An interdisciplinary network
This network, addressing the English Countryside in the inter-war years, is based both on a period and on a method. The years 1919-1939 were a period in which environment pressure, agricultural decline and changes in the nature of the rural population created a widespread sensitivity towards the rural landscape. A central notion held by many contemporaries was that the very countryside itself as a lived socio-environmental system was under threat from, for example, urban sprawl, rural poverty, the growth of tourism, continued decline in the numbers in agriculture and the collapse of traditional social and cultural structures. This perception of a rural crisis was rooted first in the accounts of social and economic decline - the idea that agriculture was 'finished' as a viable industry. With this concept of the 'end' of agriculture, the organic social structures of farm, village and landscape, which it had supported, themselves came under threat.
Yet, at the same time, there was also a positive attitude to rural areas. For many people from the towns the countryside became a site of leisure - the chance to escape from the city and the round of work. To yet another group, mainly although not entirely from the prosperous areas of the south-east, the interwar period gave a chance to live if not in the country then at least in a leafy 'suburban landscape.' This produced complex reactions from a variety of writers, artists, painters, musicians and film makers, as well as the farming community, the new country 'trippers' on foot or on bike, or those who sought a rural idyll in the country districts. In the interwar period, the English countryside assumed a widespread cultural significance but one which was contested rather than consensual.
The method adopted by the network is interdisciplinary - to bring together scholars from across the Arts and Humanities in a series of seminars which will focus on key themes: imagining the village, gendering the landscape, new countrymen and women and living in the landscape. Each seminar will invite participants from different disciplines to present papers and discussion documents from within their discrete subject areas around common questions. These include ideas of the representation of crisis and 'threat', both visual and literary; the historical and geographical constructions of landscape and environment; the 'experience' of those who lived through the period; and the responses of different sectors within the rural and urban areas. The research will also be informed by the different regional experiences of crisis. The seminars are designed to be developmental, in that by bringing together new researchers (especially postgraduates) with more established scholars, the network encourages both groups to benefit from working in a long-term co-operative intellectual environment. This Network is supported by the AHRC as part of the Landscape and Environment programme
The Network held its final meeting in July 2008. However we are seeking to retain the web-pages for the time being. This will enable us to make available images from the period, bibliographies and guides to resources. This is in addition to the seminar programmes and members, a selection of abstracts, extracts from papers, and some full papers presented at the seminars. Finally we have a brief statement of outcomes and suggestions for research areas. When the final report is written this will be added to the site subject to AHRC approval. To access these please follow the above links.
