Co-producing and co-performing attractive rural living in popular media

Abstract

Rural migration is important in any process of rural economic development. The attraction of immigrants to rural places in Sweden are part of trends that involve a specific set of discursive elements that are being co-produced and co-performed by actors represented in magazines and reality series with a rural theme. The aim of this article is to analyse how discourses on attractive living in rural places are co-performed and co-produced in one Swedish lifestyle magazine about country living and in one British reality show, Country Living (Lantliv), and Escape to the Country (Comeford, 2002; Edensor, 2006; Gustafsson, 2008; Jonasson & Scherle, 2012; Normann & Ramirez, 1993; Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004; Ramirez, 1999; Sventelius, 2009, 2010; Wikström, 1996; Woods, 2010). These co-produced performances use existing social and geographical structures, such as gender, entrepreneurship and nature–culture categories, and at the same time actors are trying to balance them in such ways that they co-perform an attractive living in the countryside.