Traditionally, rural poverty has been viewed in material terms given the challenges of low incomes in rural areas, arising from farm wages and under-/seasonal employment (Newby, 2023). Moreover, whilst the root causes of rural poverty have evolved over time - with contemporary experiences underpinned by a combination of austerity, welfare cuts, the emergence of the low wage tourism and hospitality sector and increasing house prices (Yarwood, 2023) - there is a need to move beyond a focus on material considerations per se. The importance of 'more than human' aspects of rural life also need to be considered, including the quality of the natural environment, landscape attachment and nature-ecology-society relations in offsetting material hardship. These aspects may also serve to 'screen out' rural poverty and inform social constructions of the rural as 'problem free', leading to an emphasis on community 'self-help' which can perpetuate a lack of access to welfare entitlements.

Proposals to this call are therefore invited to consider and critically evaluate the extent to which there is a disconnection between the material, ecological and socio-cultural aspects of poverty in the rural (see Milbourne, 2013) and the importance of 'more than human' aspects of rural life in shaping experiences of rural poverty. In so doing, the overall intention is to develop more inclusive models of rural well-being.

Read more at https://www.keele.ac.uk/surf/currentcalls/#material,-ecological-and-socio-cultural-disconnections-in-rural-poverty