Convenors: Emanuele Amo, Conor Judge and Michael Woods (Aberystwyth University)

While rural discontent is often framed as a reactionary force, this session seeks to examine how it can also be a site of social and political innovation. We invite contributions that critically engage with the creative dimensions of rural political expression, whether through grassroots movements, alternative media or cultural production. Additionally, this session engages with the question of whether rural political expression is still as relevant as disruptive political movements become more accepted, and whether rural imagery is as prevalent in different contexts across time. We aim to uncover how creative practices—rhetorical, artistic, spatial, or digital—reshape socio-political landscapes, challenge established geographies of power, physically transform spaces, and contest spatial injustices.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

· Spatial justice and the ways in which creative practices challenge territorial inequalities, centralization, and urban bias.

· The role of storytelling (music, literature or visual arts) in shaping narratives of rural discontent.

· The use of social media in mobilizing rural movements.

· The aesthetics of populism: symbolism, nostalgia, and spatial imaginaries.

· Creative resistance: alternative economies, counter-memory, and cultural reclamation in rural areas.

· The role of geographical imagination in constructing both grievances and political alternatives.

The session wants to offer an opportunity to explore the intersections between creativity, rural discontent, and disruptive politics. We especially welcome papers from new and creative methodological approaches to geographies of discontent such as quantitative textual analysis, or social media data.

Please submit a 200-word abstract to Emanuele Amo (ema21@aber.ac.uk) by Monday, 24 February 2025.

Accepted papers will be confirmed by Friday, 28 February, allowing authors to submit their final abstracts to the conference platform by the official deadline of Friday, 7 March 2025. We plan to hold an in-person session.