ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the author's biography as an example of the notion of countryside's and of rural difference and the way in which it inflected the research process. It focuses on the linkages between rurality and notions of freedom. Arguing that a particular space can simultaneously contain within it a range of 'extra' spaces, i.e. of the heterotopic rural, a multiple space in which various notions of freedom are either practiced or desired. The chapter extends some of the concerns of and continues to think through the appeal of small-scale, neighbourly and intact communities but with an emphasis on their orderliness as well as the senses of social care they offer. It is this 'benevolent' aspect of the panoptic gaze that in part makes the participants talking here feel safe and secure as Patricia's comments demonstrate. The chapter began with the claim that, despite a particular metanarrative, rural spaces do get invested with other, divergent, narratives.
