Homebuyers 'plotting' a move to the UK countryside? A study of counter-urbanisation and entrepreneurial emergence in rural areas

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This study draws parallel lines of research in entrepreneurship, counter-urbanisation and social capital to understand contemporary processes influencing rural and regional development in the context of a persistent global pandemic that potentially launched a 21st century 'rural renaissance' as UK city dwellers began buying houses in rural areas, looking to 'flip' their lives to the countryside and reassess what is important amid increased home working that is here to stay. This study will address the following overarching research question: Do social capital and spatial contexts affect rural in-migrant entrepreneurial emergence in the context of a persistent global pandemic and how does this impact the wider development of rural livelihoods? 60 rural in-migrant entrepreneurs will be interviewed from rural locations in Norfolk, Suffolk or Essex to establish the importance of social and spatial contexts and their affordances; the advantages that an environment offers a perceptive individual for entrepreneurial emergence (Gibson, 1966). The researcher will spend time in the micro-study areas to augment the contextual understandings of local affordances and facilitate focus groups sessions with new or aspiring entrepreneurs to understand in real time, perceptions of rural locations and their affordances. 'Rurality' has no precise definition, but development scholars generally characterise rural areas by their environment and structural deficits of underdevelopment (Wiggins and Proctor, 2001: 427-428). These issues may be more acute in low-income developing countries, but rural areas of England can face similar issues of underdevelopment of infrastructure, hidden deprivation and poor access to services (Norfolk County Council, 2013). Migrants, however, have the potential to become 'agents of development', contributing to rural economic growth and improving rural livelihoods; that is why orderly, safe and regular migration of people underpins the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UN, 2018). Understanding how underlying 'affordances' create and sustain dynamic rural economies will provide knowledge about how personal mobility, social networks and diverse perceptions of rural places can interact with features of a local context to create new entrepreneurial opportunities to enhance local development potential and provide individual livelihood opportunities.