Rural landscapes, representations and racism: examining multicultural citizenship and policy-making in the English countryside

Traditionally issues of race and racism have tended not to be associated with the English countryside. The limited existing research in the area has shown that the presumed dominance of whiteness in the countryside has been used as a basis from which to dismiss the relevancy of race as a rural political or policy concern despite the existence of rural-based minority ethnic communities and despite high levels of rural racism. In the post Macpherson climate and with rural issues currently attracting political and policy attention this article examines the relationship between landscapes and belonging and suggests that racism is differently manifested in different contexts. The essay argues that there are recent indicators of tentative shifts among some rural policy-makers in terms of recognizing that racism is not an urban phenomenon and draws on the early experiences of gaining access to two rural case-study areas to shed light on both this shift and the notion that there are specifically rural forms of racism.