Geographies of ruralization

This paper proposes ‘ruralization’ as a concept that human geographers are well placed to develop across the rural-urban geography divide and in dialogue with scholars in cognate fields. We understand ruralization as the processual, more-than-residual, and geographically-variegated socio-spatial dynamics of contemporary human engagements with rural land, livelihoods, and lifestyles. Our approach comprises three prominent dynamics of ruralization experienced through residents’ entanglements with rural and urban Southeast Asia: in situ ruralization, extended ruralization, and rural returns. We argue in favor of a rural-urban relationality rather than urban-centered socio-spatial transformation and urge geographers to take seriously the lives and geographies of people in the Global South whose perspectives on urbanization are entangled with ongoing rural dynamics. Our contribution is intended as a corrective to notions of the urbanization of everywhere in a zero-sum relationship with a residual rural, and as a way of demonstrating the importance of human geographical experiences to wider debates, concerns, and conversations.