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Research on governance, network governance and metagovernance has shown how the practice of governing involves a diversity of actors in and beyond the state. Much attention has been paid to the role of powerful state and non-state actors while less consideration has been directed at less visible and marginalised actors who are recognised as participants but whose agency is rarely subjected to in-depth research. In this article, we address this lack by studying the micropolitical practices of place-based self-governing networks in the Danish countryside and their role in governing rural places. Our theoretical point of departure is Bob Jessop's notion of multispatial metagovernance which we seek to enhance by considering marginalised actors around the edges of the state apparatus. Our findings suggest that these marginalised and overlooked actors are not just subjected to governance but actively partake in shaping the governance landscape by enveloping rural places for self-governance in four distinct ways: (1) subverting municipal micro-technologies of power; (2) filling the void created by scalar fixes; (3) keeping local organising efforts fluid and opaque to outsiders and (4) orchestrating strategically selective cooperation with extra-local actors. Without downplaying asymmetries of power and their influence on governance outcomes, we conclude that metagovernance and collibration are not just prerogatives of the powerful. Generating adequate understandings of such practices is therefore only possible if we consider the full breadth of involved actors without taking for granted that outcomes are always decided in advance by the powerful. The study that the article reports on shows one of the ways in which this task may be approached empirically.

Research on governance, network governance and metagovernance has shown how the practice of governing involves a diversity of actors in and beyond the state. Much attention has been paid to the role of powerful state and non-state actors while less consideration has been directed at less visible and marginalised actors who are recognised as participants but whose agency is rarely subjected to in-depth research. In this article, we address this lack by studying the micropolitical practices of place-based self-governing networks in the Danish countryside and their role in governing rural places. Our theoretical point of departure is Bob Jessop's notion of multispatial metagovernance which we seek to enhance by considering marginalised actors around the edges of the state apparatus. Our findings suggest that these marginalised and overlooked actors are not just subjected to governance but actively partake in shaping the governance landscape by enveloping rural places for self-governance in four distinct ways: (1) subverting municipal micro-technologies of power; (2) filling the void created by scalar fixes; (3) keeping local organising efforts fluid and opaque to outsiders and (4) orchestrating strategically selective cooperation with extra-local actors. Without downplaying asymmetries of power and their influence on governance outcomes, we conclude that metagovernance and collibration are not just prerogatives of the powerful. Generating adequate understandings of such practices is therefore only possible if we consider the full breadth of involved actors without taking for granted that outcomes are always decided in advance by the powerful. The study that the article reports on shows one of the ways in which this task may be approached empirically. ; publishedVersion

AbstractIn this paper, we investigate how rurality is performed in online community groups, attending in particular to outdoor recreation and engagement with local nature. The starting point for our performative approach is that when places are digitally mediated, the technological intermediary is never innocent or neutral. Methodologically, we conducted an online ethnography in 20 rural community groups on Facebook during one full year, collecting every post and associated comment threads relating to outdoor recreation and other forms of engagement with local nature. An iterative, heuristic coding process was employed to engage with and further develop existing performative approaches to the sociological study of rural places. Distinguishing throughout between staged and quotidian performances, our findings detail how the routines, pleasures, and tasks of everyday rural life are performed online. Important distinctions that emerge from this include routines that are given vis‐à‐vis those that are in‐the‐making; pleasures based on impression and expression respectively; and tasks relating to carework and sharework. The paper contributes valuable new insights regarding the performance of rurality in the age of the everyday Internet.