ABSTRACT
Our main objectives in assembling this collection of essays were essentially twofold. First, we wanted to unpack the increasingly referenced yet still mysterious notion of otherness in the context of rural societies and spaces. Secondly, we were, and remain, deeply curious about the relationship between otherness and marginalisation-that is, how (or indeed, whether) the construction and reproduction of the identities of certain groups and individuals as ‘other’ is reflected in their marginalisation from the idea and reality of some kind of rural mainstream. While recognising the lack of empirical observation on which to draw and the appeal of simply presenting some detail on the lives of identifiable others, we were concerned that this book should go beyond an examination of specific social groups and consider the process by which those groups acquired their marginal status. This involved asking all sorts of questions about the nature of marginalisation as experienced by different people in different places and, in doing this, to engage with a series of theoretical and conceptual discussions on the construction and representation of the rural other.
