sociology, geography, and political science) without diminishing their distinct contributions.

Assessing the impacts of changing public service provision on geographical accessibility: An examination of public library provision in Pembrokeshire, South Wales

Public libraries make an important contribution to the wellbeing of local people often acting as community hubs by reducing the isolation felt by vulnerable members of society through promoting social interaction and supporting the wider needs of local communities. However, access to libraries is threatened in Wales, as elsewhere in the UK, by uncertainty stemming from changes in local government service delivery models, austerity-driven cuts in public spending, changing demands on the service from the public and the potential impacts of new developments in digital services and technologies. Drawing on network-based analysis of changes to library services in a predominantly rural authority in South-West Wales, the aim of this paper is to demonstrate how Geographical Information Systems can be used to monitor the impacts of alternative models of provision currently being considered by library authorities. By examining the spatial impacts of changes in services following a period of re-configuration in this library authority, we point the way to methods that enable levels of provision that meet community needs to be sought during times of budgetary pressures and proposed changes to the delivery of public services.

Nick Megoran and Sevara Sharapova (eds.), Central Asia in International Relations: The Legacies of Halford Mackinder

Over the past decade there has been a resurgence of interest in the life and work of Halford Mackinder; including Gerry Kearns monograph Geopolitics and Empire1 and Brian Blouets text Global Geos...