The gentrification of rural communities across the twentieth century

This application is associated with the AHRC's Connected Communities programme in that it seeks to examine the temporal dimensions of community transformations, exploring the connections and disconnections between the changes in a range of rural communities across the twentieth century. More specifically, the Fellowship seeks to examine whether social, physical and cultural changes which have been described in studies of the contemporary countryside as a process of gentrification have an historical relevance which has hitherto been rather ignored.

The concept of gentrification has been widely used in urban studies, and whilst there has been much debate over its precise definition, it is widely seen to involve the in-movement of middle class households and the displacement of previously resident social classes, along with a physical restructuring of the buildings and surrounding environments. There has also been growing recognition of cultural dimensions of the changes, with studies exploring the role of representations in driving the changes and the experiences that face difference social groups. The concept has over recent years been increasingly applied to describe changes in the British and other countrysides, but there has been little discussion of its historical significance. This is surprising given that the initial definition of the term seems to have occurred in association with historical studies which highlighted processes of social and cultural change occurring in the nineteenth century and earlier in association with the notion of a rural gentry. Debates over gentrification and the rural gentry have, however, been largely pursued in isolation, despite there being a series of inter-connnections between these debates.

This Fellowship seeks to address this separation, aiming to both trace the conceptual linkages more throughly than has been done before and by undertaking substantive studies which examine the presence and processes of rural gentrification across the twentieth century. It is clear that rural studies from the 1960s were identifying changes which might be described as rural gentrification, although this term was not used until the late 1970s. However, a few studies have also suggested that rural gentrification may have been occurring in some areas of the countryside from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There may be scope for applying a 'stage-model' of gentrification, akin to those developed in studies of urban gentrification in the second half of the twentieth century, to an examination of gentrification in rural areas, whereby some areas experience 'pioneer' gentrification, before undergoing more intensified forms of gentrification and even perhaps experiencing generalised forms of gentrification whereby large scale developers and other agencies create a landscape heavily symbolised with objects of gentrification, including the construction of new buildings which emulate the style of refurbished gentrified properties. Whilst such models may provide a useful device for thinking about historical change with gentrification processes and their impacts on rural communities, detailed historical research needs to be conducted as it is clear that: a) not all places necessarily undergo transformation from one stage to another, b) gentrification is not necessarily initiated through pioneer forms; c) there is considerable diversity within each stage or form of gentrification; d) that different forms can co-exist together; and e) there may well be other forms of gentrification.

The Fellowship seeks to undertake detailed investigation of rural gentrification within 7 contrasting rural districts. The research will be used in completing a research monograph on rural gentrification and at least three journal articles. In addition, an on-line exhibition related to the research will be hosted by the Museum of English Rural Life and a workshop linked to the Connected Communities programme held.

It is expected that the following groups or organisations would accrue some benefits from this research:

Academic community: see Academic Beneficiaries section.

Museum of English Rural Life
This organisaton, which has agreed to collaborate in the Fellowship, will both benefit from the research as well as contribute to its development. The benefits are both direct and indirect. In relation to direct benefits, the applicant has committed to create an on-line exhibition for the Museum, which will illustrate some of the findings of the research. The research will hence be providing exhibition content to the Museum, content that would be of clear relevance to the Museum's A Sense of Place programme. In addition, the applicant has committed to present a research seminar for the museum and deposit copies of the oral history interviews conducted as part of the research with the archive, subject, of course, to consent for this being obtained by the respondents. This latter activity would directly contribute to the Museum's Collecting 20th Century Rural Culture' programme.

In addition to these direct impacts, less direct benefits are envisaged from the Fellowship. These relate to discussions that will be held between the applicant and museum staff about the methods and results of other research being conducted by the applicant as part of the AHRC's Connected Communities programme. In particular it envisaged that methodological developments, as well as some of the material gathered in these projects, would also be of value to the Museum's programmes on programmes on sense of place and collecting 20th century rural culture. It may also be that the links developed as part of the Research Fellowship would be of value to other research projects being conducted as part of the Connected Communities programmes.

Local communities and the wider public
The on-line exhibition hosted by the Museum of English Rural Life is clearly not only of value to this organisation but will also impact a wider public visiting the site. In this way the research should reach a wider audience than the academic one will be the focus of many of the other research outputs Details of the on-line version of the exhibition will be circulated to local history libraries and record offices within each of the case study regions. In this way it is hoped that at least some members of the communities being studied, as well as people from other communities, will be able to see the results of the research.

Planners and policy makers
Although the Research Fellowship is historically focused it may well be of value to cotemporary planners and policy makers. This is, in part, because there are arguments that rural gentrification has itself been partly driven by planning policies. As a consequence, this research may be of value to policy makers through detailing the impacts of planning policies and practices through the course of the twentieth century. Secondly, the research may be of benefit to planners and policy makers in that it will indicate the extent to which data they generate, but which they generally use solely with respect to considerable of new planning applications, can be used to produce systematic assessments of patterns of change across their districts. A workshop focused upon these issues will be conducted towards the close of the Research Fellowship.