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To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2007.02.001 Byline: Martin Phillips Keywords: Class analysis; Middle class territory; NS-SEC; Middle and service classes; Quantitative and qualitative methods; Circulatory system of knowledge Abstract: This paper explores the class complexion of the English and Welsh countryside utilising the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (or NS-SEC), as well as reflecting on the value of this classification given claims as to the 'death of class' as a meaningful subject of analysis. The paper situates analysis using the NS-SEC in a paradoxical context, whereby its very use appears, on the one hand, to demonstrate successful incorporation of academic constructions of class into the agencies of governmental social statistical production, while, on the other hand, academic discourses, including some within rural studies, appear to have undermined its very rationale. The paper argues that the classification lends support to claims that rural studies have used an overly aggregative concept of the middle class that obscures the spatial distribution of classes in the British countryside, although interpretation of the classification also needs to consider a range of broader criticisms of class analysis. The paper concludes by suggesting that the paradox surrounding the classification and rural class analysis more generally might be viewed through Latour's, [1999. Pandora's hope. Harvard University Press, London] concept of knowledge as a 'circulatory system.' Author Affiliation: Department of Geography, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK

An analysis of television dramas in Great Britain reveal a romanticized version of rural life, reducing it to an idyllic representation of the middle class. Topics include social identities and geography as cultural construct.

This article explores a paradox and a possibility that have emerged from two pieces of policy-related research concerning educational use of museums within England. The paradox relates to the use of museums which, whilst widely perceived as rather elitist institutions, appear from a postcode analysis of school visits to museums to be visited by large numbers of schools located in areas of social deprivation. The present analysis further explores this paradox, drawing on revised postcode analysis and governmental indices of multiple deprivation and income deprivation affecting children. The analysis supports the contention that museums attracted visits from schools located in areas with some of the highest levels of deprivation, although it suggests that this result needs to be considered in relation to regional differences in areas of social deprivation, the location of museums and the differences between individual and area-based measures of deprivation. Attention is then drawn to the potential of considering museums through a geographical perspective, and specifically through Foucault's notions of primary, secondary and tertiary spatializations. It is argued that primary spatializations encompasses how museums are conceptualized and classified; secondary spatializations concern how various elements of museums are articulated together; and tertiary spatializations relate to the placement of museums in wider societal contexts and processes. It is suggested that the postcode analysis of school visits points both to the significance of considering tertiary spatializations relating to the social circumstances of museum visitors but also raised questions concerning primary spatializations of museums. Attention is drawn to changes in the classification and grouping of museums, and how these often encompass geographically based criteria related to the social reach of museums. The article ends by considering the degree to which museums might seek to further change their primary spatialization to reflect tertiary spatializations relating to cultural value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper focuses attention on the making of space for rural gentrification, both discursively and materially. The paper emphasises the differential constructions of gentrification within urban and rural studies. Connections are drawn between production-side theories of gentrification, notions of the ‘post-productivist countryside’ and studies that have related rural demographic change and gentrification with planning and property relations. Drawing on these three sets of ideas, the paper explores gentrification in rural Norfolk. It is argued that the contemporary geography of rural gentrification may in part reflect historic structures of landownership as well as settlement classifications associated with the land-use planning system. Country and District level analysis is followed up by detailed study of gentrification of two villages in Norfolk, which highlights how gentrified rural spaces may be produced in rather different way and through different agencies, and as a result takes different forms. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper considers recent pleas for a 'geography of gentrification', arguing that they have been very urban in focus and often enact what, following Soja (1996), might be described as `firstspace epistemology'. The paper identifies traces of other, secondspace and thirdspace geographies of gentrification. It is argued that these geographies may not be fully commensurable with each other but that they each may have some commensurability with rural as well as the urban spatialities. The paper goes on to explore these arguments in relation to studies of gentrification of the British countryside, focusing particularly on gentrification in rural Norfolk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]