In line with the Ramblers commitment to being an anti-racist organisation we invited writers to share their experience and views relating to rural racism, to help broaden our understanding of this complex issue.  

 

Maxwell’s perspective 

In the British rural landscape, minoritised individuals are often made to feel out of place, either overtly or subtly. I was the first Black person appointed to the Ramblers’ board in 2005 – a landmark in the organisation’s history. As a trustee, I attended several Ramblers area council meetings. I met good Ramblers who I am still friends with. I also came across some whose behaviour I’d describe as ‘racial gaslighting’, making me feel out of place. This experience isn’t limited to the Ramblers, but applies to environmental organisations more broadly, and on walks.  

 

A historic legacy 

Sometimes we’re the butt of a ‘joke’: ‘Oh, there are too many of you out here today!’ or ‘We can’t escape from them – they’re invading our space.’ Other comments implicitly suggest we don’t belong in the countryside: ‘Are you walking for a charity event?’ or ‘Where do you come from?’ When we say ‘Sheffield’, they respond: ‘Yes, but I mean which country are you from?’ When I took a group of South Asian women on walks in the Peaks village of Castleton, they received catcalls and despicable remarks about their dress.  

There remains a legacy of colonial thinking among those considering themselves ‘white’, for whom the English landscape is a core part of their identity. Their behaviour racialises minorities, whether consciously or unconsciously. There are ‘micro-insults’ – ways of speaking that denigrate minoritised individuals; ‘micro-assaults’ – forms of behaviour that demean us; and ‘micro-invalidations’ – prejudice or discrimination against minorities, with remarks such as ‘I didn’t mean to cause you any offence’ or non-verbal reactions such as eye rolling.  

Personal experiences 

Some walkers avoid us like a plague when we encounter them on trails and say hello. Other times we’re a curiosity. While up Mam Tor in the Peak District, another walker (a white woman) clandestinely took a picture of our walking group. When I asked why, she replied: ‘I’ve never seen so many Black people at one time here.’  

As part of the Youth Hostels Association’s Festival of Walking last year, I took 30 people along Hadrian’s Wall, which has a history of Black presence. The 500 Aurelian Moors garrisoned near Carlisle in the 3rd Century CE were likely the first Black community in Britain. While our group posed for a photo under the famous Sycamore Gap tree, a white woman rudely asked us to move as she and her partner wanted a picture.  

 

Minoritisation 

These kinds of behaviours remain typical in the English rural landscape. Many still perceive it as a ‘white space’. Minoritised people are racialised as ‘urbanites’ and inferior. Racialisation, just like classism in the 1930s, is a social process that makes those minoritised feel insignificant or not belonging.  

It’s true – no one stops minoritised individuals accessing the landscape. But while the countryside might appear welcoming to you, it isn’t to everyone. The dominant culture’s ideology of the English landscape being bound to a ‘white identity’ persists. The sorts of incidents I have cited continue. Minorities still aren’t seen as belonging in rural spaces.  

But remember the working class mass trespassers of 1932 forced people to acknowledge classism and sparked the formation of the Ramblers. Attitudes can and do change.