b'T3 Journal - Student Writing in Drama, University of Exeter 2019-20Racism in the British Countryside: Barriers to Entry for Visible Minorities.Submitted for the third-year optional module Wild Performances.ArticlesRebecca WarnerWe must account for the operation of race in our workimagination cements that ethnic minorities do not belong and thought if we are ever to build an effective, multiracialinruralspace.Forexample,thereinforcementthatthe environmental politics. (Bundy 2003: 378). image of a black person in the countryside is jarring, even sometimesfromsharedunderstandingswithinminority In Accounting for Race in Environmental Thought, Bundy outlinescommunities,activelydiscouragespeoplefromseeking theperceptionofenvironmentalismasamovementthatnatureout.KyeAskinsfascinatingstudyintovisible discards civil rights in favour of uplifting the non-human,communities in English national parks identified some of withoutrecognizingtheinherentsystematicbiasesthatthese entrenched understandings. A Black-British woman ethnic minorities struggle against. As such, he urges us toremarked,potholingandallthattypeitsnotwhat approach environmental studies as an intersectional issue:black people do (Askins 2006: 160). This is an example of by studying the barriers to entry in rural spaces that exist fora frequent, unquestioned assumption that ethnic minorities ethnic minorities, we can start to understand how they aredo not belong in rural settings. These assumptions may constructed and begin to break them down. prevent many people from seeking out nature in their leisure time.Additionally,TimEdensoroutlinesthefascinating The system is stacked against ethnic minorities:Agyemenhistory of walking as a leisure activity. Since the invention citesthestatisticthat30-40%ofLondonshomelessof easy transportation in the Romantic period, walking has population are blacka vast overrepresentation of this ethnicbeen associated with leisure and self-discovery, rather than group in the citys poorest social bracket. He argues thatcriminality and poverty. While a farmers association with there is a containment in operation, keeping black peoplewalking is bound up with his consistent and cyclical toil over in certain specified urban areas, where living conditions area fixed acreage of land, Wordsworths walking is freeing the sub-par and often impoverished (Agyeman 1990: 234; 233).body through an aesthetic and moral regeneration through Indeed, these same systemic issues prevent the funding foranaestheticisedruralspace,creatingtheconditionsfor urban greening reaching those communities, as it is not seenwalking as a leisure activity (Edensor 2001: 84). Recently, as a priority in under-funded areas. Moreover, systemic issueswalking has been regarded as a regenerative practice and prevent privilege of concerne.g the time, confidence andessentialforwell-being,asonlyinmodernlifehavewe skillor the resources to fight for green spaces in thesebegan to experience the effects of isolation from nature and areas (Agyeman 1990: 234). and skillor the resources toexercise on the body and mind. However, only those with fight for green spaces in these areas (Agyeman 1990: 234).access to time and money can afford to expend energy and While walking on Dawlish Warren as part of my course, ittime on leisure walking. Therefore, a class division appears, struck me that as university students, we have this privilegewhere walking becomes accessible only to those with the of concern around environmental issues. Access to highersocio-economic resources to do soand as we have seen, education is often highly dependent on class backgroundrace plays an important part in determining those divisions.and is invariably tied up with race. Our cohort was mostly white and middle-class, and through funding to study theseAnotherfactorkeepingvisiblecommunitiesawayfrom environments, we have the opportunity of having access torural spaces is the threat of racial violence. Askins cites Sara rural spaces. Therefore, the socio-economic disadvantagesAhmed, who writes about the phenomenon of the stranger; thatethnicminoritiesfacebleedintoeveryaspectofweactuallyrecognisethestrangernotassomeone Englishlife,includingwhoisaffordedthetime,moneyunknowntous,butasalreadyconstructedasdifferent andenergytoenterruralspaces.Furthermore,popular(Askins 2006: 158). Therefore, the act of knowing a person 52'