Engaging the global countryside: globalization, hybridity and the reconstitution of rural place

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…