ABSTRACT

This chapter shows the complex, contested and changeable character of contemporary rural cultural geography by exploring the possibility that one possible further twist for, and indeed perhaps on, rural geographers might be towards examining 'obese' and 'pornographic' ruralities. Jean Baudrillard's metaphorical usage of terms such as obesity and pornography are complex: full of ambiguities, inconsistencies and not a little innuendo, a feature which is also to the fore in Marcus Doel's take on Baudrillard but which has come under criticism, notably in relation to feminism. The chapter highlights the possibility of an obesity in signifiers of rurality creating a confused, hesitant and in some cases sceptical rural subject, and identifies three possible subject positions in pornographic rurality: namely 'promiscuous voyeurism', 'creative engagement', and 'realist resistance'. Hesitancies and silences with regard to rurality have arguably been largely over-looked by rural researchers, particularly following their cultural turn towards 'giving voice' to diverse and often neglected interpretations of rurality.