County residents take the fight Representing rural resilience
Celebrations of local volunteering as a way to cope with cutbacks are frequent. Not least are such celebrations apparent within the media, where descriptions of local initiatives are sometimes seen as the solutions to downward spiralling trends in Swedish rural areas. The paper explores the media pr...
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| Published in | Culture unbound Vol. 16; no. 1; pp. 14 - 39 |
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| Main Authors | , |
| Format | Journal Article |
| Language | English |
| Published |
15.03.2024
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| Online Access | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Celebrations of local volunteering as a way to cope with cutbacks are frequent. Not least are such celebrations apparent within the media, where descriptions of local initiatives are sometimes seen as the solutions to downward spiralling trends in Swedish rural areas. The paper explores the media production of meaning around rural resilience as they covered initiatives where rural populations mobilised to ‘save’ threatened local service for their supposed public interest. Using the concepts of ‘patchy resilience’ and ‘cruel optimism’, the paper points at how the representations attach rural areas and identities to a stereotypical rural imagery while also representing a resilience ideal that risks glorifying neoliberal responsibilisation. |
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| ISSN: | 2000-1525 2000-1525 |
| DOI: | 10.3384/cu.4285 |