This is the first book to explore how far disability, as a social identity, challenges dominant understandings of rurality, identity and belonging. Exploring particularly the ways in which bodies are given meaning and value in relation to core ethical rural considerations associated with physical strength, productivity, and social reciprocity. Using lived experience of people with disabilities through the use of life history methodologies, it goes beyond conventional notions of rurality through grounding its analysis in a range of disability spaces and places and including the work of disability sociologists, geographers, cultural theorists and policy analysis.

Karen Soldatic is an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow (2016-2019), Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University, Australia.

Kelley Johnson is Professor of Disability and Policy at the Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales (UNSW Australia).

Notes on the cover image

Editor biographies

Contributor biographies

Acknowledgements

Introduction - Disability and rurality: identity, gender and belonging (Karen Soldatic and Kelley Johnson)

Part I: Disability, Identity and Rurality

1 - 'I am stronger now': life as a disabled woman in rural Iceland (Harpa Sigurdardóttir and Rannveig Traustadóttir)

2 - The pull and the push of rural life: Scott and Graham's story (Brigit Mirfin-Veitch, Paul Milner and Jane McDonald)

3 - Young people moving from rural foster care to cities in China (Karen R. Fisher and Xiaoyuan Shang)

4 - Institutionalizing rural life (Jan Walmsley and Kelley Johnson)

5 - Rurality, disability and place identity (Daniela Stehlik)

Part II: Disability, Gender and Rurality

6 - 'It's not complicated': physical disability and farming in rural Iceland (Kristín Björnsdóttir, James G. Rice and Rúnar Geir Ólafsson)

7 - Hiding, isolation and solace: rural disabled women and neoliberal welfare reform (Hannah Morgan)

8 - Southern gendered disability reflections: the everyday experiences of rural women with disabilities after the armed conflict in Sri Lanka (Niroshini Kandasamy, Karen Soldatic and Dinesha Samararatne)

9 - Youth, masculinity in rural and regional Australia: beer, 4WDs and home (Louisa Smith, Nikki Wedgwood, Russell Shuttleworth and Gwynnyth Llewellyn)

10 - Theoretical reflections: rurality, gender and disability (Jos Boys)

Part III: Disability, Belonging and Rurality

11 - Belonging in country Ireland? 'For me it comes down to work' (Joe McGrath, Kelley Johnson and Rob Hopkins)

12 - In the picture: perspectives of young people with cognitive disability on rural and regional life (Sally Robinson, Karen R. Fisher, Malcolm Hill and Anne Graham)

13 - Shifting landscapes of care and distress: a topological understanding of rurality (Ian M. Tucker)

14 - Problematizing social inclusion and fostering sense of belonging for people with disabilities in rural Cambodia (Alexandra Gartrell)

15 - Reclaiming kith: weaving belongingness into community (Liz Ellis)

16 - Belonging (Phoebe Caldwell)

Conclusion (Kelley Johnson and Karen Soldatic)

Index