LOCALITY AND SOCIAL REPRESENTATION - SPACE, DISCOURSE AND ALTERNATIVE DEFINITIONS OF THE RURAL

There is currently a debate taking place in the 'rural' literature concerning the fundamental issue of the definition of 'the rural'. Two main conventional approaches to this issue are to define the rural in either descriptive or socio-cultural terms. However, both can be criticized from a theoretical standpoint for adopting an inadequate conceptualization of space. As a result, there is an increasing but problematic tendency to try to define the rural in terms of a distinctive type of locality. However, there is yet another means of definition, which has been somewhat neglected in the literature. This alternative can best be approached from an understanding of the theory of social representations and the contrasting discourses of academics and non-academics. A modified version of the theory enables us to define the rural in terms of the disembodied cognitive structures which we use as rules and resources in order to make sense of our everyday world, through both discursive and non-discursive actions. Moreover, in an increasingly post-modern era it can be argued that such an 'immaterial' definition may be assuming dominance over its locality-based alternative.