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Progress in Human Geography
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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, m.woods{at}aber.ac.uk

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.

Progress in Human Geography, Vol. 31, No. 4, 485-507 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0309132507079503
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This article has been cited by other articles:


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M. Woods
Rural geography: blurring boundaries and making connections
Progress in Human Geography, December 1, 2009; 33(6): 849 - 858.
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 Prog Hum GeogrHome page
J. McCarthy
Rural geography: globalizing the countryside
Progress in Human Geography, February 1, 2008; 32(1): 129 - 137.
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