ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a number of theoretical co-ordinates as ways of conceptualising rural places. It articulates the importance of being alert to the many different types of rural place, while basing its analysis in a UK context. It explores how imaginary ideas of the rural feature in everyday life and are often connected to forms of consumption, arguing that this produces a set of rural mythologies – stories we are consistently told or tell ourselves about the rural. Drawing on examples from everyday life and popular culture the chapter ends with a focus on two particularly prevalent rural mythologies: that the rural is healthy and that the rural is situated in the past.
