DEPRIVATION AND LIFE-STYLES IN RURAL WALES .2. RURALITY AND THE CULTURAL DIMENSION

This paper follows directly from the previous one in which an empirical study of deprivation in rural Wales by Cloke and Davies raises significant questions about the importance of a cultural dimension to rural problems. Here, we seek to build on those questions through a discussion of the cultural influences on rurality and community. Although acknowledging the 'messy' and interconnected nature of different productions and circulations of cultural constructs, we discuss three different scales - national, regional, local - at which the cultures of rurality can be identified as important components of the experience of rural lifestyle. Then we briefly focus on how the representation of 'Welshness' at different scales leads both to very complex manifestations of 'community' and to different representations of what the essence of rural living in Wales can and should be. The paper therefore reflects on the contributions of localism and larger-scale 'idylls' to the experienced nature of rurality and rural life.