Rural roots, rural routes: discourses of rural self and travelling other in debates about the future of Appleby New Fair, 1945–1969

Abstract

The notion that Gypsies, in an idealised form, have a place in the rural idyll has been sufficiently influential within Geography that it currently features in our undergraduate texts concerned with the meaning of place. The position of real Gypsy-Travellers in the countryside is of course more complex, and this paper seeks to move the debate forward by examining how the group, who are still marginalised in geographical research, were portrayed by rural residents in the post-War period, and what these representations of a travelling other reveal about the nature of the rural self. The route in is through local print media reports about Appleby New Fair, a horse fair in Northern England which is one of the largest Gypsy-Traveller gatherings in Europe and a major tourist attraction. Analysis of this source highlights the contested position of Gypsy-Travellers in the country, and the lines of differentiation in rural society that these challenges to their position reveals. In so doing, the paper not only adds crucial texture to our appreciation of spatialised understandings of difference but also highlights the possibilities of radical openness in rural society, which contrasts with more common reactionary attempts to bound rural space.