ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book begins with Conor and Louise Taaffes' intensely moving account of how they had responded to being witnesses to the murder of Stephen Lawrence. Drawing on stories and the emphasis on intimacy have been part of its argument that this is appropriate and illuminating because the concepts of the rural, community and ethnicity are ones that are emotional. At its heart the book concerns an examination of the liminality of rural spaces and the ways in which they are subject to constantly competing demands and interpretations and social struggles. It argues that we can organise the contentions and turbulence of rurality, albeit rather roughly and readily, into three key knots to deliberate: ontological insecurity, social exclusion and transformative possibilities.
