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In this ethnographic study of the rural idyll, Broadlands explores rurality and the pace of rural life. In sharp contrast to the urban analytical emphasis upon speed, it gives careful thought to stasis, as rural places offer everyday opportunities for very different social situations and behavioural interactions. Based on new and extensive RCUK-funded primary research, Sam Hillyard generates an original, rigorous and thoughtful understanding of everyday rural life in the 21st century. Taking the principles of dramaturgy and rural studies scholarship, Broadlands provides a toolkit to make sense of rural change. It uses ethnography to enhance interactionist dramaturgy via cross-references with new theoretical orientations that emphasise the temporal dynamics of space in a 'knowing capitalism'. Where early dramaturgy stressed formal organisations in shaping roles and identity, Broadlands expands these concepts to include informal and transient organisations and associations. Ultimately, the book advances a new model for grasping the complexity of the rural. For researchers and students of rural and urban sociology, this is an engaging text that reframes our understanding of rurality.

This study maps how the fieldwork approach to research has developed and matured over the past decades. The aim of this collection is to acknowledge the legacy and the traditions from which fieldwork emerged, but moreover to critically discuss how best fieldwork can move look to engage with the lives as they are now lived. Though the generic task of fieldwork remains as it was - the challenge to 'get inside' and seek understanding about the social world - the literature included here also engages with the whys, whats and hows of using 'new' digital data, placing current debates in context

This volume seeks to address continuities and innovations within the ethnographic canon. It uses Hammersley's (1991) book What's wrong with ethnography to open and situate the debate, but then moves to engage with contemporary debates and arguments on both sides of the Atlantic. Today ethnography has matured to become the dominant research paradigm in some sub-disciplines, but it has also been forced to adapt in response to the theoretical challenge of post-structuralism. The book examines in detail the way some more innovative and problematic ways ethnographers have reacted. Throughout, the book seeks to present a critical, realised evaluation of the strength and limitations of ethnography for the future, by celebrating recent innovations, unusual applications or instances of ethnographic practice. Like Hammersley's book in 1991, it faces and challenges fundamental questions regarding ethnographys very contribution to knowledge. The chapters in this volume are designed to appeal to the novice and the experienced ethnographer; for those embarking on ethnographic work for the first time as well as those looking to move into new methodological directions.

Intro -- Title Page -- Table of Contents -- List of Tables -- List of Abbreviations -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- 1 'A Problem in Search of Discipline' (Hamilton 1990: 232) the History of Rural Sociology -- 2 New Issues in Rural Sociology and Rural Studies -- 3 The 2001 Foot-and-mouth Disease Epidemic in the UK -- 4 The Hunting Debate: Rural Political Protest and the Mobilisation of Defence of Country Sports -- 5 Game Shooting in the United Kingdom -- 6 Representing the Rural: New Methods and Approaches -- Conclusion: the Future of Rural Societies and Rural Sociology -- Appendix -- Notes -- Glossary of Key Terms -- References -- eCopyright.

The paper uses examples from rural studies to demonstrate the relevance of symbolic interactionism for unlocking the complexity of contemporary society. It does so by making a case for a nonprescriptive theory-method dialectic. Case examples are drawn upon in support of the argumentation, including early interactionism and ethnographic work in the United Kingdom, and, in the second half of the paper, rural sociology and fieldwork. The main argument presented is that the traditional remit of interactionism should be extended to recognize how absence is increasingly influential. It concludes that interactionism is in tune with other new trajectories in the social sciences that take into consideration co-presence proximity both on and off-line.

This paper discusses the role and function of alcohol in sporting shooting in the UK. It seeks to understand and critically comment upon alcohol consumption relating to this sport, to widen empirical knowledge of sporting shooting and to use the lens of alcohol to enhance our theoretical understanding of changes taking place in the global countryside. The paper contextualises the activity of sporting shooting by discussing the characteristics of game shooting participants and also the nature of sporting shooting in Britain and Ireland using examples from the pro-shooting press and shooting memoirs. The paper then unpacks the role alcohol fulfils during the sporting day and questions whether it is problematic in this sport on three grounds: the health and safety of participants; for the policing and regulation of legal gun ownership; and for the sustainability and viability of sporting shooting in a changing global countryside. The paper enhances knowledge and understanding in the sociology of sport by broadening the notion of sporting conduct within the sport–alcohol nexus, examining the sport–alcohol nexus in the context of sporting shooting and by demarking changes taking place in the British countryside itself. Two cultures participate in game shooting: for its intrinsic reward (the 'true countryman') and those perceiving the countryside and its elite activities in more instrumental terms (the networker). The long-term implications of this trend are unknown, but it may indicate a threat to the sustainability and long-term viability of sporting shooting if it becomes a purely commercial venture.

The paper uses ethnography to discuss a political putsch – a move from Old Guard to newcomer dominance – in an English rural village. Applying the conceptual ideas of Goffman on symbols of class status and Thrift (2012) on space and an expressive infrastructure, it responds to Shucksmith's (2012) call for research into the micro workings and consequences of class power in rural contexts. The analysis stresses the relevance of 'sticky' space (the residue of past social relations shaping the present, the dwindling amenities and a contemporary absence of pavements) and a contemporary blurring of rural and the urban identities (Norfolk/ London). Moreover, both Goffman's restrictive devices and class symbols (who garners support and who does not) and the temporal dimension of an expressive infrastructure (informing individual dispositions and orientations – class affect) now construct rural spaces. The paper therefore retains a flavour of sociology's obstinate interest in geographic milieu, but the stage is now one of a global countryside both influencing and influenced by local politics and elites.A global recession and the rural penalty, whereby rural residents' experience is more acute, has meant that not all spaces or agents are equal and some are therefore better placed to adapt, accommodate or resist change ( Shucksmith 2012 ). In a climate of various rural crises (fracking in the 'desolate' North of England and the contentious culling of badgers), this paper uses ethnography to study the operation of rural micro-politics and by doing so highlight the value of an ethnographic approach for sociology for understanding the local in the global.

The article argues for the reinvigoration of sociological and ethnographic interest in the rural. It makes this case in three stages. First, Newby's work is used to demonstrate early ethnographic insight into the rural. The second stage then critiques the missed ethnographic opportunities in contemporary qualitative studies of country sports. Finally, new empirical visual research findings on gamekeeping in the UK are introduced to demonstrate what an ethnographic approach can bring to rural studies. It concludes with the argument that the contested and differentiated nature of the British countryside warrants greater sociological interest, and that ethnographic research is well positioned to offer rich insights.

This volume seeks to address the emerging relationships between qualitative research and digital data. It examines and engages with the ambivalence of digitization, illuminating the diverse ways in which researchers approach, negotiate, understand and interpret objects and practices of digital research. The chapters in this volume are organized around four key themes: researching impacts of digitization on social worlds; researching uses of digital data within social worlds; researching digital visualization of social worlds; and researching with digital data and methods. --

The outcome of a UK government's Home Affairs select committee's discussion of the regulation of gun ownership called for reform. The impetus for the review was the shootings in Cumbria and Northumberland in 2010. This article challenges why the social science community has had little to say about the legal ownership and use of guns in the UK and argues that opportunities to shape the debate have been lost. This article demonstrates that there is a substantial knowledge base, but that this is ecological and environmental rather than political or sociological. It suggests that a distinctively sociological analysis is needed if the complexity of participation in shooting is to be understood. This article explores three specific aspects of the topic: (1) legal and policy aspects, (2) methodological issues and (3) the meaning and activity of participation in shooting. All are discussed critically as a means to stimulate sociological discussion.