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AbstractThis article explores the responses of senior local government actors to the 2004 Wales Spatial Plan and its 2008 update. An example of the so‐called 'new spatial planning' which has emerged in the movement towards regional devolution in the UK, this planning discourse foregrounds elements of relational thinking that seek to alternatively augment, destabilize and overturn orthodox administrative categories and divisions of space. Whereas spatial planners have traditionally thought and practised with and through clearly bounded scales (national, regional, local), in this century the new spatial planning is imposing relationally inscribed concepts such as 'soft space' and 'fuzzy boundaries' into the lexicon of spatial planners. Keystones in a vocabulary used to conceptualize the emergence of new spaces of more networked governance, the importance attached to both concepts in current thinking is that they seek to translate theory into policy, and policy into action. A key question arising from this, however, is how the lexicon of the new spatial planning translates, intersects, and compares with the spatial imaginations of the local government and non‐government officials who have to implement and deliver the strategy. By drawing on the case study of post‐devolution Wales, this article draws on interview data to critically explore the impact of the Wales Spatial Plan as a strategy indicative of the new spatial planning in action, and the implications it has had for service delivery.RésuméL'étude s'intéresse aux réactions de hauts responsables des autorités locales face au programme 'Wales Spatial Plan' de 2004 et à son actualisation de 2008. Représentatif de ce qu'on a appelé la 'nouvelle planification spatiale', née dans le sillage de la dévolution régionale au Royaume‐Uni, le discours utilisé met en avant des éléments de la pensée relationnelle qui, eux, cherchent à grossir, déstabiliser et rompre les catégories administratives classiques et les divisions de l'espace. D'habitude, les aménageurs réfléchissaient et opéraient dans le cadre d'échelons territoriaux clairement établis (national, régional, local), mais depuis le début de ce siècle, la nouvelle planification spatiale impose, dans leur lexique, des concepts définis en fonction des interconnexions, tels que soft space (espace transversal) et fuzzy boundaries (délimitations floues). Éléments fondamentaux d'un vocabulaire servant à conceptualiser l'apparition de nouveaux espaces de gouvernance en réseau, ces deux concepts doivent leur place dans la réflexion actuelle au fait qu'ils tentent de traduire la théorie en politiques, et les politiques en actions. D'où une question essentielle : comment le lexique de la nouvelle planification spatiale parvient‐il à donner une traduction, à se superposer et àêtre comparable aux imaginations spatiales des responsables locaux, gouvernementaux et non gouvernementaux, qui doivent mettre en œuvre et concrétiser la stratégie? En partant de l'après‐dévolution galloise de l'étude de cas, ce travail s'appuie sur des résultats d'entretiens pour effectuer une analyse critique sur l'impact du 'Wales Spatial Plan' en tant que stratégie révélatrice de la nouvelle planification spatiale opérationnelle, et sur les conséquences de ce programme pour la fourniture des services.

AbstractThis article explores the significance of researcher's positionality for the interpretation of local cultures of rurality. Drawing on personal experience of studying the apparent emergence of a new squirearchy in an English village, it argues that backyard ethnographies, in which researchers study worlds with which they are already familiar if not intimate, can offer valuable insights into cultures of rurality by facilitating particular forms of disclosure and understanding. While the potential value of insider status, and indeed participant observation, has become increasingly debated in rural research, the implications of being local have been largely neglected. The article discusses the significance of being local in terms of privileged access to elite cultures in rural space, focusing on how it assists enquiry in terms of acceptance, observation and interpretation. At the same time, it highlights some of the challenges to this mode of investigation. The article draws on material from a locality based study of the so‐called new squirearchy in England.

AbstractRural ageing is a significant issue for policy makers and academics, with the increasing proportion of older residents in rural areas placing heightened demands on service provision at a time of economic austerity. In this context, participation and volunteering in older age has been drawn into policy focus. Alongside broader discourses of social capital and active citizenship, the prospect of active ageing has emerged as a key component in the delivery of community‐based services under neoliberal welfare agendas. However, moves to formalise participation among the elderly are at risk of undermining everyday practices of voluntarism. Furthermore, the diversity of the older population means that the willingness and capacity of rural communities and individuals to undertake forms of voluntarism will vary considerably. These issues arise in rural Wales, where notions of participation have become intertwined with Welsh Government initiatives for community regeneration. Through empirical research, this article considers the different motivations of older people for engaging in forms of community participation, as well as constraints to these activities. In concluding, we reflect on the implications for local civil society in Wales.

AbstractSet against the established political mantra of partnership working, this paper considers the conceptual framings of the local authority partnership agenda in academic debates and concurrent empirical research. We compare and contrast the changing formal territorial remits of political intervention with the spatial constructs understood and employed by those stakeholders responsible for delivering children's services. In so doing, we illustrate the uneven nature of local government partnership working and reflect on the ways in which organizational asymmetry, cultural connections, shared material experiences and historic rounds of local authority restructuring enable and constrain collaborative practice.Resumen. Bajo la perspectiva de la arraigada cantinela política de la colaboración, este artículo estudia los marcos conceptuales de la agenda de colaboración en las autoridades locales en debates académicos e investigaciones empíricas simultáneas. Comparamos y contrastamos las obligaciones territoriales formales cambiantes en cuanto a intervención política con las construcciones espaciales conocidas y empleadas por terceras partes interesadas responsables de proporcionar servicios para niños y adolescentes. Con esto, ilustramos la naturaleza desigual de la colaboración con gobiernos locales y reflexionamos sobre el modo en que las asimetrías organizativas, las conexiones culturales, las experiencias materiales compartidas y los ciclos históricos de reestructuración de las autoridades locales facilitan y restringen en la práctica la colaboración.

AbstractThis article applies an assemblage reading to the contemporary global woollen industry to demonstrate how assemblage thinking has value as a methodology for generating insights into the local impact of global economic restructuring; bridging concerns with the relationality of rural places and translocal production networks. Putting assemblage into research practice, we trace the interactions and interdependencies between human and non‐human, organic and inorganic, technical and natural components of the global wool assemblage from the entry point of Newtown in mid‐Wales. In so doing, we call attention to those critical moments in this schema that may be usefully exposed or explored via the concept of assemblage. Here we consider the agency of non‐human actors, as well as the biological, technological, regulatory and marketing regimes that seek to produce wool as a globally mobile commodity. Through their enrolment in these sets of relations, Welsh farmers are exposed to the effects of spatially dispersed and contingent dynamics. Using the example of wool we develop a broad argument for using a framework of assemblage alongside other critical theories as a means of grasping how rural societies, places and communities are negotiating change in the context of globalisation.

In this paper we present a multi-dimensional analysis of the closure of Woolworths in Wales and the way in which the loss of this familiar high-street brand can be accounted for at a number of levels and within different social arenas. Primarily, the paper demonstrates how Woolworths is positioned as a symbol of a previous era of consumption centred upon community and place based notions of nostalgia and community. What is striking in the analysis is the similarities in the way in which Woolworths is mobilised as a symbol by the general public and elites; albeit with varying outcomes and affects. In presenting the analysis the paper demonstrates a processual framing as providing a fruitful approach to the combination of different approaches and fields of inquiry (sociology, geography, and political science) without diminishing their distinct contributions.