Abstract
This study underlines how a reordering of rural space has made rurality into a complex symbol of identity encompassing a broad range of meanings that both unite and split community on how they are applied in packaging and promoting places. In fact, it can be argued that rurality is in flux given the ambivalence it evokes – some take it seriously, arguing for a need to conserve, and others regard the conservation efforts as a joke, more of a gimmick in the light of the dissipation of sociocultural and natural attributes they have witnessed in their community. Thus it is fair to say that rurality no longer embodies static meanings and traits. In fact, whilst on one hand, there is a predominance of urban interests in the countryside, on the other rurality is boxed and presented for consumption in urban localities. In illustrating how creative enterprise is bringing about an innovative use of the rural ethos and space, this work will present case insights from India and Mexico. Findings underline how rurality acts as a tool for thinking about and reassembling local identity, mediating distinctions between insiders and outsiders, fact and fiction and inverting ways in which places are consumed.
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- 1.
Wall decorated with earthen lamps.
- 2.
Before the partition of India, Rajputana or the Land of the Rajputs (members of the warrior class, Kshatriya) was a princely state that included mainly the present-day Indian state of Rajasthan along with parts of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and some adjoining areas of Sindh in modern-day Southern Pakistan (www.britannica.com, accessed 01/08/2017/).
- 3.
Coyote, a canid native to North America, is the term given to paid guides who help illegal migrants emigrate to the USA as they know the track and are at times, I was informed, even able to strike a deal with the US border patrol agents (Saxena, 2016).
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Saxena, G. (2018). Rurality in Flux: A Perspective on Rural Tourism Enterprise. In: Dwivedi, Y., et al. Emerging Markets from a Multidisciplinary Perspective. Advances in Theory and Practice of Emerging Markets. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75013-2_21
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