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This seminar will consider contemporary writing on and from small places in England, asking what can be learned about the politics of racism, xenophobia and multi-culture from these neglected and sometimes remote vantage points. The terms ‘colonial countryside’ and ‘rural racism’ are undoubtedly relevant to broader discussions of English national identity. Still, they can also risk deepening the divide between urban and rural (as well as past and present) in ways that often obscure the continuities. The presentation will draw primarily on two studies of particular places in central southern England that I have carried out recently: Return of a Native: Learning from the Land (Repeater 2022) and England’s Military Heartland: Preparing for War on Salisbury Plain (co-written with Antonia Dawes, Mitra Pariyar & Alice Cree, MUP Jan 2025).
