Childrenʹs understandings of rurality: exploring the interrelationship between experience and understanding

Prompted by current debates within rural studies, this paper explores childrenʹs understandings of rural New Zealand. Previous research has focused on children as “doers” rather than “thinkers”. This paper reverses this emphasis by exploring childrenʹs material and discursive experiences and the ways these are negotiated to develop their understandings of rurality. While it highlights common constructions of rurality based on experiences of agriculture, nature, and recreation, it also illustrates childrenʹs varied experiences and understandings of rurality from each other and from adults. This heterogeneity becomes apparent through the examination of individual childrenʹs biographies. These reinforce the importance of making room to consider children individually and with regard to their own personal context—that is, to enable the complication of academic/adult understandings of rurality.