Rural recovery or rural spatial justice? Responding to multiple crises for the British countryside

Abstract

Abstract This commentary proposes the adoption of a spatial justice approach to understanding the multiple crises facing rural Britain and developing policy responses. It introduces spatial justice as a concept rooted in urban studies but recently extended by an emerging literature on rural spatial justice, and outlines a multidimensional framework in which spatial justice may be concerned with the actual and perceived distribution of resources and opportunities and the power dynamics behind these patterns, with the right of individuals to access, live in and shape spaces, or with normative models for a fair future. The remainder of the paper explores the potential for applying this framework to challenges for the British countryside, briefly considering three resulting statements: first, that there are internal disparities and injustices in the geographical impact of contemporary challenges within rural Britain that are obscured by political and media discourses of a ‘rural crisis’; second, that the capacity of rural communities to respond to challenges is uneven and has been eroded by recent socioeconomic pressures and policy decisions; and third, that we need an open discussion about what spatial justice looks like for the countryside of the future.