Beyond ‘Passive Apartheid’? Developing Policy and Research Agendas on Rural Racism in Britain

Although problems facing minority ethnic households in rural areas have been largely overlooked within studies of 'race' and racism, an emerging body of research has begun to challenge 'problem-free' constructions of the countryside by illustrating the pervasiveness of racialised 'othering' in rural environments. In the context of a rapidly expanding minority ethnic rural population, images of the English countryside's 'white landscape' will bear increasingly less resonance as the make-up of rural towns and villages continues to diversify over time. This article outlines some of the key challenges facing researchers and policy-makers seeking to address problems of rural racism. It illustrates the manner in which rural minority ethnic households' vulnerability is exacerbated by the enduring appeal of idyllicised [mis]constructions of rurality and the ineffectiveness of agency responses to racist victimisation, and explores ways of developing sustainable improvements to policy, research and conceptual frameworks in the context of the increasing diversification of rural space.