Rural Wales in the Twenty-First Century

The book explores the complex and shifting geographies of rural Wales in the twenty first century. It draws on a broad range of recent academic and policy research to provide the most comprehensive and critical account of the spaces, places and environments of rural Wales to date. The book highlights recent processes of change as well as important continuities with the past. It also indicates the ways in which the contemporary geographies of rural Wales are bound up with rather complex connections between society, culture, economy and environment. The book consists of 16 specially commissioned chapters written by human geographers and sociologists with considerable expertise in rural studies. It is structured around five main themes. The first is concerned with society and community and explores changing rural demographics, the cultural impacts of in-migration, alternative communities and community action in rural Wales. The second theme is economy and employment, with chapters on labour markets, the eco-economy, migrant workers and market towns. The focus of the third theme is farming and food and the changing agri-food agenda in Wales. Welfare and services constitutes the fourth theme of the book with attention given to poverty and community responses to service provision in rural areas. The final theme of the book is environment, which is explored through discussions of environmental sustainability and the post-productivist turn in forestry. The book uses these accounts of the social, economic and environmental geographies of rural Wales to provide a broader critique of rural geography and rural studies in the UK and other developed countries.