Jesse Heley
Biographic Data
| ID | 276630 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jesse Heley |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jesse |
| FAMILY NAME | Heley |
| SIGNATURE | HELEY J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Aberystwyth University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7876-2337 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 267 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Resilient rurals: New Zealand, Mid Wales and differentiated community agency within a global economy
‘Booming’ and ‘lagging’ regions have traditionally been a key area of debate in rural and regional studies; the former being characterised as centres of growth and innovation, and the latter associated with stagnation and/or decline. Recent research has tended to undermine simplistic tropes and emphasise the inter-connectedness of the city and the country. Building on the premise of relationality, this paper further unpicks depictions of winning …
The royal Welsh agricultural society: Patronage and the reproduction of elites in rural Wales
Privilege, place, and patronage: ‘Giving something back’ to Wales
This article explores the complex relationship between civil society, social inequality, and nationhood through examining the motivations of elite members of Welsh civil society as they volunteer to serve on the boards of a wide range of Welsh charities. We interviewed nearly 60 trustees and patrons, all of whom enjoyed successful and influential careers in business, politics, or public service. Their narratives reveal diverse vocabularies of mot…
Volunteering in the bath? The rise of microvolunteering and implications for policy
This paper addresses the emergence of microvolunteering as a conceptual and practical phenomenon, as well as one which policy makers must engage with in a careful and critical fashion. Taking a lead from Smith et al. [2010. “Enlivened Geographies of Volunteering: Situated, Embodied and Emotional Practices of Voluntary Action.” Scottish Geographical Journal 126: 258–274] who specify a need to extend our analyses beyond the formal organizational sp…
Rural regionalism in the 21st century: A tale of no cities
Regions remain in flux. Their status as primary sites of governance and government is an ongoing negotiation between multiple endogenous and exogenous actors. The role of regions as drivers of economic activity and containers of socio-political identities and processes has waxed and waned in academic and policy discourse, most recently hybridized in neologistic categories such as city-regions, creative regions, resilient regions and mega-regions.…
Rural Brexit? The ambivalent politics of rural community, migration and dependency
Assemblage, place and globalisation
Relational perspectives have become pre‐eminent in geographical analysis of globalisation and its impacts in reshaping places, yet arguably leave unanswered questions about precisely how globalisation is reproduced through local places in practice. This paper seeks to extend and enhance the relational approach to globalisation and place by drawing on theoretical insights from assemblage thinking to articulate a methodological framework for empiri…
Stewardship of the rural: Conceptualising the experiences of rural volunteering in later life
The fanta-sy of global products: Fizzy-drinks, differentiated ubiquity and the placing of globalization
If globalization is conceived as an outcome of negotiations between places and relational processes, how do researchers capture such amorphous complexity? Drawing upon the framework of assemblage theory this paper unpicks the plethora of processes and practices encompassed within the problematic term ‘globalization’. Focusing on the ‘banal’ object of a can of Fanta, we demonstrate how this exists in an assemblage which maintains coherence across …
Unravelling the Global Wool Assemblage: Researching Place and Production Networks in the Global Countryside
This article applies an assemblage reading to the contemporary global woollen industry to demonstrate how assemblage thinking has value as a methodology for generating insights into the local impact of global economic restructuring; bridging concerns with the relationality of rural places and translocal production networks. Putting assemblage into research practice, we trace the interactions and interdependencies between human and non-human, orga…
Assessing the impacts of changing public service provision on geographical accessibility: An examination of public library provision in Pembrokeshire, South Wales
Public libraries make an important contribution to the wellbeing of local people often acting as community hubs by reducing the isolation felt by vulnerable members of society through promoting social interaction and supporting the wider needs of local communities. However, access to libraries is threatened in Wales, as elsewhere in the UK, by uncertainty stemming from changes in local government service delivery models, austerity-driven cuts in …
Post-pastoral? Rethinking religion and the reconstruction of rural space
Practices of Participation and Voluntarism among Older People in Rural Wales: Choice, Obligation and Constraints to Active Ageing
Rural ageing is a significant issue for policy makers and academics, with the increasing proportion of older residents in rural areas placing heightened demands on service provision at a time of economic austerity. In this context, participation and volunteering in older age has been drawn into policy focus. Alongside broader discourses of social capital and active citizenship, the prospect of active ageing has emerged as a key component in the d…
Between Man and Nature: The Enduring Wisdom of Sir Halford J. Mackinder
This article argues for the continued relevance of the work and theories of the British Geostrategist Sir Halford J. Mackinder (1861-1947). It asserts that commentators and scholars who seek to marginalise Mackinder have too often dismissed his theories without setting them in the context of their continued endorsement in crucial areas of the globe. After 1945, despite his theories being tainted by association with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan…
Governing beyond the metropolis: Placing the rural in city-region development
Despite a select group of urban centres generating a disproportionate amount of global economic output, significant attention is being devoted to the impact of urban-economic processes on interstitial spaces lying between metropolitan areas. Nevertheless, there remains a noticeable silence in city-region debate concerning how rural spaces are conceptualised, governed and represented. In this paper we draw on recent city-region developments in Eng…
Growing older and social sustainability: Considering the 'Serious Leisure' Practices of the Over 60s in Rural Communities
The important role which older people play in rural community development through their various activities has become a substantive area of interest across social science disciplines, including gerontology, sociology, psychology and human geography. Reflecting the demographic shift of an ageing countryside within many parts of the global north, the future of rural social policy initiatives will increasingly depend on a nuanced appreciation of the…
Soft Spaces, Fuzzy Boundaries and Spatial Governance in Post-devolution Wales
This article explores the responses of senior local government actors to the 2004 Wales Spatial Plan and its 2008 update. An example of the so-called 'new spatial planning' which has emerged in the movement towards regional devolution in the UK, this planning discourse foregrounds elements of relational thinking that seek to alternatively augment, destabilize and overturn orthodox administrative categories and divisions of space. Whereas spatial …
Cultures of local economy in a Celtic fringe region
This paper seeks to help reconceptualize the spaces of local and regional economies by developing the idea of the ‘compound economy’. It is set in the context of a growing body of work in geography that emphasizes the importance of culture as a factor shaping differentiated local and regional economic development and, correspondingly, as an important dynamic informing the ability of localities and regions to negotiate economic forces operating at…
Relational rurals: Some thoughts on relating things and theory in rural studies
Doing space relationally: Exploring the meaningful geographies of local government in Wales
Making Sense of Place: Multidisciplinary Perspectives
On the Potential of Being a Village Boy: An Argument for Local Rural Ethnography
This article explores the significance of researcher's positionality for the interpretation of local cultures of rurality. Drawing on personal experience of studying the apparent emergence of a new squirearchy in an English village, it argues that backyard ethnographies, in which researchers study worlds with which they are already familiar if not intimate, can offer valuable insights into cultures of rurality by facilitating particular forms of …
Woolworths and Wales: A Multi-Dimensional Analysis of the Loss of a Local Brand
In this paper we present a multi-dimensional analysis of the closure of Woolworths in Wales and the way in which the loss of this familiar high-street brand can be accounted for at a number of levels and within different social arenas. Primarily, the paper demonstrates how Woolworths is positioned as a symbol of a previous era of consumption centred upon community and place based notions of nostalgia and community. What is striking in the analysi…
The new squirearchy and emergent cultures of the new middle classes in rural areas
Relational rurals: Some thoughts on relating things and theory in rural studies
Assemblage, place and globalisation
Relational perspectives have become pre‐eminent in geographical analysis of globalisation and its impacts in reshaping places, yet arguably leave unanswered questions about precisely how globalisation is reproduced through local places in practice. This paper seeks to extend and enhance the relational approach to globalisation and place by drawing on theoretical insights from assemblage thinking to articulate a methodological framework for empiri…
The new squirearchy and emergent cultures of the new middle classes in rural areas
Growing older and social sustainability: Considering the 'Serious Leisure' Practices of the Over 60s in Rural Communities
The important role which older people play in rural community development through their various activities has become a substantive area of interest across social science disciplines, including gerontology, sociology, psychology and human geography. Reflecting the demographic shift of an ageing countryside within many parts of the global north, the future of rural social policy initiatives will increasingly depend on a nuanced appreciation of the…
On the Potential of Being a Village Boy: An Argument for Local Rural Ethnography
This article explores the significance of researcher's positionality for the interpretation of local cultures of rurality. Drawing on personal experience of studying the apparent emergence of a new squirearchy in an English village, it argues that backyard ethnographies, in which researchers study worlds with which they are already familiar if not intimate, can offer valuable insights into cultures of rurality by facilitating particular forms of …
Rural Brexit? The ambivalent politics of rural community, migration and dependency
Governing beyond the metropolis: Placing the rural in city-region development
Despite a select group of urban centres generating a disproportionate amount of global economic output, significant attention is being devoted to the impact of urban-economic processes on interstitial spaces lying between metropolitan areas. Nevertheless, there remains a noticeable silence in city-region debate concerning how rural spaces are conceptualised, governed and represented. In this paper we draw on recent city-region developments in Eng…
Soft Spaces, Fuzzy Boundaries and Spatial Governance in Post-devolution Wales
This article explores the responses of senior local government actors to the 2004 Wales Spatial Plan and its 2008 update. An example of the so-called 'new spatial planning' which has emerged in the movement towards regional devolution in the UK, this planning discourse foregrounds elements of relational thinking that seek to alternatively augment, destabilize and overturn orthodox administrative categories and divisions of space. Whereas spatial …
Doing space relationally: Exploring the meaningful geographies of local government in Wales
Unravelling the Global Wool Assemblage: Researching Place and Production Networks in the Global Countryside
This article applies an assemblage reading to the contemporary global woollen industry to demonstrate how assemblage thinking has value as a methodology for generating insights into the local impact of global economic restructuring; bridging concerns with the relationality of rural places and translocal production networks. Putting assemblage into research practice, we trace the interactions and interdependencies between human and non-human, orga…
Practices of Participation and Voluntarism among Older People in Rural Wales: Choice, Obligation and Constraints to Active Ageing
Rural ageing is a significant issue for policy makers and academics, with the increasing proportion of older residents in rural areas placing heightened demands on service provision at a time of economic austerity. In this context, participation and volunteering in older age has been drawn into policy focus. Alongside broader discourses of social capital and active citizenship, the prospect of active ageing has emerged as a key component in the d…
Stewardship of the rural: Conceptualising the experiences of rural volunteering in later life
Post-pastoral? Rethinking religion and the reconstruction of rural space
Between Man and Nature: The Enduring Wisdom of Sir Halford J. Mackinder
This article argues for the continued relevance of the work and theories of the British Geostrategist Sir Halford J. Mackinder (1861-1947). It asserts that commentators and scholars who seek to marginalise Mackinder have too often dismissed his theories without setting them in the context of their continued endorsement in crucial areas of the globe. After 1945, despite his theories being tainted by association with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan…
Cultures of local economy in a Celtic fringe region
This paper seeks to help reconceptualize the spaces of local and regional economies by developing the idea of the ‘compound economy’. It is set in the context of a growing body of work in geography that emphasizes the importance of culture as a factor shaping differentiated local and regional economic development and, correspondingly, as an important dynamic informing the ability of localities and regions to negotiate economic forces operating at…
Volunteering in the bath? The rise of microvolunteering and implications for policy
This paper addresses the emergence of microvolunteering as a conceptual and practical phenomenon, as well as one which policy makers must engage with in a careful and critical fashion. Taking a lead from Smith et al. [2010. “Enlivened Geographies of Volunteering: Situated, Embodied and Emotional Practices of Voluntary Action.” Scottish Geographical Journal 126: 258–274] who specify a need to extend our analyses beyond the formal organizational sp…
The fanta-sy of global products: Fizzy-drinks, differentiated ubiquity and the placing of globalization
If globalization is conceived as an outcome of negotiations between places and relational processes, how do researchers capture such amorphous complexity? Drawing upon the framework of assemblage theory this paper unpicks the plethora of processes and practices encompassed within the problematic term ‘globalization’. Focusing on the ‘banal’ object of a can of Fanta, we demonstrate how this exists in an assemblage which maintains coherence across …
The royal Welsh agricultural society: Patronage and the reproduction of elites in rural Wales
Rural regionalism in the 21st century: A tale of no cities
Regions remain in flux. Their status as primary sites of governance and government is an ongoing negotiation between multiple endogenous and exogenous actors. The role of regions as drivers of economic activity and containers of socio-political identities and processes has waxed and waned in academic and policy discourse, most recently hybridized in neologistic categories such as city-regions, creative regions, resilient regions and mega-regions.…
The new squirearchy and emergent cultures of the new middle classes in rural areas
On the Potential of Being a Village Boy: An Argument for Local Rural Ethnography
This article explores the significance of researcher's positionality for the interpretation of local cultures of rurality. Drawing on personal experience of studying the apparent emergence of a new squirearchy in an English village, it argues that backyard ethnographies, in which researchers study worlds with which they are already familiar if not intimate, can offer valuable insights into cultures of rurality by facilitating particular forms of …
Woolworths and Wales: A Multi-Dimensional Analysis of the Loss of a Local Brand
In this paper we present a multi-dimensional analysis of the closure of Woolworths in Wales and the way in which the loss of this familiar high-street brand can be accounted for at a number of levels and within different social arenas. Primarily, the paper demonstrates how Woolworths is positioned as a symbol of a previous era of consumption centred upon community and place based notions of nostalgia and community. What is striking in the analysi…
Cultures of local economy in a Celtic fringe region
This paper seeks to help reconceptualize the spaces of local and regional economies by developing the idea of the ‘compound economy’. It is set in the context of a growing body of work in geography that emphasizes the importance of culture as a factor shaping differentiated local and regional economic development and, correspondingly, as an important dynamic informing the ability of localities and regions to negotiate economic forces operating at…
Relational rurals: Some thoughts on relating things and theory in rural studies
Doing space relationally: Exploring the meaningful geographies of local government in Wales
Making Sense of Place: Multidisciplinary Perspectives
Growing older and social sustainability: Considering the 'Serious Leisure' Practices of the Over 60s in Rural Communities
The important role which older people play in rural community development through their various activities has become a substantive area of interest across social science disciplines, including gerontology, sociology, psychology and human geography. Reflecting the demographic shift of an ageing countryside within many parts of the global north, the future of rural social policy initiatives will increasingly depend on a nuanced appreciation of the…
Soft Spaces, Fuzzy Boundaries and Spatial Governance in Post-devolution Wales
This article explores the responses of senior local government actors to the 2004 Wales Spatial Plan and its 2008 update. An example of the so-called 'new spatial planning' which has emerged in the movement towards regional devolution in the UK, this planning discourse foregrounds elements of relational thinking that seek to alternatively augment, destabilize and overturn orthodox administrative categories and divisions of space. Whereas spatial …
Between Man and Nature: The Enduring Wisdom of Sir Halford J. Mackinder
This article argues for the continued relevance of the work and theories of the British Geostrategist Sir Halford J. Mackinder (1861-1947). It asserts that commentators and scholars who seek to marginalise Mackinder have too often dismissed his theories without setting them in the context of their continued endorsement in crucial areas of the globe. After 1945, despite his theories being tainted by association with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan…
Governing beyond the metropolis: Placing the rural in city-region development
Despite a select group of urban centres generating a disproportionate amount of global economic output, significant attention is being devoted to the impact of urban-economic processes on interstitial spaces lying between metropolitan areas. Nevertheless, there remains a noticeable silence in city-region debate concerning how rural spaces are conceptualised, governed and represented. In this paper we draw on recent city-region developments in Eng…
Post-pastoral? Rethinking religion and the reconstruction of rural space
Practices of Participation and Voluntarism among Older People in Rural Wales: Choice, Obligation and Constraints to Active Ageing
Rural ageing is a significant issue for policy makers and academics, with the increasing proportion of older residents in rural areas placing heightened demands on service provision at a time of economic austerity. In this context, participation and volunteering in older age has been drawn into policy focus. Alongside broader discourses of social capital and active citizenship, the prospect of active ageing has emerged as a key component in the d…
Assessing the impacts of changing public service provision on geographical accessibility: An examination of public library provision in Pembrokeshire, South Wales
Public libraries make an important contribution to the wellbeing of local people often acting as community hubs by reducing the isolation felt by vulnerable members of society through promoting social interaction and supporting the wider needs of local communities. However, access to libraries is threatened in Wales, as elsewhere in the UK, by uncertainty stemming from changes in local government service delivery models, austerity-driven cuts in …
The fanta-sy of global products: Fizzy-drinks, differentiated ubiquity and the placing of globalization
If globalization is conceived as an outcome of negotiations between places and relational processes, how do researchers capture such amorphous complexity? Drawing upon the framework of assemblage theory this paper unpicks the plethora of processes and practices encompassed within the problematic term ‘globalization’. Focusing on the ‘banal’ object of a can of Fanta, we demonstrate how this exists in an assemblage which maintains coherence across …
Unravelling the Global Wool Assemblage: Researching Place and Production Networks in the Global Countryside
This article applies an assemblage reading to the contemporary global woollen industry to demonstrate how assemblage thinking has value as a methodology for generating insights into the local impact of global economic restructuring; bridging concerns with the relationality of rural places and translocal production networks. Putting assemblage into research practice, we trace the interactions and interdependencies between human and non-human, orga…
Stewardship of the rural: Conceptualising the experiences of rural volunteering in later life
Rural regionalism in the 21st century: A tale of no cities
Regions remain in flux. Their status as primary sites of governance and government is an ongoing negotiation between multiple endogenous and exogenous actors. The role of regions as drivers of economic activity and containers of socio-political identities and processes has waxed and waned in academic and policy discourse, most recently hybridized in neologistic categories such as city-regions, creative regions, resilient regions and mega-regions.…
Rural Brexit? The ambivalent politics of rural community, migration and dependency
Assemblage, place and globalisation
Relational perspectives have become pre‐eminent in geographical analysis of globalisation and its impacts in reshaping places, yet arguably leave unanswered questions about precisely how globalisation is reproduced through local places in practice. This paper seeks to extend and enhance the relational approach to globalisation and place by drawing on theoretical insights from assemblage thinking to articulate a methodological framework for empiri…
Volunteering in the bath? The rise of microvolunteering and implications for policy
This paper addresses the emergence of microvolunteering as a conceptual and practical phenomenon, as well as one which policy makers must engage with in a careful and critical fashion. Taking a lead from Smith et al. [2010. “Enlivened Geographies of Volunteering: Situated, Embodied and Emotional Practices of Voluntary Action.” Scottish Geographical Journal 126: 258–274] who specify a need to extend our analyses beyond the formal organizational sp…
The royal Welsh agricultural society: Patronage and the reproduction of elites in rural Wales
Privilege, place, and patronage: ‘Giving something back’ to Wales
This article explores the complex relationship between civil society, social inequality, and nationhood through examining the motivations of elite members of Welsh civil society as they volunteer to serve on the boards of a wide range of Welsh charities. We interviewed nearly 60 trustees and patrons, all of whom enjoyed successful and influential careers in business, politics, or public service. Their narratives reveal diverse vocabularies of mot…
Resilient rurals: New Zealand, Mid Wales and differentiated community agency within a global economy
‘Booming’ and ‘lagging’ regions have traditionally been a key area of debate in rural and regional studies; the former being characterised as centres of growth and innovation, and the latter associated with stagnation and/or decline. Recent research has tended to undermine simplistic tropes and emphasise the inter-connectedness of the city and the country. Building on the premise of relationality, this paper further unpicks depictions of winning …
Political science (20 works) · Sociology (20 works) · Law (16 works) · Politics (14 works) · Law (13 works) · Rural development and sustainability (13 works) · Geography (11 works) · Social science (9 works) · Epistemology (8 works) · Economics (7 works)