Changing class complexions on and in the British countryside

• Published in: Journal of rural studies Vol. 23; no. 3; pp. 283 - 304
• Main Author: Phillips, Martin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.07.2007; Elsevier
• Subjects: Academic Discourse; Circulatory system of knowledge; Class; Class analysis; Classification; Conceptualization; Demography; England; Foreign Countries; Great Britain; Knowledge; Middle and service classes; Middle Class; Middle class territory; National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC); NS-SEC; Public Policy; qualitative analysis; quantitative analysis; Quantitative and qualitative methods; Research Methodology; Residential Patterns; Rural Areas; Rural Sociology; Social Class; Social structure; Socioeconomic status; Spatial distribution; United Kingdom; Wales; England; Wales; United Kingdom (Wales); United Kingdom (England); NS-SEC; Quantitative and qualitative methods; Middle class territory; Middle and service classes; Circulatory system of knowledge; Class analysis
• ISSN: 0743-0167; 1873-1392
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2007.02.001

This paper explores the class complexion of the English and Welsh countryside utilising the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (or NS-SEC), as well as reflecting on the value of this classification given claims as to the ‘death of class’ as a meaningful subject of analysis. The paper situates analysis using the NS-SEC in a paradoxical context, whereby its very use appears, on the one hand, to demonstrate successful incorporation of academic constructions of class into the agencies of governmental social statistical production, while, on the other hand, academic discourses, including some within rural studies, appear to have undermined its very rationale. The paper argues that the classification lends support to claims that rural studies have used an overly aggregative concept of the middle class that obscures the spatial distribution of classes in the British countryside, although interpretation of the classification also needs to consider a range of broader criticisms of class analysis. The paper concludes by suggesting that the paradox surrounding the classification and rural class analysis more generally might be viewed through Latour's, [1999. Pandora's hope. Harvard University Press, London] concept of knowledge as a ‘circulatory system.’