Food Risks in Rural Communities

For my PhD, I examined the role of nature in the formation of rural community identities in two different villages in England. The two villages were examples of the so-called "differentiated countryside" (see Marsden et al, 1993): one on the edge of Manchester, an emerging prosperous area. The other was village was located in Devon - an example of a more traditional countryside. I lived in both villages for several months in order to conduct the community study.

One of the key research agendas to emerge from the Devon village related to the consumption of unpasteurised milk. Unpasteurised milk was connected to various incidents of ill health - contamination from E-coli, salmonella and, of course, traditionally bovine tuberculosis. Still, residents of the village consumed it regularly. In fact, one of the local farmers had a milk round on which he sold his own unpasteurised milk.

The research concentrated on the role that unpasteurised milk played in creating community identities and how villagers understood the risks of drinking unpasteurised milk. Briefly, consuming unpasteurised milk seemed to confirm a rural status and confirmed that you belonged to the village community. These attitudes to risk - rejecting science and claiming that a bit of dirt was good for you - were part and parcel of becoming rural. The story is told in more depth in a paper in the Journal of Rural Studies.

Just after completing this research, the Labour government announced in 1997 that it would consult on banning the sale and consumption of unpasteurised. It had already been banned in Scotland. The food minister Jeff Rooker was in favour, based on the precautionary principle - it was the same time as the beef on the bone ban and the legacy of BSE. The consultation attracted thousands of letters of complaint. I analysed a sample of the various arguments within a sample of these letters. They are summarised in a paper published in Sociologia Ruralis.

A central theme to my PhD was the application of Actor-Network Theory to rural community studies. The theory was particularly interested in the relations between people and nature. The PhD formed an attempt to merge actor-network theory with some of the more traditional ways of looking at the rural community. The example of unpasteurised milk helped to do this and is examined in a recent book chapter:

"Dirty Foods, Healthy Communities? Hybridty, Rurality and the Consumption of Unpasteurised Milk in Rural England". In Cox, R. and Campkin, B. (Eds. 2007) Dirt: New Geographies of Cleanliness and Contamination (London: IB Tauris) 168-77