ABSTRACT
This chapter observes that there is a tendency in criminology to create well-intended dichotomies that do as much harm as good for the advancement of scholarship. One from the past is the dichotomy by the German sociological theorist Ferdinand Tönnies of two types of relationships within social groups known as gemeinschaft and gessellschaft. This dichotomy is often wrongly conflated with another hackneyed and barely valid dichotomy, namely, rural versus urban. Both ignore the diversity found within each type by over-generalising differences. One objective of this chapter is to examine and discuss the ways rural and gemeinschaft were used both productively and counterproductively in past criminological scholarship. A second objective is to argue that a nominalist definition of rural based on population size and/or density is the only way to avoid various conceptual issues and to provide a framework that allows for both case study and cross-comparative research within and between various regions of the world. The chapter concludes by discussing the implications of problematising rural within considerations of issues associated with social justice and policing.
