Rural gentrification and the processes of class colonisation

Abstract

The term rural gentrification is examined and contrasted with contemporary debates over urban gentrification. A common root, in the displacement of a working-class populace by middle-class incomers, is identified and also criticised. Attention is drawn to debates current within urban studies concerning the definition of gentrification as a process of capital investment or as a means to purchase particular lifestyles, the role of reproductive work and service provision, and the possibility of diverse types of gentrifiers and processes of gentrification. The paper investigates, through a substantive study of households in four villages in Gower, whether some of these arguments can illuminate understandings of rural gentrification. Claims that gentrification is necessarily associated with home owners acting as capitalist developers or with an emergent service class are questioned and the possibility of ‘marginal gentrifiers’ is raised. It is also suggested that asymmetries in class positions of householders may be constitutive of rural gentrification. Finally it is argued that comparative work should be undertaken to draw out both the commonalities and differences between rural and urban gentrification and also within gentrification in various rural localities.