Hunting ruralities: nature, society and culture in ‘hunt countries’ of England and Wales

Journal of Rural Studies 19 (2003) 157–171

Hunting ruralities: nature, society and culture in ‘hunt countries’ of England and Wales Paul Milbourne* Department of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3WA, UK

Abstract The practice of hunting with dogs in the British countryside has received a great deal of political attention over recent years. The election of the New Labour Government in 1997, with a manifesto commitment to allow a free parliamentary vote on hunting, has provided the campaign to abolish hunting with a great deal of momentum. However, a merger of the pro-hunt groups into the Countryside Alliance has created a powerful counter campaign, evidenced by the highly publicised countryside marches of the late 1990s. A key tactic of the Alliance’s campaign has involved a key shift in the defence of hunting from the natural to the social realm, with the focus increasingly placed on the claimed socio-cultural contribution of hunting to rural communities. This paper assesses the merits of this claim by providing a critical in-depth exploration of the socio-cultural role of hunting with dogs in areas of the English and Welsh countryside. It does this in two main ways. Firstly, recent discussions of hunting are positioned within a broader social science context of nature–society relations, and consideration is given to the complex connections between hunting, nature and rurality. Secondly, connections between hunting, nature and rural society are examined in greater depth by drawing on key findings from a recent study of the social and cultural role of hunting in four areas of English and Welsh countryside. r 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction When the process of abolishing hunting will begin is impossible to say. Such action undoubtedly depends on a strong Labour or left of centre Alliance government whose period of office is not dominated by violent economic or political crises. (Thomas, 1983, p. 286) The origins of this paper lie in recent political attempts to ban the practice of hunting with dogs in the English and Welsh countryside. The election of the New Labour Government in 1997 brought with it a manifesto commitment to provide parliamentary time for a free vote on hunting. Its first term of office witnessed majority support in the House of Commons for a Private Members Bill by the Labour MP, Mike Foster to ban hunting with dogs, although the Bill was ultimately defeated in the House of Lords. The Government also instigated a major inquiry into hunting (Home Office, 2000), which considered the pest control, economic, environmental and socio-cultural *Tel.: +44-29-20-875791; fax: +44-29-20-874845. E-mail address: [email protected] (P. Milbourne).

features of hunting as a precursor to a free vote in the House of Commons on the practice. Such political challenges to the legitimacy of what is referred to by its supporters as a ‘country sport’ have not been without contestation. With the merger of pro-hunting groups in the late 1990s under the umbrella organisation the Countryside Alliance, the issue of hunting with dogs has remained in the political and media limelight. Rarely, though, have these recent discussions on hunting been subjected to any critical academic scrutiny. This paper provides such scrutiny by positioning the issue of hunting with dogs in rural areas within a broader and more critical context of social science writing on nature– society relations. The paper is divided into three main sections. The first of these draws on recent discussions within the environmental geography and sociology literatures which are concerned with the complex connections between nature, society and rurality. It is within this broad theoretical context that the paper positions the practice of hunting with dogs in rural Britain. The second section of the paper explores the inter-relations between hunting, nature, rural society and culture both by considering shifting national political discourses on

0743-0167/03/$ - see front matter r 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 7 4 3 - 0 1 6 7 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 5 4 - 2

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hunting and by drawing on findings from a limited number of localised social studies of hunting in different rural spaces. However, it is argued that previous research on the social and cultural position of hunting in rural areas has failed to explore hunting from the perspectives of the broader rural community, nor has it considered the geographies of hunting in rural Britain. The third section of the paper is concerned with filling this important gap in our knowledge of hunting in rural areas. It draws on findings from the first-ever community-based study of the social and cultural role of hunting with dogs in rural Britain. Focusing on different types and scales of hunting in four areas of the English and Welsh countryside, and involving surveys of over 600 households and in-depth interviews with 55 residents in these areas, the research examined the ways in which hunting with dogs is constructed by different rural communities, the place of hunting within local rural social and cultural life, and sets of cultural tensions and conflicts bound up with hunting in these four rural areas.

2. Nature, society and rurality The concept of nature has received a great deal of scrutiny from social scientists over recent years. Realist views of nature as existing apart from the social, cultural and political realms have been challenged by a growing number of writers who have attempted to dissolve the distinction between the natural and social worlds. Nature, it is argued, needs to be conceptualised as social nature (Fitzsimmons, 1989) which is bound up with broader sets of social, economic, cultural and political relations. As Castree and Braun (1998, p. 5) argue, when taken from this perspective, social nature ‘becomes, quite simply, a focal point for a nexus of political-economic, social identities, cultural orderings, and political aspirations of all kinds’ (see also Harvey, 1996; Soper, 1995). Particular attention has been given to the ways in which social nature is reproduced through the social relations of production (see Castree and Braun, 1998; Harvey, 1996; Smith, 1984), the processes through which meanings attached to nature are developed within broader systems of cultural representation (Whatmore and Boucher, 1993), and the social practices through which people respond ‘to what have been constructed as the signs and characteristics of nature’ (Macnaghten and Urry, 1998, p. 2). Within environmental sociology, Latour (1992) has introduced notions of hybridity to describe the ways in which the natural and the social connect within complex networks (Latour, 1992), and Irwin (2001, p. 173) has discussed the idea of a ‘co-construction’ of society and nature which, he claims, is able to capture ‘the dual process of the social and the natural being variously

constructed within environmentally related practices and particular contexts’ (see also Demerit, 1996). In Irwin’s view, a key goal for sociological approaches to the environment is to unravel the complex connections between nature and social and cultural life: It is quite clearythat the environment does not simply impact upon social life, but instead that environmental constructions can serve as projections of wider socially generated concerns and problemsy Environmental problems do not sit apart from everyday life but instead are accommodated within (and help shape) the social construction of local reality. (2001, p. 176) Similarly, Macnaghten and Urry (1998, p. 1) point to the importance of ‘embedded social practices’ in understandings of nature, and the ways in which nature is ‘constituted through a variety of socio-cultural processes’. In the context of Britain, nature has become closely connected with discourses of countryside and rurality (Macnaghten and Urry, 1998; Soper, 1995; Williams, 1973). In the words of Cloke et al. (1996), ‘the countryside has come to represent the spatialization of nature’. Various writers have pointed to a range of historical processes that have led to such a dominant understanding of nature as countryside. Beginning with the emergence of industrial society in Britain in the nineteenth century, it has been argued that nature has become constructed as the antithesis of the urban and the industrial, and firmly located within the spaces of the countryside. Further, Macnaghten and Urry (1998) point to the ways in which these constructions of rural nature have been picked up by the preservation movement, particularly in the early decades of the twentieth century: The preservation movement highlighted ‘nature’ as the ‘unspoilt’ other, as embodied in the relics, customs and mystery of the English countryside. Such a nature was no longer viewed as robust but as vulnerable, threatened by urban growth and industrial expansion, and in needing of the state for protection in the collective interest. (p. 38) Such protection arrived in the immediate post-war period in the guise of legislation focused on rural spaces (for example, the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act and the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, and Green Belt policies). Within these important interventions by the state, a key aim was, and remains, to protect the natural order of rural spaces from urban growth and ‘disorderly’ residential development (see also Sibley, 1995). As Woods (1998, p. 1221) comments, these constructed spaces of the countryside need to be viewed as a ‘transitional spaces’ between the city and wilderness that have become bound up with

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particular forms of rurality and nature; ‘the landscape, animals, and indigenous population are all expected to perform particular roles according to the pastoral myth of rural idyll.’ That such discourses of rurality as nature are important to people living in the countryside is evident from several recent studies of social and cultural rural life. Jones (1995), for example, has highlighted how flora and fauna represent key components of lay discourses of rurality, while Enticott (1999) has shown how everyday understandings of rural life in Devon and Cheshire connect with particular constructions of nature. However, it has probably been through the work of Bell (1994) that the connections between nature and rurality have emerged most strongly. Drawing on findings from an ethnographic study of a Hampshire village, ‘Childerley’, Bell highlights the centrality of nature to local rural life: When Childerley residents talk about why they value the country, closeness to nature is one of their principal themesy [They] find a deep moral security in the affiliation of country life with nature. (p. 119) If nature has become embedded within dominant policy and lay discourses of rurality, then it is also the case that it has played a prominent role in a range of recent countryside conflicts. Relocations of ex-urban groups into rural spaces over recent decades have, to different degrees, been motivated by a search for more natural styles of living. However, the particular discourses of nature being imported by such groups have often conflicted with those held by others within rural spaces. Three examples of these sorts of nature-based conflicts can be identified. A study of lifestyles in rural England in the early 1990s by Cloke et al. (1994) reported that the most frequently cited conflicts between new and established rural residents were those focused on agriculture, blood sports and animal welfare. Secondly, research by Lowe et al. (1997) has pointed to the ways in which new middle-class groups have challenged the moral authority of farmers in relation to environmental pollution. A third, and more recent, example is provided by Milbourne et al. (2001) in a study of the shifting social relations between farmers and incomers in rural areas which has highlighted how competing constructions of nature and the rural environment represent key components of social conflict in the contemporary countryside. Attention has also been given to the political representation of animals in the British countryside. Woods (1998), for example, uses the case-studies of deer hunting and the BSE crisis to illustrate how discourses of nature, countryside and animals are woven together within particular political conflicts. More generally, Ridley (1998) has argued that animals have emerged as a key form of conflict between town and country:

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Townspeople are angered by beef farmers whose apparent greed and negligence have allowed lethal diseases to enter into the human food chain. Conservationists are alarmed by the effects of pesticides on endangered species. And many urban people feel that field sports—and especially hunting with hounds—should be outlawed on grounds of cruelty. (p. 142) It is to the last of these animal conflicts that the paper now turns.

3. Nature, rurality and hunting Some rural images are well settled in the global imaginationy Throughout the Anglo-American world one encounters prints of English hunting scenes on the walls of libraries, private homes and corporate conference rooms. A red jacketed huntsman on horseback leaping a hedge, the hounds and field of riders thundering away in ‘full cry’; a fox poised in the foreground deciding on an escape route, the hunters and horses in the distance. (Bell, 1994, p. 185) Within the natural discourse of rurality, hunting with dogs has been elevated to a position of prominence and few would doubt the ubiquity of hunting images of the type discussed by Bell above. However, this pursuit of one animal (in this case, the fox) by others (hounds) needs to be constructed in terms that conflate the natural and the social, for as Lowe et al. (1995) have stressed, the practice of hunting carries with it a great deal of social and cultural baggage; representing a key emblematic component of the dominant anti-urban culture in Britain. Hunting in Britain also carries with it strong associations with class. As Howe (1981, 278), an American anthropologist, has commented, ‘English fox-hunting can be seen as ritual of social classydramatizing themes and images about the gentry and aristocracy, and about rural society as a whole’. Historical accounts of hunting, and particularly fox hunting, have highlighted its transition from a form of pest control to a ‘noble and gentlemanly sport’ bound up with ‘rituals, a culture and a language of its own’ (George, 1999, p. 9; see also Itzkowitz, 1977). Furthermore, Newby (1986) has demonstrated how hunting came to be embedded within hierarchical social structures of the nineteenth century English countryside: ythe gentry’s particular delight was foxhunting and this also developed into more than a mere sport to become almost a celebration of the gentry’s ideal of the rural community, binding together all classes in the thrill of the chase. (p. 65)

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And while the social control of hunting has changed dramatically since this period—with the inclusion of urban-based industrialists, farmers and, more recently, ex-urban service class fractions (see Cannadine, 1990)— as late as the early 1980s, Howe (1981, p. 296) felt able to claim that hunts remained controlled by elites and characterised by particular assumptions concerning class. Participation in hunting, he suggests, is ‘taken as a conventional sign of acquiescence to the class structure represented and dramatized in the hunt’. Nevertheless, English fox hunting needs to be properly constructed as an inclusive set of rituals which are able to cut across conventional class divisions. As Marvin (2000) has commented: Although foxes might be perceived as a problem by some in the English countryside, the method of dealing with them by the formal fox hunt must be understood in terms of how this creature is located within a long-established ritual practice which makes cultural sense to those involved and how the event is embedded within extensive structures of social and cultural identity in rural communities. (p. 20) Several other studies of hunting with dogs in the English countryside have confirmed its socio-cultural embeddedness in local rural spaces. In a study of deer hunting participants in Devon and Somerset, Cox and Winter (1997) have highlighted the important role played by hunting as a social experience and in shaping local identity: They [hunt participants] have strong traditions on which they can draw and such narratives of identity make the presupposition of continuity, of the present as a living embodiment of the past, an unquestioned absolute. (pp. 81–82) The nature of this study meant that it was confined to hunt participants and so was unable to capture the broader social and cultural dynamics associated with hunting in this particular rural space. Such community perspectives on hunting in rural areas emerge from research undertaken by Norton (1999) in Devon and Bell (1994) in Hampshire. Each has painted a rather more complex picture of the social and cultural place of hunting in rural areas. Drawing on an ethnographic account of hunting on Exmoor, Norton discusses the polarising effect of hunting on his study community. He claims that most residents hold ‘non-attitudes’ towards hunting and remain distant from the practice, while for a minority hunting provides the central thread of their social lives. In his study of Childerley, Bell identifies three main groupings based on attitudes towards local fox hunting—conservative moneyed residents who support the hunt, and moneyed villagers with left wing sympathies and working-class residents who generally

oppose it. For Bell, the fox hunt needs to be understood as a ‘cultural lens’ for village people: something that brings a morally fuzzy world into focus. Among the blurry ambiguities that the fox hunt helps villagers envision are the problems of power and dominance, of class, of social interesty Thus the visions the lens brings into focus closely resemble villagers’ own political beliefs and social circumstances. Looking out, they see in. (p. 209) The socially embedded nature of hunting which emerges from these localised academic studies is also apparent within national political discourse on hunting with dogs. Over recent years, a series of high profile attempts have been made by anti-hunt pressure groups and politicians to ban the practice. And while hunting has faced historical political challenges to its survival (see Daniels and Watkins, 1993; Cannadine, 1990; Thomas, 1983), the scale of these recent threats to the future of hunting has been much more serious for hunt participants. Over the late 1980s and early 1990s, groups such as the League Against Cruel Sports campaigned against hunting with dogs on animal welfare grounds. There were also two political attempts in the UK Parliament to ban hunting with dogs over the 1990s; the first introduced in 1992 by Kevin McNamara, and the second by John McFall three years later. A handful of local authorities outlawed hunting on publicly owned land (although these bans were lifted after judicial review) and the National Trust announced a ban of stag hunting on its land on grounds of animal welfare (see Woods, 1998). These challenges to hunting were accompanied by shifts in public opinion on hunting. In a 1992 national survey, 45% of respondents considered that fox hunting should be banned (Clark et al., 1994) but this figure rose to 70% in another national survey conducted in 1995 (Cox and Winter, 1997). However, the political domain of hunting changed dramatically during the period immediately before the 1997 UK General Election which brought to power the New Labour Government. A d1 million donation to the Labour Party by the International Fund for Animal Welfare and the reorganisation of the pro-hunting lobby into a single campaigning organisation—the Countryside Movement, later renamed the Countryside Alliance—ensured that hunting with dogs would remain a political issue during the course of Labour’s first term of office. While the details of this increased politicisation of hunting are beyond the scope of this paper (although see Norton, 1999; George, 1999), one aspect of the Countryside Alliance’s campaign is worth particular mention. Throughout much of the 1990s, the debate surrounding hunting with dogs was one that was focused mainly on animal welfare and pest control grounds. Hunting was defended as both a natural and an efficient means of

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controlling foxes in the countryside. By the late 1990s, the pro-hunting tactics had changed. As the ex-press officer for the Countryside Alliance, Janet George, stated, a new strategy was adopted which involved ‘wrap[ping] hunting up in the wider rural fabric. Because everyone loves the countryside and hates hunting’ (Beckett, 1998, p. 4). The threat to hunting was therefore constructed as part of a broader (central government) neglect of rural issues, evidenced by the decline of the farming industry, and the closure of rural services, such as post offices and schools. The pro-hunting lobby began to highlight the benefits of hunting to the rural economy and to farming in particular; it also stressed the social and cultural role of hunting in binding rural communities together. This expanded rural agenda formed the focus of the much discussed Countryside March and Rally in London in 1997 and 1998 (see Woods, 1997). The hunting issue thus became transformed into ‘a socio-cultural issue in which both sides have utilised images of the countryside, and represented certain processes of change in rural Britain in support of their position’ (MacFarlane, 1998, p. 188). It is with these socio-cultural aspects of hunting that the remainder of the paper is concerned.

4. Hunting with dogs: nature, society and culture in local rural space The paper thus far has attempted to position discussion of hunting within a broader set of nature– society–rurality connections. However, it has been able to draw on relatively few relevant local social studies of hunting in the British countryside. Moreover, the small number of local studies undertaken have provided a rather limited account of hunting in rural areas. Firstly, they have tended to explore the social role of hunting from the perspectives of those individuals and groups involved in the practice (for example, Cox and Winter, 1997; Marvin, 2000; Howe, 1981). In fact, only one published study—that by Bell (1994)—has attempted to position hunting within the local rural community context and here hunting formed only one of several case-studies of rural nature–society relations. Secondly, recent research on hunting has been concerned with single case-study hunts and so has provided little in the way of comparative material on hunting in rural areas. Thirdly, recent studies have focused on forms of hunting that are either obvious or dominant within the social imagination; those hunts that are long established, involve elite groups, and are bound up with highly developed codes of dress and ritual. It can be suggested, therefore, that there remain important gaps within our knowledge of the social and cultural position of hunting with dogs in rural Britain. The research on which this part of the paper is based

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sought to fill this gap by exploring the socio-cultural role of different forms of hunting in different rural areas.1 Importantly, the study approached the issue of hunting from the perspectives of the broader rural community. More particularly, there were three main objectives associated with this research: firstly, to consider what involvement or contact individuals in different hunt localities have with hunting and its associated social activities; secondly, to explore what impact hunting and these activities have on their lives; and thirdly, to examine attitudes towards hunting and related activities. The research was focused on four hunting areas (referred to as ‘hunt countries’ in the hunting parlance) which were selected to reflect different types, scales and geographies of hunting with dogs in the English and Welsh countryside. The four hunting areas were located in Cumbria (Black Coombe and District hunt), Devon and Somerset (Exmoor), Leicestershire (Quorn), and Powys (Irfon and Towy) (see Fig. 1). Table 1 provides an overview of some key characteristics of these four hunts and their associated ‘countries’. Within each of these hunt countries, several parishes/communities were selected to generate an overall population of 600 households. Further, one of the selected parishes/ communities in each area contained the hunt kennels, thus allowing for internal differences within the study areas to be explored (although such internal variations are not discussed in this paper). Four phases of research were undertaken in Spring 2000 within these study areas. Firstly, background information was collected on the nature of local hunting based on material provided by the four hunts. The second phase of research sought to develop a contextual picture of local rural life from interviews with the chairpersons of local parish/community councils covering the study areas. Thirdly, structured interviews were conducted with 617 households across the four study areas (approximately 150 in each) which translates to 24% of all resident households.2 The interviews sought a range of contextual material on the place of hunting within local life including, people’s knowledge of and attitudes towards local hunting; participation in hunting and hunt-related activities; and the contribution of hunting to local life. Finally, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 48 participants from the first phase of research to investigate social and cultural issues associated with hunting with dogs in greater depth than was possible through the structured phase of interviewing. 1 The research was funded by the Home Office inquiry into hunting with dogs in England and Wales which was chaired by Lord Burns and forms part of the final report submitted to the Home Secretary (Home Office, 2000). 2 This represents an overall response rate of 77% of all target households.

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Fig. 1. Location of the four study areas.

The qualitative components of the research process have followed procedures of qualitative rigour set out by Baxter and Eyles (1997). Potential interviewees were drawn from those residents who had responded to the household survey (617) and who had agreed to take part in the second phase of the research (231). The actual interviewees were selected to ensure a mix of residents according to their gender, age, length of residence, participation in hunting and related activities, and attitudes towards hunting.3 Interviews were conducted by four researchers—one dedicated to each area—at the homes of residents and each interview was taped and transcribed. The interview material was analysed using conventional qualitative techniques of sorting 3 In each area, in-depth interviews were undertaken with the following: 6 men, 6 women; 4 persons aged under 35 years, 4 between 35 and 54, 4 aged 55 or over; 6 persons resident in the local area for less than 10 years, 6 for 10 years or more; 6 hunt participants, 6 nonparticipants; 4 hunt supporters, 4 opponents, 4 people who expressed no particular feelings about hunting.

and coding, through which process emerged key themes relating to the social and cultural position of hunting in the study areas. The empirical sections of the paper present material from 16 of the 48 interviews conducted which, it is felt, is able to highlight general themes and the socio-spatial specificities of hunting with dogs in these parts of the English and Welsh countryside. Before proceeding to discuss the socio-cultural role of hunting in the four areas, it is useful to provide some contextual material on the socio-economic profiles of these areas and the nature of local hunting. The Cumbria study area is located in the west of the county, and lies 13 miles south of Whitehaven and 34 miles north of Barrow in Furness. The study area can be categorised as extremely rural in nature and hill farming dominates the local landscape. Lying partly within the Lake District National Park, the area has witnessed a high level of population in-movement over recent years

P. Milbourne / Journal of Rural Studies 19 (2003) 157–171 Table 1 Selected characteristics of the four study hunts

Type of animal hunted Size of hunt Nature of hunting Type off hunt country Location

Cumbria

Devon and Somerset

Leicester shire

Powys

Hare

Fox

Fox

Fox

Small Foot Upland

Medium Horse Mixed

Large Horse Lowland

Small Horse Upland

Remote

Mixed

Accessible Remote

(36% of households in the survey had relocated to the area over the previous 10 year period). In-movement has been dominated by middle-class groups relocating from urban areas, although the middle classes comprise only 30% of the local population. While the service sector dominates the local economy (accounting for 46% of all workers), energy and water (15%) and farming (25%) remain important sources of employment. Only 2% of respondents were members of the Countryside Alliance, compared with 12% who were members of the National Trust and 11% of respondents who were RSPB members (Table 2). The study hunt—Black Combe and District—is a small beagle hunt which focuses on hares and takes place on foot. It was established in 1958 and hunts over an area of 350 miles2. The hunt has an average mid-week ‘field’ (those participating in hunting) of 15 people and owns 33 dogs. The Devon and Somerset study area is located in the Exmoor National Park in north-east Devon and northwest Somerset, and lies approximately 65 miles east of Bristol and 40 miles north of Exeter. The area has witnessed a high level of recent population in-movement—with 35% of households having moved to the study area over the last 10 years. In-moving groups have tended to be middle class, although managerial and professional workers make up only 7% of residents in employment. Relative to the national mean for England, farming remains extremely important in the Devon and Somerset area, comprising 45% of working residents. Linked to this high proportion of farmers, the Countryside Alliance has a strong presence in the area, with 33% of households claiming membership (compared with 17% of National Trust members and 7% who were members of the RSPB) (Table 2). The study hunt is Exmoor which is a fox hunt. Established in 1889, it hunts over an area of 240 miles2 with a pack of 90 dogs and has an average ‘field’ of 70 people. The Leicestershire area is situated to the south of Melton Mowbray and close to the urban centres of Leicester (15 miles away), Nottingham (21 miles) and

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Loughborough (24 miles). Its proximity to these population centres has led to considerable in-movement of ex-urban groups over the last few decades. In fact, the area recorded the highest level of recent population inmovement across the four areas (42% having moved in over the last 10 years) and the largest proportion of middle-class groups (43% of working households were engaged in professional or managerial employment). The service sector accounts for 63% of all workers and agriculture plays a much less prominent role than in the other areas (at 11%). Membership of the Countryside Alliance accounts for 5% of households, considerably below the 23% who are members of the National Trust (Table 2). Hunting in the area has a long and prestigious history. The Quorn hunt was established in 1698 and is one of the best known and largest fox hunts in Britain. It hunts over an area of 560 miles2, has an average ‘field’ of 400 people and owns 129 dogs. The Powys study area is situated in the western parts of the county. While the area is close to several market towns (Builth Wells, Llandovery, Brecon and Llandrindod Wells), it remains relatively distant from major settlements, with the nearest ones—Cardiff and Shrewsbury—located at least 70 miles away. It has witnessed a great deal of population in-movement over recent years (29% relocated to the area between 1991 and 2000), although the study area contains relatively few middleclass households (24%). Employment is dominated by the service sector (48%), but 31% of all working residents are engaged in farming. The Countryside Alliance is not well-represented in the area (accounting for only 2% of households) (Table 2). The local fox hunt is the Irfon and Towy which was established in 1909. The hunt is focused on an area of 150 miles2, has an average ‘field’ of 55 people and owns 50 dogs. 4.1. Local knowledge of hunting with dogs Knowledge of hunting in these four study areas is widespread. An average of 89% of all residents interviewed considered that hunting took place in and around their community. The level of awareness was lowest in Cumbria, reflecting the small-scale nature of foot hunting in this area, but even here almost threequarters of respondents reported the presence of hunting (Table 3). Knowledge of hunting also transcends established social divisions in the study areas. While levels of awareness of local hunting were highest amongst farmers and long-established residents, 81% of those people moving into the area over the previous 10 year period and 87% of those in ‘non-rural’ occupations (those excluding farming and forestry) pointed to the presence of a hunt in their area. Hunting appears to represent a highly visual aspect of local rural life. Across the four areas, 84% of those people reporting the presence of hunting had witnessed

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Table 2 Respondents’ membership of countryside, environmental and animal welfare organisations Percentages

National trust Royal society for the protection of birds Royal society for the prevention of cruelty to animals Council for the protection of rural England/Wales Countryside alliance Friends of the earth Greenpeace League against cruel sports National farmers’ union/farmers’ union of Wales Country landowners’ association Women’s institute Other Do not know Not stated/none

All areas

Cumbria

Devon and Somerset

Leicester shire

Powys

14 8 3 1 10 1 1 1 15 6 5 11 13 36

12 11 4 1 2 1 1 1 12 4 6 9 2 54

17 7 3 3 33 3 2 2 23 12 1 21 8 16

23 8 3 1 5 0 2 0 8 5 4 13 2 46

4 6 2 0 2 0 1 1 18 4 9 2 39 28

a hunt engaged in the practice of hunting on at least one occasion over the 12 months previous to the survey, and 35% had seen a hunt on at least 10 occasions. While sightings of a hunt were least frequent in the Cumbria area (mentioned by 60%), in the Devon and Somerset area 68% of respondents claimed to have witnessed a hunt on at least 10 occasions over the last year (Table 4). When questioned further about the nature of local hunting, though, respondents’ knowledge levels began to fall, indicating a generally passive engagement with hunting amongst the majority of local residents. For example, of those people who recognised the presence of hunting in their area, 64% were able to provide the correct name of the study hunt, but only 40% knew the name of the hunt master(s). Again, there are important variations across the four areas in relation to this detailed knowledge of hunting, with 57% of Devon and Somerset respondents able to name at least one of the Exmoor masters, more than double the corresponding awareness level in the Leicestershire area (24%) (Table 5). This idea of a widespread but passive knowledge of local hunting is confirmed by findings from the in-depth interviews. What emerges from these interviews is that for most people, knowledge of hunting has developed from indirect engagements. For some, hunting knowledge was derived from, and limited to, partial sightings of local hunts within the immediate rural landscape. As a couple of interviewees commented:

Table 3 Respondents’ knowledge of hunting with dogs in and around the study parish/community Percentages All areas Cumbria Devon Leicester Powys and shire Somerset Yes, hunting with dogs take place locally No, hunting with dogs does not take place locally Do not know Not stated

89

73

98

93

93

4

10

0

1

4

7 0

17 1

2 0

6 0

3 0

be but about ten miles away I’ve seen them. And that’s it really, I don’t know anything else about it. (Leicestershire, 0977)

I know they have a local hunt, I have seen them. I know they hunt with dogs because I have seen the dogs in trailers when they have been taking them out and about. Apart from that I don’t know an awful lot about it. (Powys 0752)

Others had a more developed knowledge of hunting. However, such knowledge was derived not from any personal participation in the practice, but from residence within local areas that have long histories of hunting. Consequently, hunting had become an embedded part of the local rural social fabric. Interviewees reported a range of indirect forms of contact with local hunting, developed through living close to the hunt kennels, having conversations about hunting with friends and other members of their community, being exposed to coverage of hunting within the local media, and seeing advertisements for hunt events in local shop windows:

I’ve just seen it, I’ve seen the dogs, I have seen themy I don’t know how big this parish is meant to

Well I’m right in the middle of blooming hunting aren’t we (sic)y I was born at Ashworth, which is

P. Milbourne / Journal of Rural Studies 19 (2003) 157–171 Table 4 Reported sightings of a hunt hunting in and around the study parish/ community by respondents Percentages All areas Cumbria Devon Leicester Powys and shire Somerset Never Less than 10 times 10 Times or more Cannot remember Not stated

13 49

36 48

1 29

10 59

11 62

35

12

68

28

25

2

3

1

3

1

0

2

0

0

0

Table 5 Respondents’ recognition of the names of hunts running through or close to the parish community Percentages All areas Cumbria Devon Leicester Powys and shire Somerset Name of study hunt Name of other local hunts Name of the master(s) of the study hunt

64

39

78

76

57

40

70

74

12

9

40

32

57

24

45

next door to the kennels. Every time I went to school there I went by the kennelsy [Q So you know quite a bit about hunting then?] Well yes [but] I’m not a hunting man, no, not a hunting man. (Leicestershire 1133) The Quorn Hunt’s here from late October, probably the last weekend in October, to Marchy [Q How do you know about them?] A lot of my customers are members of the Quorn Hunt and, as you know, I’m quite involved with horses anyway, so I get to know. So just word of mouth I suppose and plus it’s in the paper as well, where they’re meeting. (Leicestershire 0972) For a minority of residents in these four areas, knowledge of hunting was derived from direct involvement in the practice of hunting and its related activities. For some, hunting knowledge came from following the hunt, others held positions of responsibility within a local hunt, while others still had attended social events organised by a hunt. Amongst this group, knowledge of the nature and frequency of hunting in the study areas was particularly detailed, as the following commentary indicates:

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I’d say as a general rule I know all the hunt activities that take place because I put all the posters up in the window so that everybody knowsy So yes, I would always know what was going on. (Cumbria 0102) Attitudes towards hunting with dogs in the study areas are very different from those reported in recent national opinion polls. A well-publicised MORI poll of rural residents undertaken in 1997, for example, indicated that only 21% of those living in the countryside were in favour of hunting with dogs (MORI, 1997). In these four areas, 52% of respondents in the survey stated that they were in support of hunting, while only 25% were opposed to the practice (Table 6). However, these average figures mask a great deal of spatial and social differentiation. Support for hunting was at its highest level in the strong farming area of Devon and Somerset, where 66% of respondents were in favour, and weakest in the more middle-class commuter space of Leicestershire (here only 39% expressed support). Attitudes towards hunting area also differentiated in social terms, with support for hunting strongest amongst hunt participants, farmers and long-term residents. However, even amongst incomers and those persons engaged in non-rural occupations in these areas, a higher proportion supported hunting than opposed it. Three main reasons for supporting hunting can be identified from the survey findings. This first concerns the pest control function performed by hunting with dogs, which was mentioned by 38% of supporters. A second reason relates to the local economic benefits— direct and indirect—associated with hunting (15%). However, the most frequently cited justification for people’s support of hunting involves its social and cultural role within the local area, with just under half of supporters (48%) pointing to the importance of hunting to local rural life. As a supporter in the Devon and Somerset study area commented, ‘it’s part of the social fabric of the area’. It is this social embeddedness of hunting that I want to explore in greater depth in the next section of the paper. 4.2. The place of hunting in local rural life It could be inferred from the levels of knowledge of and support for hunting with dogs reported thus far that most residents in these study areas are actively involved in hunting. However, this is not the case. In fact, only 16% of survey respondents had taken part in hunting in the study area over the period of 12 months prior to the survey,4 and in Cumbria and Leicestershire, levels of participation fell to only 5% and 8% of respondents, respectively (Table 7). Indeed, it is only in the Devon 4 A further 5% of respondents had hunted with another local hunt over this period.

P. Milbourne / Journal of Rural Studies 19 (2003) 157–171

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Table 6 Respondents’ attitudes towards hunting with dogs

Table 7 Respondents’ participation in hunting with the study hunt over the 12 months period prior to the survey

Percentages

Percentages

All areas Cumbria Devon Leicester Powys and shire Somerset Strongly in favour Tend to favour Neither favour nor oppose Tend to oppose Strongly oppose Do not know/ no opinion

35

27

52

26

36

16 21

25 20

14 21

13 23

14 22

9 16

11 14

4 8

14 23

8 19

2

4

2

1

1

and Somerset study area that a significant minority of respondents (29%) had taken part in hunting over the previous year. The nature of participation in hunting is rather complex. In one sense, hunting can be considered as a socially inclusive practice which involves men and women, recently moved and more established residents, farmers and non-farmers, and those in different class brackets. In the words of one participant in the Cumbria study area: You’ll have lawyers and doctors and nurses and vets, bank clerks, librarians, everybody goes. It’s not confined to one band of people. Everybody assumes it’s either monied or its yokels, and its not, it’s everybodyy Here it’s everybody, everybody and anybody can do it. And the more the merrier, you know, its such a community thing. (Cumbria 0102) However, participation in local hunting is also skewed towards particular groups. Hunting involves higher proportions of men than women (19%/14%), longer established than recently arrived residents (19% of those living locally for at least 10 years, 14% for a shorter period), and farmers than non-farmers (31%/6%). In terms of class, the pattern of participation would appear to cut against the dominant image of hunting with dogs, since a lower proportion of those in the higher social classes (ABC1) were involved in hunting than those in the C2DE social classes (13% compared with 20%).5 This over-representation of lower-class groups in hunting was much more pronounced in the Cumbria and 5

This finding could reflect the influx of ex-urban middle-class groups into these areas, which tend to have more limited contact with hunting. It should also be noted that the hunting ‘field’ comprises local and nonlocal groups. The Exmoor and Quorn hunts, for example, attract a large number of middle-class groups from outside their areas.

All areas Cumbria Devon Leicester Powys and shire Somerset Never participated Once 2–10 Times 11–20 Times More than 20 times Not stated

83

94

68

91

79

1 7 4 4

1 3 0 1

1 12 6 10

1 3 3 1

3 10 4 4

1

1

2

1

1

Powys study areas, and here participants were keen to stress the functional, ‘no thrills’ nature of local hunting: It’s done on foot so it’s quite different from what you see elsewhere; it’s not men in red jackets. It’s not an expensive hunt, because a lot of the other hunts are based on money. Here it’s so different, it’s all done on footy (Cumbria 0102) It’s not one of these big hunts where you have to subscribe thousands of pounds to go hunting and show off on your big fancy horse and whatever. It is basically a job around here. I mean you see the farmers all out, they’re not dressed in their blacks or their reds or whatever. They all just go out on whatever horse they can grab and go out and do the job basically. (Powys 0849) In addition to direct participation in hunting, the research also explored the claim made by hunt supporters that hunting performs a broader social role within the rural community. At first glance, key findings from the household survey would appear to support this claim. Over the 12 months prior to the survey, 31% of respondents stated that they had attended at least one social event in their community that had been organised by the local hunt (Table 8). However, when this average figure is disaggregated down to the local level, the social function of hunting appears to be significant only in the Devon and Somerset area, where a slight majority (54%) had attended a hunt-organised social event over the last year. In the other three areas, though, such events accounted for less than half of respondents, and in Cumbria and Leicestershire only 22% had attended recent local hunt events. Hunt-organised social activities also need to be positioned within a broader context of other community events taking place in these four areas. Each study area is characterised by a broad range of local groups which organise local social events, and in the case of two of

P. Milbourne / Journal of Rural Studies 19 (2003) 157–171 Table 8 Respondents’ attendance at social events in the parish/community over the 12 months period prior to the survey Event organiser

Percentages All areas Cumbria Devon Leicester Powys and shire Somerset

Local church Local women’s institute Parish/ community council District/ borough/ county council Local sports club Local pub Local hunt Local political party Local school Other

53 9

47 9

61 2

53 11

48 15

23

18

36

20

19

5

2

7

5

6

11

6

14

10

14

52 31 6

47 22 3

60 54 8

44 22 4

55 26 10

25 5

26 6

19 6

18 7

36 2

these, their local significance is greater than that of the hunt. These two organisers are the local church and the pub,6 whose social events had each been attended by 52% of respondents over the 12 months preceding the survey (Table 7). In fact, in Cumbria, Powys and Leicestershire, pub-organised activities were attended by more than twice as many respondents than those organised by the hunt. Further, church-based activities accounted for at least double the number of respondents attending hunt-organised events in Cumbria and Leicestershire, while the school was a more important organiser of social events in Cumbria and Powys than the local hunt. In-depth interviews with residents reinforce this idea of the hunt playing a partial community role within these areas. While almost all of the 48 interviewees were able to point to examples of hunt-based social activities in their area, most people considered that hunting performed a valuable social function for a minority, namely hunt participants, but did little for others within local rural society:

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[Q Do the local hunts provide any social events?] For themselves, they have a Hunt Ball every year, that’s the only thing I know ofy [But] not for the community, no, noytheir own circle really, yes. (Leicestershire 0972) Several people highlighted other community groups which, in their opinion, made a more significant contribution to local rural life than hunting. As one such person commented: [Q Does the local hunt provide any kind of community function?] Well I mean I think, you know they organise the point to point once a year, they probably kind of organise a few social events for themselves and their supporters. But in a sense you know so do the Rotary Club, the Round Table, you know somebody else organises a kind of big May Day Bank Holiday fair in Melton and all that kind of business. I mean it’s, yes they play a part, but it’s by no means a kind of unique or even extensive role actually. (Leicestershire 0925) While hunting plays a relatively insignificant community role for the majority of residents in the four study areas, for the minority of people who participated in hunting, the hunt performs an important social function. Amongst this group, hunting was constructed as a ‘golden thread’ which held together local rural life: They [the hunt] supply the activities of Exmoory In this parish there’s a few hunt dances, there’s hunt balls as well in a few local pubs. They have auctions as well. There’s quite a few things that goes (sic) on because of it. (Devon and Somerset 0581) Consequently, it was claimed that banning hunting would remove the social focal point of local life within these rural communities: Oh I think if the hunt didn’t exist, there’d be so little. People wouldn’t get together the same, you know. It really does bind people and gets everybody working together. I don’t think there would be that [without hunting]. There would have to be another focal point, and I can’t think of anything in an area like this that would take its place. (Cumbria 0102)

[Q Does the local hunt provide any kind of community function?]. It does for those that take part in it, for those that don’t I think that the people who have been here for generations just take it for granted and just accept it as it is, although they don’t take part in it. (Devon and Somerset 0312)

However, in the Powys study area, several interviewees suggested that the functional nature of local hunting, mainly involving small groups of local farmers, meant that it did not bring with it any ‘social baggage’. As one such person commented:

It should be noted here that the question asked related to social events specifically organised by the pub, and not those organised by other bodies and taking place there.

I can’t see as they contribute anythingy There is [sic] no social functions connected with them, nothing at all, not in this area, not as far as I can see. (Powys 0752)

6

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P. Milbourne / Journal of Rural Studies 19 (2003) 157–171

Moreover, in Cumbria, a couple of interviewees pointed to negative social features of hunting. In the opinion of one of these, a farmer, local fox hunting represented a source of local social division and conflict:

In other cases, these competing understandings of rural nature and hunting had become transposed into local space through the in-movement of ex-urban groups:

[Q Does the local hunt provide any kind of community function?] They don’t. Never helped me, not one bit. Have I answered your question there? y [You can’t think of anything they do for the community?] I think if I went in to the local pub where the hunt is heldyhalf of them [huntsmen] wouldn’t speak to me [Why not?] ‘Cos they just think they’re a shade wee better than what I am, and they never will be [Why do you think they think that?] Once they get their plus fours on and their hunting gear, they think they’re Lord Sutch. [So you’re not aware of any details of any social events that they have?] No. They do me no good whatsoever. (Cumbria 0286)

I find that mainly the locals around here there are no problems because they’ve been brought up in this community; they’ve seen the problems that not hunting can causeyyou can lose a lot of your animals through them [foxes]y The only problems that we would have really are people moving in from cities and big towns and they, well they’re really against it [hunting]. They don’t understand why it has to be done. (Powys, 0849)

4.3. Conflicting cultures of hunting with dogs As this last commentary indicates, strong local public support for hunting does not preclude the possibilities for internal tensions and conflicts surrounding the practice within these rural areas. Indeed, while the survey picked up on the public face of these communities, the in-depth interviews brought to light complex and conflicting local cultures of hunting. Two main sets of conflict can be identified; one focused on competing understandings of rural nature and hunting, the other based on more local tensions concerning dominant cultures of hunting. In relation to the first of these conflicts, the follow-on interviews highlighted evidence of conflicting national/urban and local/rural constructions of hunting with dogs. For some, these conflicts were associated with generalised urban–rural differences in attitudes towards hunting, nature and rurality: Peopleydo not understand the country and the country pursuits and the country way of life, and they start shouting and brawling about one thing and another and haven’t the faintest idea what they’re talking about. They keep saying it’s cruel. Well perhaps it is slightly cruel but it’s not half as cruel as nature is itself. (Cumbria, 0215) I do feel that country issues are not understood by town peopley [They] see Brer Fox as the nice little chap in the waistcoat and trousers that Beatrix Potter used to paint and as such they see him as a nice friendly little charactery I mean what we’ve often said is that if the fox looked like a rat everybody would be out there shooting him. But heylooks a nice friendly little character when you see himyin the field next door. (Cumbria, 0202)

and, in the Leicestershire study area, through the incursion of a different and provocative type of inmover: I don’t think many people object to it [local hunting] around here [but] they object to people that come and disturb everythingythe saboteur people, you know, they usually wait up the lanes complete with their sandwiches that they’ve been provided withy (Leicestershire, 0946) A second set of hunting conflicts concerned local cultures of hunting in the study areas. While only a minority of residents actually participated in hunting, it was claimed by several interviewees that its historical roots and majority local support invested hunting with a great deal of moral authority. Consequently, the practice of hunting was rarely questioned in these four areas. Instead, residents accepted, at least publicly, some of the practical inconveniences associated with hunting, such as local roads being blocked by hunt followers, hunts trespassing on private land and hounds attacking domestic animals. For those residents who had recently moved into these areas and those who opposed hunting, it was suggested that these inconveniences were the price that had to be paid for residence in a rural area. In the two commentaries that follow, we see how the interests of the hunt seem to take precedence over the rights of local road users and property owners: When they’re hunting with dogsythey tend to think that they have the right to go wherever they want to, whenever they want to and however they want to. And I’m afraid that does get me a little uptighty You can be driving up the road there and you’ve got to stop because the hounds are all over the road, and you get the most awful looks and gestures from the hunt master and the gang if you just take no notice and drive past them. (Powys, 0775) They don’t respect other people’s propertyy Well it’s mostly the followers of the hunty Well, I have been known to come home and find 20 or 30 of them on my front lawn watching the hunt. In my front

P. Milbourne / Journal of Rural Studies 19 (2003) 157–171

garden!y From my front garden they have quite a good view [of the hunt]. [Q: What happened?] I asked them very politely to leave. [Q: Did they?] Well not straight away, but then the hunt moved off so they went anyway. (Devon and Somerset, 0321) For these two interviewees, such hunting practices and their accompanying attitudes were not contested publicly. In the words of the second person, ‘I asked them very politely to leave’. When the issue of hunting is discussed within the public domain, the cultural dominance of hunting becomes even more apparent. In the Devon and Somerset area, for example, where the culture of hunting was most dominant, several opponents of hunting talked about some of the consequences of questioning the practice in public. In one of these interviews, a recently arrived woman discussed her own experiences and those of others in her community of questioning the moral authority and cultural dominance of local hunting. In relation to her own experiences, she commented that, ‘since I spoke out against hunting I get two fingers and things like thaty I can’t reason with them, I feel they don’t allow your point of viewy’ (Devon and Somerset, 0371). She also went on to highlight the experiences of three other people in her village who had recently publicly questioned the moral authority of local hunting: I heard that a man round here sold his land to the League Against Cruel Sports and the farmers went down there with guns and were shooting at the housey The girl who lived down here, she spoke out against it when she moved in and the farmer drove all his sheep down onto her front garden, things like that. And a friend of mine up the road, she is a journalist, she used to help with the children at school and in their school magazine we just did an article on hunting with five pros and five cons; an equally balanced article. She said she was like the anti-Christ after that. So I just feel that hunters will not allow you to decide. So I don’t think people do voice their opinions, they are frightened to really. They just don’t want the trouble.

5. Conclusion This paper has explored hunting with dogs in rural Britain from a broader perspective than has been attempted to date by rural researchers. The approach taken has contained two main components. Firstly, the subject of hunting has been brought within recent discussions in environmental sociology and geography concerning the somewhat complex connections between natural and social systems. The second component has involved broadening the research perspective by examining hunting with dogs within the context of different

169

local communities in rural areas of England and Wales. In this concluding section, I want to bring together these two components of the paper to discuss how the hunting issue in rural areas informs broader understandings of nature–society–rurality connections. It is clear from this paper that the issue of hunting with dogs in Britain is very much entangled with broader sets of natural, socio-cultural and political processes operating within and beyond rural spaces. At a national scale, we can identify important connections between nature, rurality and hunting; dominant discourses of nature exhibit strong references to rurality and located within these natural discourses of rurality are powerful images of hunting. Furthermore, within recent national political discourse on the place of hunting in (rural) Britain, pro-hunt groups have begun to draw more on socio-cultural arguments than on natural (science) defences of hunting, and, as a result, the hunting issue has become very much wrapped up in the broader socio-cultural fabric of rural spaces. At the local level, key findings presented in the paper tend to confirm the socially embedded natures of hunting within the study communities. The research has highlighted important local cultures of hunting in these four areas. Not only do hunts represent a highly visible component of local rural life but there exists a widespread knowledge of local hunting practice which extends to most residents. Local cultures of hunting are also evident in relation to the extended social functions provided by these hunts. The strength of these hunting cultures is highlighted by the high levels of support for hunting recorded not only in each study area but also across different social groups. Indeed, the finding that higher proportions of incomer groups and service class members express support for than opposition to hunting with dogs provides clear evidence of the ways in which new middle-class groups are conforming to existing dominant local cultures of hunting within these areas.7 In these senses, then, natural discourses of rurality, bound up with hunting, are being reproduced within the social spaces of these communities. As such, local hunting needs to be seen very much as an embedded social practice which is accommodated—both by established and by newly settled groups—within everyday life, and helps to shape ‘the social construction of local reality’ (Irwin, 2001). However, it is necessary to introduce three areas of complexity into this idea of a dominant natural construction of rurality within these hunt communities. The first concerns the temporal specificity of this community-based study of hunting. The fieldwork was 7

Such a finding may complicate dominant notions within rural studies of middle-class incomer groups imposing new moral environments on to rural spaces.

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undertaken during a period in which the existence of hunting with dogs was being discussed, and in many ways fought over, by a range of important political actors. While the most publicised of these political contests have taken place at the national level, particularly focused around the Government funded Burns’ Inquiry, the presence of members of the Countryside Alliance in each of the study communities has ensured that issues of local hunting are connected to these broader political networks. Clearly, the local research has become entangled with these non-local political discussions concerning the continued existence of hunting in rural spaces. Cohen (1985) has argued forcefully that when faced by these kinds of external threats (rural) communities tend to erect symbolic boundaries. Within this process it is possible to identify external and internal forms of community construction; the former characterised by ideas of social homogeneity and cohesion, the latter by social differences and internal tensions. It is the external form of community, Cohen suggests, that comes to the fore within situations of external threat, presenting a united face of the community and overriding existing internal social divisions. It is this construction of community that emerges through the household survey; the idea that local life is closely connected to nature, that most local people are in favour of hunting, and that associations are formed through hunting. In effect, the natural becomes a powerful symbol of the social, with hunting used by many local residents as an important signifier of particular social and economic forms located in rural space. A second area of complexity concerning local nature– society relations emerges from the in-depth work in these local areas. This phase of the research has, in some ways, penetrated the external ‘natural’ construction of the communities and highlighted internal social divisions and conflicts concerning hunting. In particular, it has indicated that only certain social groups within these local spaces—mainly those with long-established farming backgrounds—subscribe directly to these hunting ruralities. Many incomers and workers engaged in other sectors of the local and regional economy have relatively little involvement with hunting and its related social activities. Consequently, these groups possess a more passive knowledge of local hunting and hold on to much more complex socio-natural constructions of rurality. A further indication of the heterogeneous nature of these ruralities is the presence of individuals within these communities who privately oppose and publicly contest the practice of hunting in and around their areas. However, opponents of hunting are effectively constructed as ‘out of place’ within these communities (see Cresswell, 1996) as dominant cultures of hunting reassert—in direct and more subtle ways—their moral authority on to local rural space.

Complexity is evident in a third sense, relating to the local geographies of nature–society relations in rural space. Focusing on just four case-studies, the paper has pointed to a great deal of heterogeneity associated with hunting with dogs, in terms of its different forms and scales of activity. The small-scale and functional nature of hunting in the upland parts of Cumbria and Powys is clearly a world apart from many of the larger lowland hunts, such as the Quorn in Leicestershire. Furthermore, particular forms of hunting have become interwoven with specific social, cultural, economic and political structures to produce some quite complex localised nature–society relations in these different rural spaces. The local context of Devon and Somerset, for example, differs markedly from that of Leicestershire. In the former area, farming remains strong, the Countryside Alliance is well supported and cultures of hunting with dogs would seem to saturate much of local life. Here, natural discourses of hunting ruralities very much dominate local society and culture. By contrast, a more complex relationship between nature and society exists in the middle-class commuter spaces of rural Leicestershire, where farming is less dominant in economic and cultural terms, and much less significance is attached to hunting ruralities. It is clear then that nature, society and rurality connect in rather uneven ways within ‘hunt countries’ of England and Wales. While hunting represents a socially embedded practice, the hunting ruralities explored within this paper consist of complex amalgams of natural, socio-cultural, political and economic components, and are characterised by a great deal of local and particular specificity. Consequently, we need to be cautious about generalising about hunting ruralities and remain sensitive to the local geographies and particular experiences of nature–society relations in rural spaces. Acknowledgements I would like thank the three anonymous referees who commented on an earlier version of this paper. References Baxter, J., Eyles, J., 1997. Evaluating qualitative research in social geography: establishing ‘rigour’ in interview analysis. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 22, 505–525. Beckett, A., 1998. Inside story: blood on the saddle. The Guardian, 4. Bell, M., 1994. Childerley: Nature and Morality in a Country Village. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Cannadine, S., 1990. The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy. New York University Press, London. Castree, N., Braun, B., 1998. The construction of nature and the nature of construction: analytical tools for building survivable futures. In: Braun, B., Castree, N. (Eds.), Remaking Reality: Nature at the Millenium. Routledge, London.

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