From the ground up: faultlines of war and peace in rural England

Speaker
Vron Ware, LSE
Event date
Event time
15:30 - 17:00
Venue
Kellogg College
Banbury Road
Oxford
OX2 6PN
Venue details

The Hub

Event type
Lectures and seminars
Event cost
Free
Disabled access?
Yes
Booking required
Not required

This seminar will consider contemporary writing on and from small places in England, asking what can be learned about the politics of racism, xenophobia and multi-culture from these neglected and sometimes remote vantage points.

The terms ‘colonial countryside’ and ‘rural racism’ are undoubtedly relevant to broader discussions of English national identity. Still, they can also risk deepening the divide between urban and rural (as well as past and present) in ways that often obscure the continuities.

The presentation will draw primarily on two studies of particular places in central southern England that I have carried out recently: Return of a Native: Learning from the Land (Repeater 2022) and England’s Military Heartland: Preparing for War on Salisbury Plain (co-written with Antonia Dawes, Mitra Pariyar & Alice Cree, MUP Jan 2025).

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