Counterurbanisation and rural gentrification: an exploration of the terms

This paper examines the interrelationships between the concepts of counterurbanisation and rural gentrification, suggesting that four different positions can be identified. Firstly, these concepts are highly commensurable and could usefully be more closely aligned. Secondly, rural gentrification has a political/critical dimension that is missing from conceptualisations of counterurbanisation, and hence rural gentrification might usefully displace counterurbanisation as a focus of study. Thirdly, counterurbanisation is a less reductionist concept than rural gentrification, and therefore counterurbanisation researchers need to disentangle themselves from too great a focus on rural gentrification. Fourthly, both concepts share many problematic features and may both be viewed as chaotic concepts. The paper then discusses how counterurbanisation and gentrification researchers have responded to criticisms relating to their conceptual foci, suggesting that these can be characterised as legislative or interpretive. It is argued that whilst the former response has been predominant, there are signs that the latter approach is also being adopted. The concluding part of the paper draws on the notion of an interpretive approach to understanding counterurbanisation and rural gentrification, and their interrelationships. Use is made of Latour's notion of ‘circulatory sociologies of translation’ to consider how the two concepts are linked not only to their objects of study but also to social relationships with other academics, with governmental organisations and with public opinion and values. Attention is drawn to the differential relationships that counterurbanisation and rural gentrification are implicated in, and how this might account for the differential character of the two concepts.