Keith Halfacree
Biographic Data
| ID | 304703 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Keith Halfacree |
| GIVEN NAMES | Keith |
| FAMILY NAME | Halfacree |
| SIGNATURE | HALFACREE K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Swansea University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1529-609X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 50 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1487 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 49 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1992 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 16 |
Living a one planet life: Ongoing trials by space within Wales's sustainable rural development policy
Doctoral Thesis Review – Anmeldelse av doktoravhandling
Counterurbanisation in post-covid-19 times. Signifier of resurgent interest in rural space across the global North
This review paper draws upon a wide range of diverse international sources to give a still relatively early assessment of the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic stimulated a resurgence of counterurbanisation across much of the global North. Whilst it finds and argues that a ‘resurgence’ was apparent, it may not have been as strong or lasting as was suggested by media reports in particular. Indeed, numerous challenges to any such a resurgence a…
Introducing climate-related counterurbanisation: Individual adaptation or societal maladaptation
Climate disruption today and anticipated future climate breakdown are reshaping demographic and spatial processes, with profound consequences for societies across the globe. Specifically, migration can become a key strategy to attempt to respond to and cope with environmental change. This paper seeks to make sense of one type of migration, counterurbanisation, in this climate breakdown era. It provides conceptual clarity to what is termed ‘climat…
Rural songs for Covid ‐19 times? UK folk music's resurgent engagement with the countryside
The COVID‐19 pandemic somewhat unexpectedly promoted resurgent interest in the attractions of rural places, not least associated with nature, in many countries for especially urban people. The paper argues that this link was very fecund for many within the broad UK ‘folk music’ community specifically. After introducing COVID‐19's pro‐rural turn, the paper gives a brief overview of now substantial music geography scholarship, paying particular att…
Towards a revanchist British rural in post-Covid times? A challenge to those seeking a good countryside
The last decade has seen at least three still ongoing shocks impact strongly on rural Britain: Brexit, COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war. This paper introduces all three of these after setting the scene prior to the 2016 Brexit vote by first summarising the seeming shift across rural Britain from productivism to post-productivism in the years after 1945. Each of the three sources of rural disruption are then described, but also argued to be bui…
Advancing rural as ‘something more than a human estate’: Exploring UK sheep-shaping
From Ambridge to the world? Class returns to rural population geographies
Smith and Phillips make a powerful case both for investigating rural population change within much of the Global North from a class-foregrounded gentrification perspective and for undertaking this investigation in an internationally comparative manner. Neither aspect has been sufficiently developed within scholarship to date. While endorsing such a call, this commentary briefly presents three additional contextual framings: describing and explain…
Hope and repair within the Western Skyline? Americana Music's rural heterotopia
Internal Migration: Geographical Perspectives and Processes
Global Amenity Migration: Transforming Rural Culture, Economy and Landscape
Reviewed: Global Amenity Migration: Transforming Rural Culture, Economy and Landscape Edited by Laurence A.G. Moss and Romella S. Glorioso. Kaslo, BC, Canada and Port Townsend, WA: New Ecology Press, 2014. 435 pp. US$ 76.00. ISBN 978-0-9936351-0-6
Internal Migration: Geographical Perspectives and Processes
Exploring Contemporary Migration
Exploring Contemporary Migration provides the first comprehensive introduction to the various aspects of population migration in both the developed and the developing worlds. Some of the most important quantitative and qualitative methods used for the description and analysis of migration are presented in a clearly structured and accessible way. The various theoretical approaches used to explain the complex patterns of migration are also summaris…
A critical response to the (non-) place of rural leisure users within the counterurban imagination
the rural world was generally considered the antithesis of urban changeability and speed. The inertia and stability of rural life... were imagined somewhere in the background to the social whirl and mobility of modern cities
Moving to the Countryside … and Staying: Lives beyond Representations
Migration towards rural areas – pro‐rural migration – is a lively, diverse, well illustrated research area. However, interest tends to stop with spatial relocation, with migrants' subsequent lives in rural places much less examined. Such imbalance reflects a more general bias in favour of studying distinctive actions, such as migration, at the expense of non‐actions, such as staying put. This article challenges this situation. It argues for regar…
Heterolocal Identities? Counter-Urbanisation, Second Homes, and Rural Consumption in the Era of Mobilities
This paper forms part of a critical engagement with the aspects of the core population geography concept of 'counterurbanisation'. It argues that contextualising counterurbanisation within the 'era of mobilities' has profound consequences for the concept. After introducing the era of mobilities and its implications for social science, migration's central and multiple places within this discourse are outlined. The paper then examines one set of id…
Reading Rural Consumption Practices for Difference: Bolt-holes, Castles and Life-rafts
Based mostly on evidence from the UK, this paper challenges the rural's usual association with predominantly conservative politics and practices. It advocates showing awareness of ambiguity in how representations, and specifically in this paper rural representations, and their numerous associated consumption practices are interpreted. A focus is given on the possibility of interpreting these practiced rural representations in the context of respo…
Glow worms show the path we have to tread: The counterurbanisation of Vashti Bunyan
Although 'counterurbanisation' is very widely acknowledged and studied, certain elements of this migration-led phenomenon lack detailed scrutiny. These gaps need filling in order to appreciate the full flowering of the phenomenon in specific social-cultural, geographical and historical contexts; to enable comparison between these diverse expressions; and to examine their relationships with contemporaneous rural socio-cultural restructuring. One n…
To revitalise counterurbanisation research? Recognising an international and fuller picture
This paper seeks to (re)invigorate those engaged with or thinking of engaging with counterurbanisation research in the light of a feeling that the topic has become somewhat academically stagnant, and consequently too easily recuperated by strong popular culture stereotypes, not least that of the sophisticated middle‐class urbanite moving themselves and their family to start a ‘new life’ in what is perceived to be an idyllic rural setting. The pap…
Back‐to‐the‐land in the Twenty‐first Century – Making Connections With Rurality
Rural Space: Constructing a Three-Fold Architecture
From dropping out to leading on? British counter-cultural back-to-the-land in a changing rurality
Counter-cultural back-to-the-land experimentation is a very long-standing social phenomenon across the global North but has been little studied by geographers. This paper provides a critical overview of its manifestation in Britain over the last 40 years. It emphasizes the importance of placing it in its entangled context of the dominant form(s) that rural space takes. While 1960s/1970s back-to-the-land raised critical questions about the country…
Trial by space for a 'radical rural: Introducing alternative localities, representations and lives
Introduction: Turning neglect into engagement within rural geographies of childhood and youth
A utopian imagination in migration's terra incognita? acknowledging the non-economic worlds of migration decision-making
This paper calls for us to show greater appreciation of the 'non-economic' issues that inform much migration behaviour, balancing rather than replacing work done within the economic tradition. Drawing primarily on material concerned with internal migration within the so-called developed world, attention is given to the enculturation of both migration theory and research as an entry point to work on this non-economic dimension. From this springboa…
Locality and social representation: Space, discourse and alternative definitions of the rural
The challenge facing migration research: The case for a biographical approach
This article argues for an alternative conceptualization of migration which emphasizes its situatedness within everyday life. Our argument is constructed largely with the use of studies of internal migration from the developed world, but it must be stressed that the general theoretical argument could be extended to the study of migration in the developing world. Furthermore, our criticisms of current conceptualizations apply primarily to research…
Trial by space for a 'radical rural: Introducing alternative localities, representations and lives
Talking about rurality: Social representations of the rural as expressed by residents of six English parishes
Heterolocal Identities? Counter-Urbanisation, Second Homes, and Rural Consumption in the Era of Mobilities
This paper forms part of a critical engagement with the aspects of the core population geography concept of 'counterurbanisation'. It argues that contextualising counterurbanisation within the 'era of mobilities' has profound consequences for the concept. After introducing the era of mobilities and its implications for social science, migration's central and multiple places within this discourse are outlined. The paper then examines one set of id…
Household migration and the structuration of patriarchy: Evidence from the USA
The article begins by summarizing the evidence on the gender dimension of migration for married (or cohabiting) couples using material from the USA.... The article goes on to argue that there is a need to view the 'wife's sacrifice' which typically results from such migration not solely from within the household but in the context of society as a whole. The gendered experience of migration is then linked to structures of patriarchy utilizing insi…
A utopian imagination in migration's terra incognita? acknowledging the non-economic worlds of migration decision-making
This paper calls for us to show greater appreciation of the 'non-economic' issues that inform much migration behaviour, balancing rather than replacing work done within the economic tradition. Drawing primarily on material concerned with internal migration within the so-called developed world, attention is given to the enculturation of both migration theory and research as an entry point to work on this non-economic dimension. From this springboa…
From dropping out to leading on? British counter-cultural back-to-the-land in a changing rurality
Counter-cultural back-to-the-land experimentation is a very long-standing social phenomenon across the global North but has been little studied by geographers. This paper provides a critical overview of its manifestation in Britain over the last 40 years. It emphasizes the importance of placing it in its entangled context of the dominant form(s) that rural space takes. While 1960s/1970s back-to-the-land raised critical questions about the country…
A cross-national comparison of the impact of family migration on women’s employment status
In this paper we consider the effects of family migration on women’s employment status, using census microdata from Great Britain and the United States. We test a simple hypothesis that families tend to move long distances in favor of the male’s career and that this can have a detrimental effect on women’s employment status. Unlike many previous studies of this question, our work emphasizes the importance of identifying couples that have migrated…
To revitalise counterurbanisation research? Recognising an international and fuller picture
This paper seeks to (re)invigorate those engaged with or thinking of engaging with counterurbanisation research in the light of a feeling that the topic has become somewhat academically stagnant, and consequently too easily recuperated by strong popular culture stereotypes, not least that of the sophisticated middle‐class urbanite moving themselves and their family to start a ‘new life’ in what is perceived to be an idyllic rural setting. The pap…
The importance of 'the rural' in the constitution of counterurbanization: Evidence from England in the 1980s
"This paper...argues that a reconciliation between...different explanations of counterurbanization can possibly be achieved, but will require the pursuit of a more nuanced analysis of the detailed unfolding of the migration process. Such an analysis involves examining the migration from the migrant's perspective. In particular, we need to recognize the variety of both spatial scales and experiential environments that may be involved in any one ac…
Out of Place in the Country: Travellers and the “Rural Idyll”
A controversial new Criminal Justice and Public Order Act in Great Britain contains measures to curb the lifestyles of a group known collectively as “New Age Travellers”. This paper examines these travellers as “folk devils” of the Conservative “New Right” on a number of levels: their lifestyle does not conform to that espoused by authoritarian or libertarian Conservatism; moreover, they violate the spatial order of contemporary British society b…
Constructing the object: Taxonomic practices, ‘counterurbanisation’ and positioning marginal rural settlement
Taxonomic practices, such as classification and categorisation, are an essential part of everyday life and of the work of academics. After introducing these practices and pointing out the selectivity that always goes with them, the paper explores the well‐known population geography phenomenon of counterurbanisation. It is claimed that taxonomic practices have worked hard in the construction of a ‘counterurbanisation story’, a relatively clear‐cut…
Gender inequality in employment status following family migration in GB and the US: The effect of relative occupational status
Presents the findings of a study of long distance migrations for employment opportunities in both the US and the UK. Compares the cross‐national differences between the two countries and tries to investigate the effects of the relative resources of the partner in their subsequent search for employment. Attempts to discover any gender differences based upon occupational status. Evaluates the similarity and differences between the countries
The Effect of Long-Distance Family Migration and Motherhood on Partnered Women's Labour-Market Activity Rates in Great Britain and the USA
Many studies of long-distance family migration demonstrate that female partners are often disenfranchised in the labour market. One factor that has not been fully considered is the role of children. Heterosexual couples may be more likely to migrate in favour of the male 'breadwinner's' career if the couple have children, or are planning to commence childrearing in the foreseeable future. However, little work seems to have examined this empirical…
Migration and Gender in the Developed World
1. Introduction: gender and migration in developed countries Keith Halfacree and Paul Boyle 2. A longitudinal and regional analysis of gender-specific social and spatial mobilities in England and Wales 1981-91 Tony Fielding and Susan Halford 3. Gender variations in migration destination choice David Atkins and Stewart Fotheringham 4. The employment consequences of migration: gender differentials Anne Green, Irene Hardill and Stephen Munn 5. Who g…
The Characteristics of British Migrants in the 1990s: Evidence from a New Survey
New data on migrants in Great Britain have been collected as part of a Gallup Poll. Data are available for 18 010 respondents on the length of time since they last moved, and for 3605 of these on whether the move was intra-urban, intra-county or intercounty. Respondents' personal characteristics are also available, including sex, age, marital status, household size, tenure, education, employment status, occupation and social class. These characte…
Back‐to‐the‐land in the Twenty‐first Century – Making Connections With Rurality
Anarchy doesn't work unless you think about it: 1 Intellectual interpretation and DlY culture
The relationship of theory to a key strand of current radical social and environmental movements—‐DlY culture—is highly problematic, with the latter tending to reject the former in favour of its own immediacy. This paper argues that, in contrast,‘theory and practice’ should be regarded as complementary. Action on the ground can learn from theories of DIY culture, and theories of DIY culture cannot ignore action on the ground. By way of illustrati…
Glow worms show the path we have to tread: The counterurbanisation of Vashti Bunyan
Although 'counterurbanisation' is very widely acknowledged and studied, certain elements of this migration-led phenomenon lack detailed scrutiny. These gaps need filling in order to appreciate the full flowering of the phenomenon in specific social-cultural, geographical and historical contexts; to enable comparison between these diverse expressions; and to examine their relationships with contemporaneous rural socio-cultural restructuring. One n…
Service Class Migration In England and Wales, 1980–1981: Identifying Gender-Specific Mobility Patterns
Gendered patterns of service class migration were observed between the metropolitan counties and regional remainders within England and Wales using 1981 Census data. Observed flows were analysed in terms of the north-south migration divide and counterurbanization, and were compared to estimates derived from gravity models. More service class men than expected moved from metropolitan to non-metropolitan areas and between non-metropolitan areas. Wo…
Reading Rural Consumption Practices for Difference: Bolt-holes, Castles and Life-rafts
Based mostly on evidence from the UK, this paper challenges the rural's usual association with predominantly conservative politics and practices. It advocates showing awareness of ambiguity in how representations, and specifically in this paper rural representations, and their numerous associated consumption practices are interpreted. A focus is given on the possibility of interpreting these practiced rural representations in the context of respo…
Inter-Constituency Migration and Turnout at the British General Election of 1983
One of the most striking features of British general election results is the large variation in turnout across constituencies. In 1983, for instance, the mean turnout was 72.6 per cent of the registered electorate but it ranged from 82.1 per cent in Carmarthen to 51.8 per cent in the City of London and Westminster. Moreover, these variations tend to be reproduced in successive elections – the bivariate correlation between constituency turnout in …
A little learning is a dangerous thing: A reply to Ron Skeldon
Introducing climate-related counterurbanisation: Individual adaptation or societal maladaptation
Climate disruption today and anticipated future climate breakdown are reshaping demographic and spatial processes, with profound consequences for societies across the globe. Specifically, migration can become a key strategy to attempt to respond to and cope with environmental change. This paper seeks to make sense of one type of migration, counterurbanisation, in this climate breakdown era. It provides conceptual clarity to what is termed ‘climat…
Inter-Constituency Migration and Party Support in Britain
Whither the Universal Franchise? The Political Cost of Residential Migration
Journal Article Whither the Universal Franchise? The Political Cost of Residential Migration Get access KEITH HALFACREE KEITH HALFACREE Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume 45, Issue 2, April 1992, Pages 164–172, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a052348 Published: 01 April 1992
Inter-Constituency Migration and Turnout at the British General Election of 1983
One of the most striking features of British general election results is the large variation in turnout across constituencies. In 1983, for instance, the mean turnout was 72.6 per cent of the registered electorate but it ranged from 82.1 per cent in Carmarthen to 51.8 per cent in the City of London and Westminster. Moreover, these variations tend to be reproduced in successive elections – the bivariate correlation between constituency turnout in …
The Characteristics of British Migrants in the 1990s: Evidence from a New Survey
New data on migrants in Great Britain have been collected as part of a Gallup Poll. Data are available for 18 010 respondents on the length of time since they last moved, and for 3605 of these on whether the move was intra-urban, intra-county or intercounty. Respondents' personal characteristics are also available, including sex, age, marital status, household size, tenure, education, employment status, occupation and social class. These characte…
The challenge facing migration research: The case for a biographical approach
This article argues for an alternative conceptualization of migration which emphasizes its situatedness within everyday life. Our argument is constructed largely with the use of studies of internal migration from the developed world, but it must be stressed that the general theoretical argument could be extended to the study of migration in the developing world. Furthermore, our criticisms of current conceptualizations apply primarily to research…
The relationship between inter-constituency migration and postal voting
Locality and social representation: Space, discourse and alternative definitions of the rural
The importance of 'the rural' in the constitution of counterurbanization: Evidence from England in the 1980s
"This paper...argues that a reconciliation between...different explanations of counterurbanization can possibly be achieved, but will require the pursuit of a more nuanced analysis of the detailed unfolding of the migration process. Such an analysis involves examining the migration from the migrant's perspective. In particular, we need to recognize the variety of both spatial scales and experiential environments that may be involved in any one ac…
Talking about rurality: Social representations of the rural as expressed by residents of six English parishes
Household migration and the structuration of patriarchy: Evidence from the USA
The article begins by summarizing the evidence on the gender dimension of migration for married (or cohabiting) couples using material from the USA.... The article goes on to argue that there is a need to view the 'wife's sacrifice' which typically results from such migration not solely from within the household but in the context of society as a whole. The gendered experience of migration is then linked to structures of patriarchy utilizing insi…
A little learning is a dangerous thing: A reply to Ron Skeldon
Service Class Migration In England and Wales, 1980–1981: Identifying Gender-Specific Mobility Patterns
Gendered patterns of service class migration were observed between the metropolitan counties and regional remainders within England and Wales using 1981 Census data. Observed flows were analysed in terms of the north-south migration divide and counterurbanization, and were compared to estimates derived from gravity models. More service class men than expected moved from metropolitan to non-metropolitan areas and between non-metropolitan areas. Wo…
Out of Place in the Country: Travellers and the “Rural Idyll”
A controversial new Criminal Justice and Public Order Act in Great Britain contains measures to curb the lifestyles of a group known collectively as “New Age Travellers”. This paper examines these travellers as “folk devils” of the Conservative “New Right” on a number of levels: their lifestyle does not conform to that espoused by authoritarian or libertarian Conservatism; moreover, they violate the spatial order of contemporary British society b…
Labour and Locality: Uneven Development and the Rural Labour Process
Integrating GB and US Census Microdata for studying the impact of family migration on partnered women's labour market status
Large microdata sample files from national censuses are increasingly being used in social science research, yet little work has been done to integrate such data-sets despite the literature that draws attention to this potential. We argue that, while such research is to be encouraged, there are problems in integrating different data-sets that must be given due attention. The example considered here is a cross-national analysis of the effects of fa…
Gender inequality in employment status following family migration in GB and the US: The effect of relative occupational status
Presents the findings of a study of long distance migrations for employment opportunities in both the US and the UK. Compares the cross‐national differences between the two countries and tries to investigate the effects of the relative resources of the partner in their subsequent search for employment. Attempts to discover any gender differences based upon occupational status. Evaluates the similarity and differences between the countries
Anarchy doesn't work unless you think about it: 1 Intellectual interpretation and DlY culture
The relationship of theory to a key strand of current radical social and environmental movements—‐DlY culture—is highly problematic, with the latter tending to reject the former in favour of its own immediacy. This paper argues that, in contrast,‘theory and practice’ should be regarded as complementary. Action on the ground can learn from theories of DIY culture, and theories of DIY culture cannot ignore action on the ground. By way of illustrati…
New Pioneers: The Back-to-the-Land Movement and the Search for a Sustainable Future
Going 'back-to-the-land' again: Extending the scope of counterurbanisation
Back-to-the-land' à nouveau : étendre la portée du concept de contrurbanisation. Après avoir décrit l'ubiquité géographique et les problèmes conceptuels relatifs au processus de contrurbanisation, cet article vise à accroître notre compréhension sur la portée de ce phénomène. Dans ce but, nous décrivons ici les caractéristiques de deux formes 'marginales' de reclassement rural ayant eu lieu en Grande-Bretagne : de nouvelles initiatives dans le cr…
Constructing the object: Taxonomic practices, ‘counterurbanisation’ and positioning marginal rural settlement
Taxonomic practices, such as classification and categorisation, are an essential part of everyday life and of the work of academics. After introducing these practices and pointing out the selectivity that always goes with them, the paper explores the well‐known population geography phenomenon of counterurbanisation. It is claimed that taxonomic practices have worked hard in the construction of a ‘counterurbanisation story’, a relatively clear‐cut…
A Cross-National Comparison of the Impact of Family Migration on Women's Employment Status
In this paper we consider the effects of family migration on women's employment status, using census microdata from Great Britain and the United States. We test a simple hypothesis that families tend to move long distances in favor of the male's career and that this can have a detrimental effect on women's employment status. Unlike many previous studies of this question, our work emphasizes the importance of identifying couples that have migrated…
A cross-national comparison of the impact of family migration on women’s employment status
In this paper we consider the effects of family migration on women’s employment status, using census microdata from Great Britain and the United States. We test a simple hypothesis that families tend to move long distances in favor of the male’s career and that this can have a detrimental effect on women’s employment status. Unlike many previous studies of this question, our work emphasizes the importance of identifying couples that have migrated…
Migration and Gender in the Developed World
1. Introduction: gender and migration in developed countries Keith Halfacree and Paul Boyle 2. A longitudinal and regional analysis of gender-specific social and spatial mobilities in England and Wales 1981-91 Tony Fielding and Susan Halford 3. Gender variations in migration destination choice David Atkins and Stewart Fotheringham 4. The employment consequences of migration: gender differentials Anne Green, Irene Hardill and Stephen Munn 5. Who g…
The Effect of Long-Distance Family Migration and Motherhood on Partnered Women's Labour-Market Activity Rates in Great Britain and the USA
Many studies of long-distance family migration demonstrate that female partners are often disenfranchised in the labour market. One factor that has not been fully considered is the role of children. Heterosexual couples may be more likely to migrate in favour of the male 'breadwinner's' career if the couple have children, or are planning to commence childrearing in the foreseeable future. However, little work seems to have examined this empirical…
Introduction: Turning neglect into engagement within rural geographies of childhood and youth
Sociology (35 works) · Political science (25 works) · Rural development and sustainability (25 works) · Geography (20 works) · Law (18 works) · Economics (15 works) · Law (15 works) · Migration and Labor Dynamics (15 works) · Migration, Aging, and Tourism Studies (14 works) · Gender Studies (12 works)