ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter we identified a series of networks that act in both complementary and conflicting ways to shape rural areas. We argued that these networks emerge from consecutive processes of re-structuring in rural politics, economy and society and that they, and their associated conventions, underpin processes of differentiation in the countryside. In the following chapters we develop this analytical perspective and examine, first, how the networks and their requisite conventions are differentially distributed throughout the countryside and, second, some of the consequences that flow from this distribution. In so doing, we also consider the utility of the ideal types outlined in our earlier work and we consider whether the processes of regionalisation currently shaping the contemporary countryside can be adequately comprehended within our ‘differentiated countryside’ framework.
