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Engaging the Global Countryside: Globalization, Hybridity and the

Reconstitution of Rural Place
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Engaging the global countryside: globalization, hybridity and the reconstitution of rural
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Michael Woods
Prog Hum Geogr 2007; 31; 485
DOI: 10.1177/0309132507079503
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Progress in Human Geography 31(4) (2007) pp. 485–507

Engaging the global countryside:
globalization, hybridity and the
reconstitution of rural place
Michael Woods*
Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, University of Wales,
Aberystwyth, Aberystwyth SY23 3DB, UK
Abstract: This article applies Massey’s (2005) call for a relational understanding of space that can
challenge aspatial readings of globalization to the study of globalization in a rural context.
Critiquing existing rural research for tending towards studies of global commodity chains and
overarching processes of globalization, it argues for more place-based studies of globalization as
experienced in rural localities. The concept of the ‘global countryside’ is introduced as a
hypothetical space that represents the ultimate outcome of globalizing processes, yet it is noted
that the characteristics of the ‘global countryside’ find only partial articulation in particular rural
spaces. Understanding this differentiated geography of rural globalization, it is argued, requires a
closer understanding of how globalization remakes rural places, for which Massey’s thesis provides
a guide. The article thus examines the reconstitution of rural places under globalization,
highlighting the interaction of local and global actors, and of human and non-human actants, to
produce new hybrid forms and relations. As such, it is argued, the politics of globalization cannot
be reduced to domination or subordination, but are instead a politics of negotiation and
configuration.
Key words: global countryside, globalization, hybridity, politics, rural.
I Introduction ment, a status affirmed 10 months later when

In her recent book, For space, Doreen Massey he called small farm campaigners, workers’
(2005) refers among other examples to the leaders, consumer advocates and academic
case of José Bové, the French farm leader who experts on globalization as witnesses at his trial.
shot to international prominence in August Together with the assembly of an estimated
1999 when he led activists from the 100,000 supporters at a free festival outside the
Confédération paysanne in dismantling a court, Bové’s tactics in effect inverted the legal
McDonald’s restaurant under construction in process into what the newspaper Libération
the town of Millau. The protest instantly made labelled ‘the trial of globalization’ (see Bové and
Bové the darling of the anti-globalization move- Dufour, 2001; Woods, 2004; Birchfield, 2005).
*Email: [email protected]
© 2007 SAGE Publications DOI: 10.1177/0309132507079503

486 Progress in Human Geography 31(4)
However, as Massey’s (2005) discussion rhythms . . . It recognizes the place-specific

reveals, the strategic and ideological dynamics conjunctions of human and nonhuman
trajectories and its politics addresses the terms
of the Bové case are far more complex of their intersection. (Massey, 2005: 171)
than its popular representation as an anti-
globalization protest suggests. Bové and his Massey uses her discussion of the Bové case
colleagues selected McDonald’s as a target to support her call for a relational understand-
because it symbolized a form of corporate ing of space that challenges aspatial readings
imperialism that promoted economic and cul- of globalization. For Massey this approach
tural standardization in operations around the opens up new political possibilities, not only of
world (Ariès and Terras, 2000; Bové and reimaging globalization in ways that present
Dufour, 2001). Yet, they were also careful to alternatives to the force of global capital, but
distance themselves from chauvinistic anti- also more broadly of confronting ‘the chal-
Americanism and nationalism. Neither were lenge of our constitutive interrelatedness –
they opposed to globalization per se. Indeed, and thus our collective implication in the out-
the catalyst for the protests had been tariffs comes of that interrelatedness; the radical
imposed by the USA on selected imports contemporaneity of an ongoing multiplicity of
from the European Union as part as a trade others, human and nonhuman; and the ongo-
war initiated by the EU’s refusal to accept ing and ever-specific project of the practices
hormone-treated beef from the USA, which through which that sociability is to be config-
threatened a 30 million franc export market ured’ (Massey, 2005: 195). Massey’s argu-
for Roquefort cheese from the Larzac ment presents a provocation to human
Plateau. Thus, while opposing McDonald’s- geography as a whole, but the brief reference
style corporate globalization, the protesters to José Bové highlights the particular
were supportive of global trade. Moreover, potential for a relational approach to
their actions depended on the appropriation rejuvenate rural geography’s engagement
of global networks of communications to with globalization.
broadcast their message, as well as on the This paper explores the potential for a revi-
construction of an alternative global network talized rural geography of globalization by
of farmer activists. Accordingly, Massey tracing the consequences of a relational per-
notes that this is not a politics of closure. spective on place for our understanding of the
Rather, she argues, ‘what is at issue is the remaking of rural places under globalization.
nature of the relations of interconnection – the It first reviews the existing literature on glob-
map of power of openness’ (Massey, 2005: 171, alization in a rural context and argues that
original emphasis). compared with urban studies of globalization
Similarly, while they promoted local speci- there is a lack of place-based research that
ficity and distinctiveness, especially in terms would allow the disparate strands of the liter-
of culture and the connections between food, ature to be drawn together into a more com-
farming and the environment, Bové and his prehensive analysis of how rural places are
colleagues recognized that rural localities are remade under globalization. The paper then
constructed relationally and open to many critically engages with work on global cities to
varied influences. As Massey observes: posit the notion of the ‘global countryside’ as
They recognize that localities are ‘made’, but a hypothetical space corresponding to a con-
are sensitive to the longevity of social dition of global interrelatedness that, signifi-
structures in many rural areas . . . The local cantly, has yet to be fully attained but which is
specificity which they evoke is one derived in partially articulated through certain rural
part from variations within ‘nature’. And part
of their argument is that, for them, a politically localities to a greater or lesser degree,
acceptable negotiation with nature would depending on locally specific engagements
involve responding to local variations in its with and responses to globalization. In order

Michael Woods: Engaging the global countryside 487
to illuminate these place-specific contingencies Moreover, in positioning globalization as a

further, the paper proceeds to examine the dynamic, ongoing, process of transformation,
processes involved in the reconstitution of it becomes necessary to delimit the historical
rural space through globalization. In keeping specificity of the argument. The discussion
with Massey’s approach, this section empha- here focuses on contemporary globalization
sizes the hybrid dimensions of this transfor- (also referred to as ‘neoliberal globalization’ or
mation, including the hybrid interaction of ‘second wave globalization’) broadly identified
different strands of globalization and of local, with the late twentieth and early twenty-first
national and global actors, the hybrid engage- centuries. It is recognized that the contempo-
ment of human and non-human entities at all rary reconstitution of rural places under glob-
scales, and the production through globaliza- alization includes and is influenced by the
tion of new hybrids. As such, the impact of legacies of past exposure to global networks
globalization on rural localities is revealed not and global actors, as is evident in places in the
as domination or subordination but as negoti- discussion. Yet, it is argued that contemporary
ation, manipulation and hybridization, con- globalization is distinguished by the intensity
ducted through but not contained by local of global processes, by the density and imme-
micro-politics. Thus, finally, the paper consid- diacy of global networks, and by the contin-
ers the implications of this approach for gency of global connections in a competitive
understanding the politics of rural localities global economy. It is these features that facili-
under globalization, suggesting that elements tate progression towards the hypothetical
of reconstitution are contested by local actors condition of the global countryside.
informed by different discourses of both rural The ‘global countryside’ is by definition
place and globalization, but that once global potentially global in scope and highlights the
actors and networks are engaged the contest- interconnectivity of rural localities in both the
ing of place itself transcends scale, stretching ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ worlds, although,
the power-geometries through which rural as shall be argued, the impact of globalization
places are constituted. in rural localities is highly geographically
For the purposes of this discussion, global- uneven. As such, this paper draws on exam-
ization is defined as a dynamic and multifac- ples from both the developed and developing
eted process of integration and interaction worlds (cutting across the tendency towards
that enrols localities into networks of inter- compartmentalization in rural geography and
connectivity organized at the global scale and rural sociology), but the selection is inevitably
facilitating the global circulation of people, constrained by the geographical focus of stud-
commodities, ideas and representations (cf. ies of globalization in a rural context, such that
Steger, 2003). This perspective is further there is a bias towards those regions that have
informed by recent contributions to the glob- received greatest attention from researchers –
alization literature that have emphasized the North America, Latin America, parts of
multidimensional nature of globalization Europe, Japan, Thailand, Australia and New
(Beck, 2000; Nederveen Pieterse, 2004) and Zealand. Extending the geographical scope of
the complexity of the global systems that this research is one of the challenges for a
result (Urry, 2003). As such, the argument future research agenda on globalization and
advanced here can be positioned with the the reconstitution of rural places.
transformationalist approach, holding that
‘cultural, economic and political dimensions II Globalization and the rural
[of globalization] do not move at the same 1 Rural research and globalization
pace, and within these broad dimensions, Globalization may have become one of the
unevenness and complexity reign’ (El-Ojeili pre-eminent concerns of contemporary social
and Hayden, 2006: 15). science, but research into the processes,

effects and experiences of globalization con- commodity chains and the development of
tinues to exhibit a distinct spatial bias. As the global agri-food system (Bonanno et al.,
Hogan has observed, ‘there is a discernable 1994; McMichael, 1994; Goodman and
privileging of urban over rural in scholarly Watts, 1997; Busch and Bain, 2004). Studies
accounts of globalization’ (Hogan, 2004: 22), have not only traced the shifting flows and
evident not only in Hogan’s own discipline of networks of production, supply and con-
sociology, but also in geography, where key sumption across a range of commodities from
texts on globalization such as Dicken (2003) fresh fruit (Le Heron and Roche, 1996;
and Perrons (2004) contain only cursory ref- Gwynne, 1999) to cut flowers (Barrett et al.,
erences to rural localities (Murray, 2006, is a 1999), and from sugar (Drummond and
notable exception). Hogan suggests that the Marsden, 1999) to salmon (Phyne and
relative neglect of the rural follows from a Mansilla, 2003), but have also examined the
recognition that it is in urban centres ‘that impact of commodity chain development on
certain hallmarks of globalization – cultural local rural economies, working conditions and
admixture, economic dynamism, political and gender relations (Bee, 2000). The commodity
ideological transformations – are often most chain perspective has emphasized the rescal-
visible’ (Hogan, 2004: 22). This may be so, ing of power in these relations, highlighting
but it is equally possible to point to hallmarks corporate concentration in the global agri-
of globalization that have a strong rural food system (Jussaume, 1998; Hendrickson
visibility: global commodity chains, the com- and Heffernan, 2002; Busch and Bain, 2004),
modification of natural resources, labour and the limitation of nation-state autonomy
migration and the production of new amenity by supranational regulatory frameworks
landscapes. (Busch and Bain, 2004). The consequences of
Furthermore, the apparent neglect of rural free trade agreements and of associated eco-
dimensions of globalization is arguably the nomic liberalization and deregulation on agri-
consequence of disciplinary politics rather cultural industries and local rural economies
than of an actual lack of research. Agricultural have been examined through case studies
geography, which has increasingly engaged from New Zealand (Le Heron and Roche,
with the global agri-food system, is poorly 1999; McKenna, 2000) to Mexico
connected with economic geography; while (McDonald, 2001; Echánove, 2005).
rural sociology is largely divorced from main- Commodity studies, however, remain suscep-
stream sociology. Other studies examining tible to Dicken et al.’s (2001) critique of the
globalization and its effects in rural contexts partial framework provided by the concept of
have been undertaken by development geo- commodity chains, particularly the over-
graphers, anthropologists, political ecologists emphasis on linearity and on the power of
and cultural geographers, often in isolation transnational corporations. More recent work
and without significant reference to rural has begun to follow Dicken et al. in adopting
geography as a subdiscipline. An examination the concept of networks, rooted in poststruc-
of the references lists for these studies reveals turalist and actor-network perspectives, but
the absence of any coherent, widely this approach remains underdeveloped in
accepted, core body of literature on rural rural studies.
globalization. Second, a broader approach grounded in
Research on globalization in a rural context regulation theory has connected shifts in the
has largely fallen into five broad approaches, mode of regulation of the global economy to
all of which have focused primarily on eco- the restructuring of local rural economies.
nomic globalization. Cloke and Goodwin (1992), although not
First, the most significant volume of explicitly engaging with globalization, pro-
research has explored the globalization of vided a framework for this by linking global

modes of regulation to the construction of Andrade-Eekhoff, 2003). Conversely, in

new local structured coherences which in other contexts, globalization has been identi-
rural Britain were identified with restructur- fied with disinvestment and the marginaliza-
ing towards service-sector and consumption- tion of rural economies (Epp and Whitson,
based economies. However, this framework 2001; Gray and Lawrence, 2001). As Killick
has not been significantly developed in rural (2001) concludes, globalization has both posi-
studies, and most regulationist-informed tive and negative impacts on rural develop-
work has focused more narrowly on the ment, accelerating growth in many rural
global agri-food system. Different periods of regions of the developing world, but also cre-
capitalist accumulation have been associated ating real dangers that the rural poor will be
with distinctive ‘food regimes’, or interna- left behind by lack of skills, capital and access
tional systems of food production, trade and to resources. Responding to this apparently
consumption (Friedmann and McMichael, fragmented experience, McMichael (1996)
1989; Marsden et al., 1993). Post-Fordism, for has argued that globalization is a postdevelop-
example, is associated with state deregula- mentalist construct in that it does not
tion, international free trade and the rise of demand universal progress towards the higher
‘niche’ commodities, creating new conditions order of industrialized society, but rather
and demands to which local rural economies crystallizes local diversity. In some places this
have had to adjust (Busch and Bain, 2004). may be articulated through entrepreneurship,
However, Busch and Bain argue that the food in others through resistance to global pres-
regime approach ‘helps explain the broad con- sures. Yet, the contribution of globalization
ditions under which certain processes occur processes to rampant urbanization and indus-
but tells us little about the specifics’ (Busch trialization in China, for instance, demon-
and Bain, 2004: 324). Instead, they point to strates the persistence of the development
the development of a neo-regulationist paradigm at least in some high-growth regions
framework that engages with convention (Zhao et al., 2003; Friedmann, 2006).
theory to explore the ways in which markets, Fourth, globalization has been associated
states and economic relations are conceptual- with depeasantization, involving both the
ized. This approach, they suggest, is particu- commercialization and ‘modernization’ of pro-
larly salient for analysing the shift from public duction systems and the subjugation of local-
to private regulation in the global agri-food ized rural cultures and social structures
system, including the construction of new (Araghi, 1995). Van der Ploeg (2005; 2006), in
forms of certification, quality standards and particular, has counterpoised the ‘peasant
place of origin branding that seek competitive principle’ to globalization, drawing on Hardt
advantage in a fragmented food market. Yet, and Negri (2000) to portray globalization as a
it remains firmly focused on agri-food produc- decentred but ubiquitous force that subordi-
tion and fails to connect to other dimensions nates and standardizes local agricultural sys-
of globalization operating in the same rural tems. In this representation, contrary to some
spaces. of the other approaches discussed above,
Third, globalization has been engaged in globalization is positioned as an external intru-
relation to rural development, in both the sion that acts in opposition to authentic rural
‘developed’ and ‘developing’ worlds. In some ways of being. There is no question of adapt-
instances, studies have shown globalization to ing to globalization, rather peasant resistance
have opened up new opportunities for local- movements (Edelman, 1999; 2005; Moyo and
based rural development projects that exploit Yeros, 2005) and the return to the ‘peasant
new niche markets or the search for cheap principle’ in the organization of rural produc-
labour (Bebbington and Batterbury, 2001; tion are valorized as appropriate responses to
Darkoh and Mbaiwa, 2002; Pérez Sáinz and globalization (van der Ploeg, 2005).

Fifth, and most loosely, globalization has on the traditional peasant economy of mango
been evoked as the context for the exploration cultivation for export, reveals the consequen-
of a wide range of processes and trends in rural tial restructuring of the local agricultural
societies, including domestic policy reforms industry to be intimately tied to the migration
(Epp and Whitson, 2001; Rigg and of displaced farmworkers to the United
Nattapoolwat, 2001), farm restructuring States, the sale of properties to US and
(Gray and Lawrence, 2001), service sector Canadian investors as holiday homes, and the
investment (Che, 2005), outward migration development of the Bahia de Banderas as an
(Perz, 2000; Alston, 2004), changing gender international tourist destination. As such,
roles (Bee, 2000), poverty and social exclusion multiple processes of globalization are shown
(Gray and Lawrence, 2001), land reforms to be contributing not only to restructuring
(Sargeson, 2004), new forms of governance the economy and population of the area, but
and political leadership (Shelley, 2000; Barrett also to reconstituting the locality as a net-
et al., 2005), the commodification of rural her- worked space connected by trading relations,
itage (Ehrentraut, 1996) and the reassertion of temporary out-migrants, seasonal visitors and
first nations and indigenous rights (Pritchard external investors to a plurality of distant
and McManus, 2000; Mandryk, 2001). In points, predominantly in North America.
many of these cases, the connections between Similarly, Murray (2001) has pointed to the
globalization and the topics under discussion significance of regional economic ties in glob-
are sketchily drawn at best and globalization is alization-led rural restructuring in the Pacific
in effect taken as a ‘given’ in structuring the nations of Tonga and Niue. In Tonga, ‘second
contemporary rural experience. wave globalization’ (as distinct to ‘first wave’
colonial globalization in the nineteenth cen-
2 Towards the global countryside tury) is identified with the weakening of tradi-
The array of research described above has tional export industries of copra, bananas and
contributed to our mosaic of understanding of vanilla under neoliberal trade reforms and the
globalization in a rural context. Yet the mosaic rapid expansion of a new squash pumpkin
remains very much a work in progress. Some export trade to Japan, initiated by New
parts of the picture are considerably clearer Zealand entrepreneurs. As Murray notes,
and more complete than others; some studies although squash exports have contributed to
sit as isolated tiles, apart from the emerging the growth of the Tongan economy, the new
tessellation; and the connections between industry has transformed both economic and
some parts of the image and other parts are environmental relations in rural communities:
as yet unknown. In particular, the mosaic is changing the appearance of landscape and
missing the input of a substantial body of replacing polycultural agriculture with a dom-
place-based studies – research that might not inant monoculture; increasing pollution, soil
only adopt an integrated perspective in exam- degradation and ground water depletion; fur-
ining the impact of different forms and ther concentrating economic power, property
aspects of globalization in a rural locality, but ownership and social inequalities; and con-
that might also explore precisely how rural tributing to urbanization as displaced small
places are remade under globalization, and growers migrate to towns and cities.
start to account for the differential geogra- Moreover, the Tongan economy has been left
phies of globalization across rural space. more vulnerable to global economic fluctua-
A few studies have already begun to take a tions. In neighbouring Niue, the reconfigura-
step in this direction. Echánove’s (2005) tion of agri-food exports has been led by the
study of the Valle de Banderas in western demand for taro from the ex-patriot Niuean
Mexico, for example, although primarily population in New Zealand, thus connecting
focused on the impact of trade liberalization economic globalization with global mobility.

As in Tonga, economic restructuring to meet ‘global countryside’ here is a deliberate allu-

new export demands has had substantial sion to the concept of the ‘global city’, with
social and environmental consequences for two intentions: first, to react to the spatial
rural communities. bias in studies of globalization noted earlier by
On the other side of the Pacific, Epp and proposing a rural counterpoint to the global
Whitson’s (2001) collection of essays on city; and, second, to emphasize the need in
western Canada documents the struggle of rural studies of globalization for the kind of
rural communities in the prairie and mountain nuanced reading of spatial difference and spa-
provinces to adapt to multifaceted processes tial process that work on the global city has
of globalization. Neoliberal economic global- produced in an urban context.
ization is associated not only with changing It is not suggested, however, that there are
trading conditions and relations, but also with rural equivalents of global cities, or that the
corporate concentration and investment in features of the global city can be mapped
the region by transnational agri-food corpora- onto rural localities. Indeed, in early accounts
tions seeking to exploit low wages and flexible the global city was defined by its very urban-
development controls. The erosion of eco- ity. Only the urban form, with its agglomera-
nomic independence that these processes tion of labour, production, consumption,
involve has, it is argued, been accompanied by communications and capital, it was implied,
the ‘political deskilling’ of rural communities provided the necessary conditions for the
(Epp, 2001) through neoliberal political reproduction of globalization (Friedmann,
reforms, as government units are amalga- 1986; Sassen, 1991; 1996). The exclusion of
mated, services centralized and regulatory the ‘rural’ as part of an undifferentiated
frameworks dismantled. The result is a differ- ‘other’ beyond the global city, meanwhile,
entiated geography of the rural West, with reinforced the subconscious urbanization of
some communities scoring (contested) eco- the globalization experience. More recent
nomic gains from inward investment, admin- work has, however, critiqued the ‘command
istrative centralization or the development of centre’ model of the global city and produced
tourist resorts while others are effectively more wide-ranging readings of urban
‘written off ’. The differential geography is processes in globalization (see, for example,
reproduced at a higher scale, Epp and Whitson Brenner and Keil, 2006). It is this later litera-
argue, as the countryside under globalization is ture that presents opportunities for transla-
repositioned ‘to serve two new and very differ- tion to a rural context, particularly in four key
ent purposes – playground and dumping aspects. First, it acknowledges that the geo-
ground – as the traditional rural economy graphical expression of globalization is not
declines’ (Epp and Whitson, 2001: xv). binary (global city/other), but multiple and
It is through studies such as these (see also multinodal (Yeoh, 1999; Marcuse and van
Bebbington, 2001; Buch-Hansen, 2003; Kempen, 2000; Robinson, 2002). While this
Edmondson, 2003; Hogan, 2004), that we has been primarily explored through work on
can begin to glimpse the new geography of ‘globalizing cities’ outside the traditional
the global countryside: a rural realm consti- world city elite, the approach might equally
tuted by multiple, shifting, tangled and be applied to thinking about ‘globalizing rural
dynamic networks, connecting rural to rural regions’. Second, later global city literature
and rural to urban, but with greater intensi- has challenged the economism of early
ties of globalization processes and of global accounts, encompassing cultural and other
interconnections in some rural localities than forms of globalization (Hannerz, 1996;
in others, and thus with a differential distribu- Krätke, 2006), opening up space for the
tion of power, opportunity and wealth across processes of globalization as primarily
rural space. Moreover, the use of the term experienced by rural localities. Third, recent

writings have emphasized the micro- consumption distanced from production.

processes involved in global city formation The volume of global food exports
(Marcuse, 2006) and redescribed the global increased more than four-fold between
city as a heterogeneous assemblage (Smith, 1961 and 1999, creating a $550 billion
2003), casting attention on to processes of global export market in agricultural goods
place-making that apply equally in urban and by the end of the twentieth century
rural contexts. Finally, as the agency of cities (Millstone and Lang, 2003). The scope for
to attempt to shape their own global futures global trade has been substantially
has increasingly been recognized (Olds and increased by tariff reform and deregula-
Yeung, 2004; Paul, 2005), so it is possible to tion, as well as by technological innova-
examine the capacity of rural localities to tion, yet, unlike the colonial trading
engage with and shape globalization regimes that were intended to stabilize
processes. supply, economic relations in the contem-
porary global countryside are highly com-
3 Defining the global countryside petitive and vulnerable to currency
If the distinctiveness of the global city is fluctuations, consumer fashions, shifting
becoming blurred by recognition that global- trade controls and political and corporate
ization processes are active in virtually all decisions that may be taken far away from
cities (Marcuse, 2006), the delimitation of a the localities affected (see, for example,
territorially defined global countryside would Drummond and Marsden, 1999;
present an even greater challenge – in part McManus, 2002; Anderson et al., 2005).
due to the pervasiveness of globalization in 2) The global countryside is the site of increas-
the staple rural economic sectors, and in part ing corporate concentration and integra-
due to the topographic character of rural tion, with corporate networks organized on
areas. Accordingly the ‘global countryside’ is a transnational scale. Key sectors of the
conceived of here as a hypothetical space, rural economy are now dominated by a
corresponding to a condition of the global handful of corporations (Bruinsma, 2003),
interconnectivity and interdependency of many of which are aligned in transnational
rural localities. ‘food chain clusters’ integrating the
Such a space does not currently exist (and agri-food production process, in the
many never exist), and there are no rural slogan of ConAgra, ‘from seed to shelf ’
localities that can be labelled at present as (Hendrickson and Heffernan, 2002).
‘global countryside’ in quite the same way as Transnational corporations operate on a
London and New York are described as ‘footloose’ strategy, seeking out the most
‘global cities’. Yet, it is possible to anticipate favourable economic conditions, yet dis-
the characteristics of this imagined space by placing local commercial interests and
projecting forward actually existing globaliza- transforming the economies of host rural
tion processes and, in doing so, to create a communities (see, for example, Epp and
framework for identifying the partial articula- Whitson, 2001).
tion of the ‘global countryside’ in real, 3) The global countryside is both the supplier
present-day rural localities. Following this and the employer of migrant labour. Rural
approach, 10 characteristics of the ‘global economies in the developed world are
countryside’ are proposed: increasingly underpinned by migrant
labour, particularly in agriculture, but also
1) Primary sector and secondary sector eco- in meat-processing, manufacturing,
nomic activity in the global countryside tourism and the service sector (Epp and
feeds, and is dependent on, elongated yet Whitson, 2001; Bruinsma, 2003;
contingent commodity networks, with Lawrence, 2004; Rogaly, 2006). Migrant

workers are not only sourced from neigh- the commercial exploitation of natural
bouring less-developed states, but now on resources in some regions – which in turn
a global scale, from Chinese farmworkers may be associated with environmental
in Britain to Iranian meatpackers in Canada degradation (Klepeis and Vance, 2003) –
(Broadway, 2001; Lawrence, 2004). and valorizing the amenity value of natural
Migrants frequently come from rural com- assets in others (McCarthy, 2004;
munities in their home nations and many McCarthy and Prudham, 2004). At the
have been displaced by the consequences same time, locally embedded discourses of
of neoliberal economic restructuring linked nature are also challenged by the dissemi-
to the globalization of agricultural markets nation of ‘global’ values of environmental
(Perz, 2000; Binford, 2003; Echánove, protection and animal welfare, promoted
2005). by transnational campaign groups such as
4) The globalization of mobility is also Greenpeace and the International Fund for
marked by the flow of tourists through the Animal Welfare (IFAW) and codified in
global countryside, attracted to sites of international treaties and in the designation
global rural amenity. Rural resorts in of nature parks and World Heritage sites
regions such as the Australian east coast, (see, for example, Buergin, 2003; Reser
New Zealand and the Rocky Mountains, and Bentrupperbaumer, 2005).
as well as ecotourism sites in the develop- 7) The landscape of the global countryside is
ing world, enjoy an increasingly global inscribed with the marks of globalization.
reputation and attract intercontinental Most dramatically this is expressed
tourists as the staple of amenity-based through the large-scale destruction of pri-
economies (Campbell, 1999; Whitson, mary forest, the planting of secondary
2001; Cater and Smith, 2003; Walmsley, commercial forest and the expansion of
2003). pastoral farming landscapes and scrubland
5) The global countryside attracts high levels (Rudel, 2002); as well as in the opening of
of non-national property investment, for new oilfields and mines (Urquhart, 2001;
both commercial and residential purposes. Standlea, 2006), and the development of
Commercial investment is associated with global tourism resorts and their associated
economic globalization, corporate concen- infrastructure. More subtly, the landscape
tration and resort speculation. Residential is changed by the transplantation of plant
investment frequently builds on the and animal species; by the introduction of
amenity value of rural localities, either for more commercially attractive crop vari-
holiday homes or for permanent migration. eties (Ramsey and Everitt, 2001) and the
Cheaper air travel and deregulation of abandonment of less-favoured traditional
property markets has helped the reach varieties (Millstone and Lang, 2003); and
of transnational counterurbanization to by the proliferation of the symbols of global
expand from the regional (Britons in consumer culture in the built environment
France, Americans in Mexico, etc), to the of small towns (Edmondson, 2003).
global (North Americans in New Zealand, 8) The global countryside is characterized by
Japanese in Canada, etc) (Whitson, 2001; increasing social polarization. Globalization
Schmied, 2005; Woods, 2006). has created opportunities for entrepre-
6) It is not only social and economic relations neurs in rural societies to amass consider-
that are transformed in the global country- able wealth, but has also polarized the
side, but also the discursive construction of socio-economic structures of communities
nature and its management. Neoliberal in the global countryside. Small producers
globalization involves the commodification and traders unable or unwilling to adjust
of nature, finding new opportunities for and compete have been squeezed and

frequently forced out of business, some- means that tensions can arise between
times compelled to sell property and the logics of different aspects of globaliza-
migrate (Perz, 2000; Murray, 2001; tion – for example, between the neoliberal
Cocklin and Dibden, 2002; Echánove, exploitation of natural resources and glob-
2005). Similarly, while international alized discourses of environmental pro-
investment in resort areas has boosted tection (see, for example, Magnusson and
rural economies and, in the case of per- Shaw, 2003; Standlea, 2006) – while con-
manent in-migrants, helped to expand the flicts also develop over the most appropri-
local middle class, escalating property ate strategies for engaging with
prices have excluded low-income local globalization within particular localities.
residents, contributing to problems of Such conflicts may focus on particular
deprivation, homelessness and out-migra- social or economic processes, but they
tion (Gallent and Tewdwr-Jones, 2000). draw on a much deeper concern for cul-
9) The global countryside is associated with tural and geographical identity (Hogan,
new sites of political authority. The sub- 2004). Because globalization is seen to
ordination of national agricultural policies transform place, the contestation of glob-
to global trade agreements, the effects of alization processes is inseparable from
corporate concentration, the imposition contests over place-meaning and identity,
of nature parks and environmental regula- which connect in turn in the global coun-
tions and challenges to traditional dis- tryside with debates over the rural iden-
courses of nature have all contributed to a tity of a locality and the meaning of
perception among residents of the global rurality (see, for example, Edmonson,
countryside that political authority has 2003). As such, the politics of the global
been scaled up beyond their reach (Epp countryside is intrinsically conjoined to
and Whitson, 2001; Hogan, 2004). the ‘politics of the rural’ (Woods, 2003).
Globalization has created new sites of
political authority for the global country- As characteristics of a hypothetical space,
side, most notably conclaves of the World these 10 statements reflect an idealized con-
Trade Organization (WTO) and the dition of global rural integration that might be
headquarters of major transnational agri- positioned as the end-point of globalization
food, forestry and mining corporations from a rural perspective. However, there are
(Buch-Hansen, 2003; Busch and Bain, rural localities that exhibit one or more of
2004), which in turn have fostered new these characteristics, at least in part. The
forms of political engagement (Routledge, extent to which any particular characteristic
2003; Woods, 2003). However, as is dis- is evident in any particular rural locality is
cussed further later in this paper, the argu- determined not only by the degree of pene-
ment that the creation of these new tration of globalization processes, but also
political sites equates to the disempow- by the way in which those globalization
erement or the ‘political de-skilling’ (Epp, processes are mediated through and incorpo-
2001) of rural communities is contentious, rated within local processes of place-making.
and misunderstands the nature of power As this emergent global countryside is not a
in the global countryside. uniform, homogeneous space, but rather is
10) The global countryside is always a differentially articulated, and contested,
contested space. The transformations through particular rural places, so the ques-
wrought by globalization on rural space tion posed earlier – how are rural places
frequently meet resistance from local remade under globalization? – becomes
actors and allied campaigners. Moreover, central to our understanding of the global
the multifaceted nature of globalization countryside. To address this question we

need to return to Massey’s thesis of the con- Jones, 2006), the countryside is a hybrid of
stitutive interrelatedness of space, and to the human and the non-human, and as such,
begin to understand the various processes of the reconstitution of rural places under glob-
hybridity, co-constitution and entanglement alization must involve both human and non-
that comprise the reconstruction of place in human actants, at both local and global scales.
the globalizing countryside. In this section, these three dimensions of the
hybrid reconstitution of the global country-
III The hybrid reconstitution side are discussed in turn, before briefly
of the global countryside examining how they work in concert in the
remaking of rural places.
1 The hybrid countryside
‘The countryside is hybrid’, declared Murdoch 2 Hybrid and multistranded globalization
(2003: 274), pointing to the multiple dimen- In proposing a ‘plural sociology of globaliza-
sions through which rural space is constituted tion’ Beck (2000: 31) not only critiqued the
and defined. ‘To say this’, he continued, ‘is to narrowness of accounts that located the glob-
emphasize that it is defined by networks in alization dynamic within one sector of institu-
which heterogeneous entities are aligned in a tional action (the economy, culture, politics,
variety of ways. It is also to propose that these etc), but also emphasized that recognition of
networks give rise to slightly different country- the multiple forms of globalization necessarily
sides: there is no single vantage point from needs to engage with the interplay between
which the panoply of rural or countryside rela- these different dynamics. It is not sufficient to
tions can be seen’ (2003: 274). Murdoch’s elu- acknowledge that economic globalization is
sive countryside defies reduction to a simple paralleled by cultural globalization, and by a
reproducible form because of its multiple globalization of mobility, and by a globaliza-
hybridity – it is made (and constantly remade) tion of political institutions, and so on, rather
through the entanglement and interaction of in adopting a place-based perspective we
the social and the natural, the human and the must understand the ways in which these
non-human, the rural and the non-rural, and dynamics become knotted together, such that
(though Murdoch does not expressly say so) globalization is experienced by rural localities
the local and the global. as a hybrid of economic, social, cultural and
As Murdoch reveals the countryside to be political processes. As noted earlier, the inter-
already hybrid, so the reconstitution of rural play of these dimensions is evident in Epp and
places under globalization cannot be under- Whitson’s (2001) work on rural Canada,
stood as a linear narrative. There is no pre- where economic globalization, global migra-
existent stable and uniform rural place upon tion and political reform are all interlinked,
which ‘globalization’ can act, but then neither and in the lay discourses of rural residents in
is there a single, unidirectional force of global- Australia and Japan explored by Hogan
ization. Rather the reconstitution of rural (2004), for whom economic restructuring,
places under globalization must be under- immigration and cultural change all form part
stood as involving hybrid interactions at three of the experience of globalization.
levels. First, globalization is itself hybrid, In a study of four rural localities in the
involving many different strands that become Andes of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru,
knotted together, yet which may also elicit Bebbington (2001) similarly observes that:
different responses from local actors. Second,
globalization proceeds by hybridization, fusing The global entanglements in which Andean
localities are enmeshed are, and have long
and mingling the local and the extra-local to been, multi-stranded: beyond market
produce new formations. Third, as emphasized relationships, the webs linking Andean places
in Murdoch’s work (2003, 2006; see also and the wider world pass through globalized

religious institutions, civil society networks, that has been roundly critiqued and discredited
intergovernmental relationships, migrant (Killick, 2001; Panagariya, 2005). Rather it is an
streams and more. (Bebbington, 2001: 415)
argument that the reconstitution of rural
Yet, he continues, there is no necessary places under globalization is not straightfor-
reason to presume that these different dimen- ward: different dynamics of globalization elicit
sions of globalization will favour the same different responses; similar pressures from
livelihood and landscape outcomes. Rather, globalization will have different consequences
he suggests, identifying globalization as multi- in different localities; and the reconstitution of
stranded enables the tensions between differ- place involves the interaction of global
ent globalization forces to be explored, and and local actors. The hypothetical space of
creates the possibility for both reactionary the global countryside can hence be seen
and progressive forms of local engagement simultaneously as a site of uncertainty and
with globalization: challenge for rural communities, and as a realm
of opportunity.
It would at least raise the question as to
whether these different dimensions of global 3 Globalization as hybridization
entanglement might be made to pull in different
directions by some of the actors involved. Thus, If globalization is not homogeneous, neither is
while it may be the case that certain dimensions it homogenizing. Some commentators have
of globalization, and certain forms of global- identified globalization with cultural assimila-
local dynamics threaten to dominate and tion linked to economic standardization
destroy landscapes, livelihoods and cultural (Ritzer, 1993), with causal links between con-
practices, might it be that (both in previous
times and the present) other dimensions of sumer behaviour, corporate strategy and the
globalization, and other types of global-local demands on systems of production. Thus, van
dialectic, have built up the capacities of peoples der Ploeg has argued that, in a rural context,
and places to deal with this round of economic ‘globalization occurs not through the interna-
globalization? (Bebbington, 2001: 416) tionalized flows of commodities, ideas and
Bebbington’s case studies document the people, but through the subordination and
effects of economic globalization in squeezing consequent reorganization of local and
the livelihoods of rural residents dependent regional farming systems to just one grammar,
on dairy farming and coffee growing, but they that is, the one entailed in, and imposed by, the
also reveal examples of communities profiting increasingly interlocking socio-technical
from global connections. In the Salinas region regimes’ (van der Ploeg, 2006: 261). Yet, there
of Ecuador, for example, Bebbington records is considerable evidence that local differences
the development of community-based enter- may not only be resilient to globalization, but
prises, supported by transnational NGOs and may even be reinvigorated by globalization.
global civil society groups. Pérez Sáinz and Traditional practices and systems may be
Andrade-Eekhoff (2003) similarly describe transformed by the interaction with global
strategies of community adjustment to glob- networks, but the result is frequently not
alization in Central America based on the standardization but the production of ‘local-
exploitation of attendant opportunities, ized hybridity’ (Murray, 2006). As Nederveen
including the establishment of global trading Pieterse argues, such new hybrid forms have a
connections by small-scale handicraft produc- global familiarity because they incorporate
ers in rural El Salvador, and the promotion of global commodities or relate to global cultural
tourism to replace a waning agricultural sec- reference points, but they have particular local
tor in Costa Rica. configurations, in both urban and rural con-
This is not the neoliberal argument that free texts. Thus, he observes:
trade and economic liberalization will generate If we look into the countryside virtually
prosperity in the developing world – a thesis anywhere in the world, we find traces of

cultural mixing: the crops planted, planting act shaped by their position within wider
methods and agricultural techniques, power-geometries:
implements and inputs used (seeds, fertilizer,
irrigation methods, credit) are usually of For in a relational understanding of neoliberal
translocal origin. Farmers and peasants globalization ‘places’ are criss-crossings in the
throughout the world are wired, direct or wider power-geometries that constitute both
indirect, to the fluctuations of global themselves and ‘the global’. On this view local
commodity prices that affect their economies places are not simply always the victims of the
and decision-making. The ecologies of global; nor are they always politically defensible
agriculture may be local, but the cultural redoubts against the global. Understanding
resources are translocal. (Nederveen Pieterse, space as the constant open production of the
2004: 53–54) topologies of power points to the fact that
different ‘places’ will stand in contrasting
relations to the global. (Massey, 2005: 101)
To this agriculturally focused list could be
added, among many other examples: the Thus we are returned to the differentiated
incorporation of non-local artifacts into ‘tradi- geography of the global countryside.
tional’ rural practices such as hunting or craft- However, it is now clear that variations in the
work; the use of translocal technologies and relative degree of integration of particular
media to promote local rural events and festi- rural localities into global networks are not
vals; the injection of external capital to the product of the uneven operation of global-
support ‘endogenous’ rural development ization as a top-down process, but of localized
schemes; the tailoring of rural heritage sites processes of place reconstitution. Global and
and landscapes to meet tourists’ expecta- regional structural factors are important in
tions; the development of new ‘adventure framing the challenges and opportunities pre-
tourism’ activities that interact differently sented to local actors through globalization,
with the in situ natural environment; the but they are only part of the picture. The
enforcement of translocal environmental ways in which local actors engage with global
regulations in the management of natural networks and global forces to produce hybrid
resources; plus, of course, the fact that outcomes are fundamental to the reconstitu-
many of the individuals involved in tion of place in the globalizing countryside,
performing these activities will be of a non- and to the maintenance of place distinctive-
local origin. ness within the emergent global countryside.
Moreover, these processes of hybridiza-
tion occur within particular locations, and as 4 More than human globalizations and the
they take place so they have a transformative reconstitution of rural space
impact on their locale. It is in this way that The hybrid reconstitution of rural spaces
localities are reconstituted under globaliza- under globalization involves not only the mix-
tion, not as an imposition from above, but ing of local and non-local agents, processes
through a process of co-constitution that and influences, but also the mixing of diverse
involves both global and local actors. To make natural and social elements, and human and
this assertion is to go beyond a recognition non-human entities. As noted above, all rural
that global and local are co-defined, or that formations ‘are woven from the disparate
they exist in symbiotic relationship which beings, processes and materialities of the
each transformed through interactions with world, and the forces that shape them include
the other, as the concept of ‘glocalization’ differing forms of agency that can be vari-
describes (see Robertson, 1992; Urry, 2003). ously described as non-human agency, rela-
Rather, it acknowledges the variegated tional agency or collective agency’ (Jones,
politics of globalization, in which localities 2006: 185). The constitution and reconstitu-
can be, as Massey (2005) argues, agents in tion of rural places is therefore not in the con-
globalization but with their capacities to trol of human actors, local or global, but is a

multi-authored and negotiated process that distinctive foods that are consumed locally
seeks to engage, define and position a vast using traditional regional recipes (Bové and
array of natural, material and social entities. Dufour, 2001). The targeting of McDonald’s
Human actors may rely on the conscription as a symbol of globalization consequently
and manipulation of non-human entities in reflected the disruption caused to this system
promoting their particular narrative of place by the introduction of alternative, alien and
within this process, but they are powerless standardized elements:
to achieve their desired outcomes unless We thought McDonalds appropriate for several
the non-human entities perform the roles reasons: the type of food at McDo, which is
ascribed to them (see, for example, Woods, industrial food requiring industrial agriculture
1998). Equally, human constructions of rural (meat as cheap as possible, one type of potato
for all McDonalds worldwide, and three or four
place are precariously vulnerable to non-
varieties of salad). Everything is standardized.
human interventions, from flood and forest It is a multinational firm with a wish of
fires to animal attacks and crop diseases. hegemony. These elements show well that it is
The negotiation of place between the a target which corresponds to opposition to
human and the non-human is not limited to globalization. (José Bové in Ariès and Terras,
2000: 74, author’s translation)
rural spaces, as Davis’s (1998) analysis of
Los Angeles shows (detailing what Massey As this example demonstrates, the association
(2005: 160) describes as the ‘conflicting and between distinctive non-human elements and
often perilous throwntogetherness of nonhu- the local distinctiveness of rural place does not
man and human’). However, the significance necessarily imply that non-human actants are
of the non-human in place constitution is par- inherently part of the ‘local’ counterpoised to
ticular pertinent in rural contexts because of the human-led processes of globalization.
the extent to which the distinctiveness of rural Non-human entities – both natural and manu-
localities is represented through or attributed factured – have frequently acted as the agents
to non-human elements. Thus, rural places of globalization. Historically, the exposure of
are portrayed as distinctive from each other rural regions to global influences often came
through reference to the natural landscape, or in the form of a seed, plant, foodstuff or
the local geology, or the presence of certain livestock introduced as a means of capturing
plants or animals, or the crops that are grown rural spaces for global commodity networks.
or the livestock raised, or the style of the local Merino sheep, for example, were introduced
vernacular architecture, or the particular to Spain from Africa in the thirteenth century,
foods that are traditionally produced, and so launching the European ‘wool revolution’;
on. It is these elements that are celebrated as from Spain they were exported to the Spanish
the symbols of locality against the supposedly colonies in America in the eighteenth century,
homogenizing forces of globalization. and later to Australia and New Zealand where
José Bové and his colleagues in the they laid the foundations of a wool economy
Confédération Paysanne, for example, articu- of global significance (Knobloch, 1996;
late their struggle within a discourse of the Holland et al., 2002). Similarly, growth hor-
French countryside as the woven-together mones, patented hybrid seeds and genetically
assemblage of natural, social and economic modified organisms have become the agents
relations. In this model, traditional farming of contemporary global agri-industrial corpo-
acts as the thread that connects human and rations. Kneen (2002), for instance, compares
non-human components, working with the the hybrid seed sold by Cargill in India to the
local natural environment and with indige- soldiers of a colonizing army:
nous or historically present crops and animal Looking at Cargill’s activities in India, it is not
breeds, serving the social, economic and cul- hard to imagine seed in the role of colonizing
tural needs of the community, and producing troops, the occupiers of the land dictating that

the peasants will now produce agricultural communities that they support (Weiss et al.,
commodities for the colonial power, which will 2004). In this case, however, the invading
take these commodities (perhaps to another
land), process them, and send them back to be
non-human entities are not the agents of
purchased by those among the colonized capitalist globalization but its free-riders,
peoples who can afford them. This is exactly entities whose global mobility is facilitated by
what the British did to the textile industry in human actors, but whose actions contribute
India; it is what Gandhi protested against, and to the reconstitution of rural localities in
it is what Cargill would have reproduced with
its hybrid sunflower and corn seed – at the
ways not envisaged by the people (inadver-
same time as it would be creating customers tently) responsible for their introduction.
for its fertilizers. (Kneen, 2002: 197–98) Instances of this type include not only the
devastation of crops and their dependent
The entry of such agents into a rural locality communities caused by parasites and dis-
has an impact in reconstituting rural space eases, but also the ecological disruption
because of the displacement effected in both wrought by infestation by deviant introduced
natural and social systems. Indigenous crop species such as cane toads in Australia and
and livestock breeds are abandoned and dis- rabbits in New Zealand (Holland et al.,
appear from local landscapes and ecosystems. 2002). Additionally, the impact of avian flu
The number of varieties of wheat grown on the rural localities into which it has been
in China, for example, decreased 10-fold carried – not only in terms of human casual-
between the 1940s and 1970s, while over 250 ties, but also in the loss of poultry stocks and
domestic breeds of cattle and 180 breeds of wild bird populations, and the consequences
sheep are reported to have become extinct of restrictions on farming practices – illus-
(Rissler and Mellon, 1996; Millstone and trates the capacity for rural spaces to be
Lang, 2003). The social effects come as the reconfigured through the intervention of
power relations between breeders, suppliers non-human entities circulating on a global
and growers are reconfigured and as depend- scale independently of human action.
ency on external corporations increases. For
campaigners such as Bové, the ramifications 5 Remaking place in the global countryside
are cultural as well as economic: Taken together, the three dimensions of
The multinationals are working on only five or hybrid interaction discussed in the sections
six strains of rice, genetically modifying them above provide an insight into the processes
for a type of intensive cultivation in areas where through which globalization effects the
subsistence farming previously held sway. In
some Asian countries, these five varieties now
remaking of rural places. The reconstitution
cover 60 to 70 per cent of the land planted with of rural spaces under globalization results
rice. We’re witnessing the complete annihilation from the permeability of rural localities as
of a farming culture which had the ability to hybrid assemblages of human and non-human
feed itself, together with the distinctive social entities, knitted-together intersections of net-
and cultural system this produced. (Bové and
Dufour, 2001: 91)
works and flows that are never wholly fixed
or contained at the local scale, and whose
Campaigners in Australia against free trade constant shape-shifting eludes a singular rep-
agreements with the United States, the resentation of place. Globalization processes
Philippines and New Zealand have similarly introduce into rural localities new networks
employed arguments of biosecurity to sug- of global interconnectivity, which become
gest that weakened quarantine regimes threaded through and entangled with existing
would expose the country to viruses and local assemblages, sometimes acting in con-
parasites such as fireblight and mealy bugs cert and sometimes pulling local actants in
with devastating consequences for apple and conflicting directions. Through these entan-
banana crops and the local economies and glements, intersections and entrapments, the

experience of globalization changes rural than others. This differential geography in

places, but it never eradicates the local. part reflects structural factors that moderate
Rather, the networks, flows and actors intro- the exposure of rural communities to global
duced by globalization processes fuse and networks and processes, some of which
combine with extant local entities to produce reveal the continuing (if beleaguered) role of
new hybrid formations. In this way, places in the nation state in mediating globalization. It
the emergent global countryside retain their is no coincidence, for instance, that some of
local distinctiveness, but they are also differ- the most explicit articulations of global coun-
ent to how they were before. tryside characteristics are found in rural local-
As such, the impact of globalization must ities in countries such as Australia and New
be put in the historical context of the long- Zealand, where national governments have
term and ongoing exposure of rural localities pursued radical policies of economic liberal-
to external flows, influences and authorities. ization and deregulation to prepare for com-
Rudy (2005), for example, in developing a petition in the global economy (Burch et al.,
‘cyborg perspective’ to capture the ambiguity 1996; Le Heron and Pawson, 1996; Kelsey,
of human/non-human and nature/society 1997; Pritchard and McManus, 2000). In con-
boundary practices in California’s Imperial trast, many rural communities in the United
Valley, observes that: States are arguably partially shielded from the
At all times, not only was the region organized full pressure of globalization by agricultural
internally at least in part as a response to protectionism, while globalization is least
exogenous political and economic conditions pronounced in the rural regions of closed
but it was permeable to the intentional and economies and polities. Other significant
unintended movement of ecological, personal
and communal conditions – as embodied by
structural factors in moderating the exposure
(e.g.) birds, scientists, workers, public health of rural localities to globalization include
advocates, water conservation infrastructures physical terrain and accessibility, proximity to
and different cultural group practices – across major economic and population centres, and
the Valley’s boundaries. (Rudy, 2005: 32) political and economic stability. Perhaps
Globalization may therefore at one level be significantly, though, the tentacles probing
positioned as no more than another period of a way through these obstacles come from
change in the ongoing dynamic of rural place- below as well as above: not just from
making. Places such as Imperial Valley have global capital seeking new markets, cheaper
long experienced dramatic transformations as resources and production sites and new
the result of the arrival of new actors and the investment opportunities; global tourists
‘global’ (or at least, ‘transnational’) connec- searching for new destinations and experi-
tions that they brought. Yet, what makes the ences; and migrant workers hunting labour
experience of contemporary globalization shortages; but also from local initiatives and
different to earlier conditions of rural change entrepreneurship endeavouring to connect
is the intensity and immediacy of the global with global networks and the opportunities
networks of connections and flows into that they are perceived to bring.
which rural localities may be enrolled. The reconstitution of rural space under
Equally, while all rural localities are globalization involves not only the transfor-
touched by global networks and global flows mation of material relations, but also the
in some way, the intensity of the connections discursive repositioning of place. Locally
forged, the extent of change effected to the embedded discourses of place and identity
locality, and the degree of manifestation of are both challenged by the changes wrought
characteristics of the global countryside, all by globalization, and find new articulation in
vary considerably. Globalization, it appears, is opposition to globalization (see Hogan,
more significant in remaking some rural places 2004). At the same time, rural places are

invested with new meanings by both local and Previously a small town dependent on farm-
external actors as they are repositioned in ing and fishing, and thus positioned primarily
global networks. These representations are in within national networks, since the 1980s
turn conveyed through global networks, such Kaikoura has become a globally renowned
that certain rural locations acquire a global centre for whale and dolphin watching. In
significance in that they are known and have 2003, whale and dolphin watching tours were
meaning in contexts geographically distant taken by 160,000 tourists, 90% of whom
from the locality. This may be low-key and were international visitors (McClure, 2004).
limited, such as identification as a the major The overseas tourists are now vital to the
supplier of a particular commodity to translocal economy and the transformative impact
national supermarket groups, or it may be a of their presence has been reflected in the
higher profile and more widely recognized town’s population growth and the scale of its
reputation as a tourist destination, a world physical development, as well as in problems
heritage site or as the site of major environ- of traffic congestion and parking and a high
mental conflicts, to cite just a few examples. tax burden to support new infrastructure,
While these new meanings may be produced and the conflicts these issues have generated
and disseminated outside the locality con- (McClure, 2004). Yet, the transformation
cerned, local actors may also draw on global would not have been possible without the
connections to redefine places in terms of entrepreneurship of the local Maori commu-
their global standing – for example in the mar- nity who started the whale watching tours
keting of Queenstown, New Zealand, as ‘the (and which is itself a consequence of the set-
adventure capital of the world’, or the claim tlement of claims relating to the Treaty of
by Lompoc, California, to be ‘the seed- Waitangi which framed the conditions of
growing capital of the world’ (Cater and colonial global engagement in New Zealand),
Smith, 2003; Woods, 2005). or, crucially, without the performances of the
The discursive and material reconfigura- whales and dolphins themselves. As Cloke
tion of rural localities are intrinsically linked, and Perkins comment:
as discursive shifts both reflect material Whales and dolphins in Kaikoura have certainly
transformations and are intended to have been enrolled by tourist operators, but both
material effects. The production, circulation their presence and their ability to perform are
and reception of discursive representations of crucial to the assemblage – and seem to
place is confined to the human realm, but dis- generate a strange topographical effect,
disrupting the space concerned. The animals,
courses of place ascribe meaning to non- then, are both enrolled and enrol. Were it not
human entities and their materialization is for their presence and performance, the tourist
dependent on the complicity of non-human operation would be redundant; yet it is that
entities. For example, the translation of the operation which facilitates the hybridity of
discursive representation of a locality as a human-nonhuman relations concerned. (Cloke
and Perkins, 2006: 905)
commercial source of coffee beans into
material exports is dependent on the suc- This then is the paradox of the global coun-
cessful cultivation of the coffee plant crop. tryside. Rural localities are transformed by
This adds a further layer of contingency new connections that are forged with global
to the reconstitution of rural places under networks, global processes and global actors;
globalization. yet this transformation cannot occur without
An illustration of the contingent and hybrid the enrolment and acquiescence of local
processes involved in remaking rural places actors, both human and non-human, whose
as sites of global interaction can be seen in very incorporation in turn modifies the
the case of Kaikoura in New Zealand, as networks of which they are part to produce
described by Cloke and Perkins (2006). new, hybrid, outcomes. Viewed from this

perspective, globalization cannot be reduced globalization and its effects. Hogan (2004), for
to the subordination of the local by global example, documents differing attitudes to
forces; nor the power of the global to domina- globalization among rural residents in
tion. Rather, the impact of globalization in Australia and Japan, while Epp and Whitson
reshaping rural places is manifest through observe that the politics of the global econ-
processes of negotiation, manipulation and omy ‘exposes and sharpens divisions within
hybridization, contingent on the mobilization communities between those who see oppor-
of associational power, and conducted through tunities (or, failing that, no other choices) and
but not contained by local micro-politics. those who see threats or displacements’
(2001: xxi). Moreover, in assessing the per-
IV Conclusion: negotiating the politics ceived impact on place, these discourses of
of the global countryside globalization are fused with discourses of
The search for a ‘new angle of vision on poli- rurality. Edmondson (2003), in her study of
tics’ is an intrinsic part of Massey’s (2005: an American prairie town, presents these as
147) exposition on a relational understanding conflicting ‘rural literacies’, producing differ-
of space discussed at the start of this paper. ent readings of events such as the arrival of a
As she expands, an appreciation of the spatial fast-food chain. Whereas some residents
and its engagements calls less for a politics welcomed the restaurant as positive step of
framed by linear progression, and more for ‘a modernization and a vote of economic confi-
politics of the negotiation of relations, config- dence in the town, others saw it as introduc-
urations’ (Massey, 2005: 147), ‘an outward- ing an alien culture and values contrary to
looking local politics which reaches out rural life, while a third group identified the fur-
beyond place’ (Massey, 2005: 148). This is the ther encroachment of neoliberalism, bringing
politics of the global countryside. As des- standardization at the expense of local goods
cribed above, globalization remakes rural and services. It is in this way that the politics
places not through a politics of domination of globalization becomes entwined with the
and subordination, but through a micro- ‘politics of the rural’, contesting the meaning
politics of negotiation and hybridization. At and regulation of rurality (Woods, 2003).
the heart of this politics sits a tension. As Yet, the very involvement of global actors
globalization proceeds, political authority is and global networks in the reconstitution of
displaced such that one characteristic of the rural places means that conflicts are not con-
global countryside that finds partial articula- tained within the locality. In some cases, both
tion in reconstituted rural places is the multi- sides seek leverage by constructing networks
plication of new, distant, sites of authority; of activists that transcend scale and generate
yet, because the reconstitution of rural places a global symbolism in their own right.
under globalization rests on associational Magnusson and Shaw’s (2003) collection on
power, local actors (human and non-human) Clayoquot Sound explores one example of
retain agency in shaping the circumstances this – a struggle over corporate logging on
and character of their enrolment. Vancouver Island – yet, as they argue, such
Thus, the institutions of rural local gover- conflicts are not a globalization of local politics
nance may be constrained in their ability to nor a localization of global politics but rather,
regulate the processes and consequences of true to the hybrid nature of the global coun-
globalization (Epp, 2001), but the local is tryside, blur the distinctions between the two:
nonetheless the sphere in which globalization
the politics of places such as Clayoquot puts
and the attendant reconstitution of place traditional distinctions between local and
is contested. Local conflicts are choreo- global, small and large, domestic and
graphed around contrasting perceptions of international – and much else – into serious

question. If Clayoquot is paradigmatic, it is of interconnection and new spatial imaginar-

because the puzzle of politics is especially ies that result. Finally, there is a need for crit-
apparent there. (Magnusson, 2003: 1)
ical political analysis as part of the new
The collapsing of scale and place implied here is research agenda – for explorations of the
further evident in the mobilization of transna- operation of power in globalization and the
tional political networks not only by the usual reconstitution of rural places; for more quali-
protagonists of globalization – global corpora- tative and ethnographic research uncovering
tions, global NGOs – but also by groups pur- the discourses and narratives of globalization,
portedly opposed to the globalization of rural rurality and place that frame the responses of
society. By building transnational alliances such local actors; for studies of the role of trans-
as the international farmers’ coalition, Via national institutions and organizations in con-
Campesina (Desmaris, 2002; 2007), transport- structing and regulating global networks and
ing protest to new spatial contexts, as in the flows, and in reproducing discursive represen-
Inter-Continental Caravan of Indian farmers tations of the global countryside; and for
through Europe (Featherstone, 2003), and cre- work on the political mobilization of rural
ating ephemeral spaces of convergence for activists contesting globalization and their
rural activists around events such as WTO engagement with global networks and global
summits (Routledge, 2003), the rural counter- opportunities. There are studies in recent
globalization movement itself connects rural years that have set the trail for a new research
places through global networks, and helps to agenda by beginning to explore some of these
make rural politics global. issues, but they are few and fragmented and
Massey’s (2005) call to understand our there is a need for a more coherent, system-
constitutive interrelatedness presents a chal- atic approach. Developing such a new
lenge to geographers and social scientists to research agenda has tremendous potential to
rethink and re-engage with the geographies of contribute not only to a reinvigorated rural
globalization in rural contexts. Taking up this geography, but to our wider understanding as
challenge demands a new, multidimensional, geographers of our dynamic, co-constituted,
research agenda that emphasizes the impor- interrelated, globalizing world.
tance of place-based research in both the
developed and developing worlds. Such Acknowledgements
research would need to focus on the micro- This paper is based in part on research sup-
processes and micro-politics through which ported by the University of Wales
place is reconstituted, treating human and Aberystwyth Research Fund and undertaken
non-human actants agnostically, and be sensi- on sabbatical leave at the University of
tive to the historical legacies of past engage- Queensland and the University of Otago.
ments with global processes and forces. Earlier versions of the paper were presented
Additionally, the research agenda should to research seminars at the University of
engage with the concept of the global coun- Wales Aberystwyth, Lancaster University,
tryside as a hypothetical space that repre- University of Queensland Brisbane and
sents the end-point of globalizing forces, and Deakin University Warnambool, as well as to
interrogate the factors that shape the geo- the AAG conference in Denver and the
graphically differentiated partial articulation Alternative Economic Spaces conference in
of its characteristics. In parallel with locality Hull. I am grateful to participants on all these
research, there is also a need for analysis occasions for their comments and sugges-
framed at the global scale tracing the global tions, as well as to Noel Castree, Adam
networks that transect and connect rural Tickell and the anonymous referees. The
space and investigating the new geographies usual disclaimers apply.

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Key words: global countryside, globalization, hybridity, politics, rural.

I Introduction ment, a status affirmed 10 months later when

© 2007 SAGE Publications DOI: 10.1177/0309132507079503

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However, as Massey’s (2005) discussion rhythms . . . It recognizes the place-specific

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to illuminate these place-specific contingencies Moreover, in positioning globalization as a

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modes of regulation to the construction of Andrade-Eekhoff, 2003). Conversely, in

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As in Tonga, economic restructuring to meet ‘global countryside’ here is a deliberate allu-

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writings have emphasized the micro- consumption distanced from production.

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experience of globalization changes rural than others. This differential geography in

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question. If Clayoquot is paradigmatic, it is of interconnection and new spatial imaginar-

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References Buergin, R. 2003: Shifting frames for local people and

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