ARTICLE IN PRESS

Journal of Rural Studies 21 (2005) 151–163

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Women’s fear of crime: A rural perspective

Jo Littlea,, Ruth Panellib, Anna Kraackb
a
Department of Geography, University of Exeter, Amory Building, Rennes Drive, Exeter, Devon Ex4 4RJ, UK
b
Department of Geography, University of Otago, New Zealand

Abstract

This paper examines women’s experience of fear of crime in rural areas. It argues that much existing research on issues of gender,
fear and safety have focused on urban areas and that as a result we know relatively little about women’s experience of fear in a rural
context. As well as arguing that we need to redress the balance and respond to the dearth of knowledge about rural women’s fear,
the paper asserts the importance of a rural perspective in understanding the relationship between fear and the social and cultural
construction of place. The rural in particular provides an important site for such an understanding since, as is argued here, the
notion of safety is central to constructions of rurality. The paper presents data on rural women’s experience of fear and crime from
research carried out in New Zealand and the UK. It draws on work undertaken in four rural communities and begins to identify the
extent and nature of women’s fears and how these relate to their experience of rurality. The paper shows how while popular
constructions of the rural as friendly, safe and largely crime free endure, there is a recognition amongst rural women of the growing
problems surrounding personal safety. It also demonstrates the importance of social constructions of the rural community in
identifying the relevance of the ‘stranger’ and the marginalised ‘other’ to women’s feelings of fear.
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1. Introduction construction, or as a way of life, influences the actual

The intention of this paper is to present a rural
‘perspective’ on debates surrounding women’s experi-
ence and fear of crime. It seeks to further both the
theoretical understanding of the relationship between
place and fear of crime and empirical knowledge
surrounding rural women’s fears. Despite a broad
acknowledgement within the literature of the impor-
tance of space in the relationship between crime, fear
and gender (Day, 2001; Koskela, 1997; Namaste, 1996;
Pain, 1997) both theoretical discussion and practical
research have tended to focus on the urban sphere. Little
direct reference has been made to the variation in
women’s experience of crime or fears about personal
safety specifically between urban and rural areas nor to
the wider ways in which rurality, either as a social
Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 1392 263351;
fax: +44 1392 263342.
E-mail address: j.k.little@exeter.ac.uk (J. Little).
relationship between gender and fear. A simple belief or
expectation that rural communities are ‘safer’ for all
people has not been exposed to sustained critical
examination. Moreover, the contemporary challenges
to the idea that all people experience the countryside in
the same way have yet to examine the differential
experiences of fear and safety.
We argue in this paper that a rural perspective on the
gendered experience of fear and safety is overdue. Such
a perspective is important not only in redressing the
balance of research interest and drawing attention to a
diversity of experience but also in enhancing under-
standing by providing an alternative focus on the issues.
Rural areas constitute a different kind of environment in
which to examine crime and fear; clearly they are more
sparsely populated, they often lack the sorts of ‘run
down’, dangerous and alienating spaces associated with
crime in urban areas and are also less well (or less
visibly) resourced in terms of police provision and other
services (Yarwood, 2001). More importantly, here,

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doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2005.02.001
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
152 J. Little et al. / Journal of Rural Studies 21 (2005) 151–163
however, is the potential influence of cultural construc-
tions of rurality to the gendered experience and under-
standing of fear and safety. Specifically, we argue that
strong ideas and expectations about the nature of
rurality, and the meaning of rural community in
particular, will strongly shape how women experience
and respond to fear of crime in rural areas. The
importance of space is not simply as a container for
particular experiences of fear but as an actual influence
on the nature, direction and level of that fear. As such, a
rural focus can add much, both empirically and
theoretically, to attempts to understand the dynamics
of women’s fear and its relationship with space and
place. The study of fear in rural communities can also
contribute to an understanding of the idea of commu-
nity and questions surrounding the social and cultural
construction of the rural community.
To demonstrate the contribution of a rural dimension
to the study of women’s fear of crime, this paper
draws on original data collected from case study
research in the UK and New Zealand. The study was
not designed to be directly comparative in the manner
of old style cross-national case study work in social
geography. Instead, the use of these two localities
provides a range of different ‘types’ of rural environ-
ment and community and allows an examination of
both the diversity of rural experience and also the
durability and wide spatial and cultural applicability
of notions of ‘safety’ within lay understandings of
the rural. Before turning to the presentation of case
study methodology and results, however, the paper
critically examines the two key areas of academic
debate within which the study is situated, namely
women’s fear of crime and the construction of the rural
community. We draw out some of the main academic
developments in each area while demonstrating how, in
the context of our study, the two are fundamentally
related.
2. Rural women and fear of crime: A theoretical
framework
2.1. Gender, place and fear
In a comprehensive review of geographical and
environmental literature on the fear of crime, Pain
(2000) outlines the main directions that have been
adopted in previous academic research. She structures
her review around a major theoretical and empirical
divide in studies of fear of crime between approaches
that see fear as a by-product of the physical environment
and those that have emphasised the social and political
nature of fear. As Pain notes, it is the former that has
tended to dominate debates, especially amongst those
working in a policy context.
During the 1980s and early 1990s the idea that fear
was caused or enhanced by certain characteristics of
the built environment gained considerable academic
and political currency. Fear was linked to particular
environments—commonly those that were unattractive,
poorly maintained, dark and lonely. Work by research-
ers such as Newman (1973) and Coleman (1985) utilised
the notion of ‘defensible space’ to emphasise the role
played by design in the creation of fear. Such work
argued that fear could be ‘designed out’ of public spaces
and that sensitive planning could increase people’s sense
of safety by ensuring that environments were attractive,
well lit and occupied and that any potential hiding
places for attackers were removed at the design stage.
Later work moved away from such a strong focus on the
physical aspects of environmental design but was still
dominated by the belief that fear and safety are issues
derived from people’s use and experience of the built
environment and that they are concerns of public space
(Oc and Tiesdell, 1997).
Although, as Koskela and Pain (2000) point out,
feminist criminologists have been amongst the sternest
critics of these mainstream, physical environment
approaches, work specifically on women’s fear has also
been dominated by an emphasis on urban form. It has
been argued that the design of the city has traditionally
reflected patriarchal power relations and that the zoning
of different land uses, especially the separation of spaces
of production and reproduction, has created areas in
which women feel excluded or alienated (see Darke,
1996). Feminist planners and policy makers have
described how the creation of the city by men and for
men has consistently ignored women’s needs and
concerns resulting in environments within which women
feel threatened and unsafe and over which they feel a
lack of control. For some, ‘solutions’ are again linked to
physical factors in the creation of ‘safer cities’, environ-
ments in which attempts are made to design out those
aspects of the city that are believed to reinforce women’s
sense of insecurity.
In criticism of these environmental, urban design
centred approaches, other authors have advocated
focusing more closely on the social causes of women’s
fear (Burgess, 1998; Koskela, 1997; Pain, 1997; Valen-
tine, 1990). In her review Pain (2000, p. 372) notes how
geographers, and feminist geographers in particular,
have started to look much more closely at the ‘‘links
between social structure, identity, power relations and
fear of crime’’. Such work stems partly from a
recognition that certain groups in society, for example
women, older people and minority ethnic groups may be
more vulnerable to certain types of crime. Fear is,
according to this approach, implicated in broader
power relations that exist within society and through
which some groups routinely, and in a variety of
ways, dominate others. Pain (2000, p. 373) and others
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J. Little et al. / Journal of Rural Studies 21 (2005) 151–163
(see Sibley, 1995) have suggested that ideas about the
fear experienced by particular social groups can usefully
be drawn together within a ‘‘common theoretical
framework which centres on social exclusion.’’
Emphasis on social causes of fear and on marginalised
groups has reinforced the importance of gender and the
different experiences of men and women. It has long
been recognised that women are more fearful than men
in terms of crimes against both property and person
although some studies have suggested that ways of
measuring fear may lead to the significant underestima-
tion of fear amongst men (Gilchrist et al., 1998). The
conceptualisation of women’s fear in the context of
gender inequality and women’s marginalisation, how-
ever, has allowed the nature of their fears to be
acknowledged. As Koskela (1999, p. 111) writes:
(W)omen’s fear is crucially different from men’s fear:
it differs in its extent, its nature as well as its effects
on women’s livesy. One reason for this is that
women perceive a unique and serious threat barely
felt by men—sexual violence.
Although the need to move away from a physical
environment led approach to the study of women’s fear
of crime has been stressed, it is important to recognise
that those advocating an alternative social exclusion
perspective do not dismiss the importance of space
and place to the experience of fear. What has been
criticised is the idea that fear may be caused by
particular features of the built environment, not that it
has some sort of spatial manifestation. As Koskela and
Pain (2000, p. 273) sum up, ‘‘fears about attack may be
transferred onto specific environments which become
makers of unsafety, but this does not mean that they
cause or produce fear’’. These authors stress that
women’s fear cannot be removed from space and talk
about the ‘situatedness’ of women’s fear, arguing that
attempts to understand women’s fear must be based on
a linking of ideas about marginalisation and social
exclusion with the identity of places. Thus, as Pain
(2000, p. 379) explains:
In this context situatedness refers to the ways in
which place, as a site where historical and contem-
porary economic changes interplay with social
identities and relations, has an influence upon the
fear of crime of people living locally.
Geographers, unsurprisingly, have been particularly
interested in developing approaches to understanding
the spatiality of women’s fear. As noted above, such
approaches, must be based on a conceptualisation of
space that goes beyond its role as a medium for
interaction and sees space as an active element in the
construction of social relations and in the everyday
practices of individuals. In relation to women’s fear
in particular, geographers have also stressed the
153
importance of looking at different sorts of spaces.
Criticism of the physical environment and design
approaches to understanding women’s fear and of the
‘safer cities’ policy responses included the focus on
public space inherent in such approaches. A neglect of
the home as a (potential) space of fear is believed to have
obscured much fear felt by women and detracted
attention away from gender relations within the
family/household as central to that fear (see Warring-
ton, 2001).
2.2. Constructions of rurality
Ideas concerning the relationship between space and
women’s fear are highly significant to this paper in its
examination of fear in rural areas. Although not
specifically in relation to fear and safety, considerable
attention has been given by rural geographers in recent
years to the construction and representation of rural
space and to the ways in which ideas about the nature of
rurality inform and shape social relations. There are two
specific areas of such work that are important in the
construction of a theoretical framework for this paper;
firstly the notion of the rural idyll and the association
between safety and rurality in constructions of the rural
community and, secondly, the interest in social identity
and exclusion and the construction of the rural stranger
as ‘other’.
Rural social scientific research has a long history of
‘community studies’ which have unpacked the key
characteristics of rural social relations and community
formation at the local level (for a review see Liepins,
2000). While early work tended to simply examine the
social composition of rural society and the everyday
experiences of rural life, more recent studies have
sought, in addition, to situate the material realities of
rural community life within broader explorations of
the social and cultural constructions of rurality which
underpin and shape such realities. A central theme
within this examination has been the notion of the ‘rural
idyll’ and the idea that strongly held beliefs about the
rural community, society and landscape underpin the
lives of those who live in rural areas and indeed shape
the expectations and understandings of those who do
not (Bell, 1994; Halfacree, 1994; Little and Austin,
1996). The beliefs and values which constitute the rural
idyll have been articulated in some detail elsewhere (see,
for example, Bunce, 2003; Short, 1991) and it is not the
intention here to include a lengthy discussion of these
characteristics. It is important, however, for the
purposes of this paper, to note the place of ideas of
safety as a key component of the rural idyll.
A key and constant feature of the rural idyll is a belief
in friendliness of rural people and in the honesty,
genuineness and integrity of rural society. Rural
communities have in the past, and continue to be, seen
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154 J. Little et al. / Journal of Rural Studies 21 (2005) 151–163
as naturally self-supporting and co-dependent; the
interrelatedness of people’s lives necessitating a power-
ful sense of honesty and mutual trust. Rural commu-
nities are thought to engender and nurture a strong
emotional attachment. Rural social relationships are
believed to be stronger and more durable as a result of
the greater need for self-sufficiency and a dependence on
neighbours. As with other aspects of the rural idyll, a
crucial feature of rural social relations is that they are
superior to those found in the town and city and thus
the genuineness and honesty of rural people is enhanced
in comparison to the corruption of urban society.
Central to the idyllic construction of community
found in dominant understandings of rurality is the
notion of safety. The harmonious, tight knit and
authentic social relations ascribed to the rural commu-
nity are strongly linked to feelings of security. The safety
of the countryside is seen as partly a function of the scale
and nature of social relations but also because of its
separation from the city. Importantly, these compar-
isons between the ‘safe’ countryside and the ‘dangerous’
city are increasingly reflected in the representation of the
urban as a threat to the rural. The safety of rural
communities is at risk not from those who belong but
from ‘outsiders’ from urban areas. ‘Crime’ in rural areas
is seen as the result of urban encroachment, the
imposition of urban society on a rural way of life and
the presence of ‘strangers’ who do not understand or
share rural values (see Yarwood, 2001). As well as
physical security, the rural is seen to provide an
emotional security for those who belong (see Panelli
et al., 2004).
The sense in which strangers have been seen to
threaten the security and purity of rural communities is
an important element in understanding the power of the
rural idyll and of safety within it. While rural social
scientists have engaged with issues surrounding the
marginalisation and exclusion of groups of ‘others’ (and,
indeed, in the theoretical debates concerning the
identification of such groups), they have not, with
certain exceptions (see Sibley, 1997; Valentine, 1997)
closely interrogated the idea of the stranger as a direct
challenge to the rural community. Here ‘the stranger’
provides an important link between ideas about fear,
community and identity. The stranger or outsider
becomes the personification of anti-community and of
the threat to the security and stability of rural society.
Theoretical discussions around the existence of the rural
stranger make an important contribution to the
conceptualisation of the relationship between fear and
the rural community as a purified space.
In attempting to understand the identification and
fear of difference, Wilton (1998) argues that insufficient
attention has been paid to the origins of people’s
behaviour—their individual psyches and their spatiality.
He draws on Freud’s notion of the unheimlich or
uncanny and Kristeva’s work on the abject to show
conceptual linkages between psyche, body and society.
The uncanny can be used, Wilton suggests, to indicate
something that is unsettling but that has origins within
the self. What comes to be defined as uncanny ‘‘can only
be understood as the product of the internalisation of
broader social forces such as sexism, racism and
ableism’’ (Wilton, 1998, p. 177). According to Freud,
uncanniness could be traced to infantile complexes and
primitive beliefs which remain within the individual and
generate anxiety towards the different or strange from
within. Kristeva, so Wilton suggests, has an alternative
reading of the pre-symbolic influences on fear of the
other. She uses the concept of the abject, as experienced
in relation to individual bodies and the emergence of
taboos of purification to suggest how boundaries emerge
between the self and the other and groups and
individuals excluded (see Kristeva, 1991). As Sibley
(1998, p. 119) has suggested, abjection can be applied to
show how some ‘others’ (for example racialised mino-
rities) ‘‘are introjected as bad objects, that is, they enter
the psyche as objects which cause unease and discom-
fort’’.
Ahmed (2000) has taken up Kristeva’s ideas on
abjection in discussion, specifically, of responses to
and fears about strangers. The stranger, as abject,
threatens the boundaries of identity and needs to be
expelled. The stranger produces physical emotions of
horror and disgust; they are strange bodies that threaten
the ‘clean body’ of the subject. As Ahmed writes:
Kristeva’s approach to abjection emphasises the
physicality of emotions that threaten to pulverise
the subject and cross the boundary line. Such
physicality is directed towards filth, defilement and
pollution, though these are not themselves abject.
Rather, they define the crisis posed by abjection
between the inside and outside. (Ahmed, 2000, p. 51)
Both Sibley and Wilton stress the spatial nature of the
uncanny and the abject. According to these authors, the
production of social difference in the identification of
the other is inevitably spatial involving the formation of
boundaries between those who belong and those who do
not. Sibley argues that spaces may be avoided when
associated with the stereotype of a displaced group and
suggests that the categorisation of particular groups or
individuals as non-conforming or dangerous results in
the purification of spaces which then increases the
visibility of those who are strangers or outsiders.
This notion of the stranger’s otherness as abject has a
particular resonance in rural communities because of
fears about the maintenance of boundaries between the
urban and the rural and the strength of beliefs
concerning the moral superiority and purity of rural
space. As Valentine (1997) has shown in relation to fears
about children’s safety, ‘strangers’ are more easily
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J. Little et al. / Journal of Rural Studies 21 (2005) 151–163
identifiable within the rural community, reinforcing the
sense in which they are out of place and therefore to be
feared. This use of the abject also has the effect, as
Kristeva argues, of centralising the body within notions
of otherness. As recent writing has noted (see Liepins,
2000; Little and Leyshon, 2003), highly conventional
responses to the body tend to reinforce traditional
constructions of difference in rural communities, parti-
cularly in relation to sexuality and ethnicity. Fear of the
other as rooted in the abject body of the stranger clearly
has importance for this research and for the way rural
women construct and experience danger.
Examining the importance of the other in the
construction of rural community and the experience
and expectation of fear, is not intended to ignore or
downplay the existence of areas of women’s fear which
may relate not to the stranger but to the known and the
familiar. It has long been recognised in studies of fear
that the greatest danger, statistically, to women’s safety
comes from those with whom they live and we take
seriously the point raised earlier concerning the lack of
research attention on the household and immediate
family. It has also been recognised that such fears are
the hardest to research and published data concerning
domestic violence and abuse within the family, highly
unreliable. Although not involving strangers, domestic
violence is also, we argue here, influenced by the
dominant constructions of rurality that see the commu-
nity as safe and any threat imposed from outside. These
constructions make the recognition and reporting of
domestic violence even more problematic for rural
women—a feeling that they have in some way disrupted
the community by being involved in violence may
reinforce existing fears about anonymity. The reluctance
to disclose violence and fear within the family also feeds
into/on beliefs about the self-sufficiency of the rural
community, another element of the rural idyll. The
belief that rural communities can look after themselves
has been seen as highly positive in relation to, for
example, the care of elderly or the willingness to help
neighbours. Less positive, as Scheper-Hughes (2000)
discusses in her ethnographic study of an Irish rural
community, is the way this belief can be used to hide
problems and conceal the breakdown of social relations.
She draws on Bourdieu’s ideas of ‘the best and worst
kept secrets’ to show how rural communities mobilise
discourses of independence and self-sufficiency to
conceal the darker and more dangerous aspects of
rural life.
In the remaining part of the paper we discuss these
ideas on the links between constructions of rurality
and women’s experience of fear in the context of the
original research material. Before doing so, however, we
look in some detail at issues of methodology, beginning
with a brief discussion of debates on defining fear—in
particular the ways in which methodological problems
155
have influenced theoretical approaches to the study of
fear. The section then moves on to examine the specific
issues relating to the methodology of the current
research and including the management of the practi-
calities of data collection.
3. Methodologies and researching gender fear and safety
3.1. Defining fear
Despite the academic interest in fear and safety
amongst geographers, planners and other social scien-
tists there have been few attempts to unpack the terms
or even to acknowledge the complexity and confusion
surrounding their use. Emphasis has remained firmly on
the practical aspects of fear. While some discussion of
the failure to acknowledge women’s fear or to take some
aspects of that fear seriously has taken place, this has
not developed into a broader concern with the differing
ways in which fear is experienced and its meaning to
individuals. More recently, however, geographers have
started to consider the relevance of emotions and
feelings to spatial behaviour—work that has clear
relevance to the study of fear (see Anderson and Smith,
2001). Such work has begun to appreciate the localised
nature of fear and the complex responses to it.
Importantly it has reinforced the idea that fear is not
something that happens out of context but ‘‘is situated
in the local details of individuals’ circumstances and
life courses’’ (Pain, 2000, p. 369). Thus the idea that fear
of crime is a fixed and measurable entity has been
replaced in many studies by an acknowledgement of the
complexity of fear as a response to crime and of its
variability between individuals. Recognising this com-
plexity is particularly important in understanding
women’s responses as Koskela (1999) has demonstrated.
She describes the findings of research amongst Scandi-
navian women and shows the different kinds of fear
that occur amongst different women in different
places. Koskela (1999, p. 121) concludes that despite
an external view that Scandinavian women are ‘‘coura-
geous and spatially confident’’, many are fearful as a
result of their ‘‘subjective feelings (which) participate in
the inter-subjective power-related production of space’’.
Research has also more recently recognised that as an
emotional reaction to a set of circumstances, fear can
take a range of different forms and can be transitory.
Different people have been seen as vulnerable to
different types and levels of fear depending on their
personal situation—feminist research has stressed the
particular dimensions of women’s fear, for example,
caused by the unique and specific threat of sexual attack.
With such research is an increasing acceptance that
fear may not be directly related to chances of attack.
Thus while some groups of people may have, according
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156 J. Little et al. / Journal of Rural Studies 21 (2005) 151–163
to ‘official’ measurements, little risk of experiencing
crime/attack, they may still be fearful. Such work has
argued for studies of fear to be situated within wider
discussions of power, again highlighting the relationship
between fear and social marginalisation.
Clearly, these definitional difficulties compound the
practical problems surrounding the measurement of
fear of crime. As recognition of the complexity of
fear as a response to crime has developed within
research so has a dissatisfaction with methods of data
collection which simplify and seek to quantify fear. In
general recent research has relied on a combination of
questionnaires and in depth interviews to gather
information on people’s feelings of fear and safety.
While preference is starting to be given to qualitative
methods in which more detailed stories and histories of
people’s experiences are recorded as opposed to simple
‘tick box’ answers, in some instances questionnaires
still provide a useful method of collecting data from
large numbers of respondents, especially where less
sensitive and personal issues concerning fear and
safety are concerned. With this observation we turn to
the methods of including data collection used in this
research.
3.2. Research findings—methods and methodological
issues
The present research has used both questionnaires
and interviews. A questionnaire survey of women in
villages in the UK and New Zealand (which yielded a
total of 269 responses) was followed up by in depth
interviews with selected respondents (19 in total). Here,
because the emphasis is on the broader patterns of
women’s responses to the rural community and to issued
of fear and danger, we draw mainly on the results of the
questionnaire. Further papers explore the detailed
interview responses (see Panelli et al., 2004; Panelli
et al., forthcoming). In addition to those with rural
women, interviews were also conducted with key
informants from a range of different organisations
working in areas relevant to rural women’s safety
(including the police, Victim Support, Women’s Aid
and Rape Crisis). In total 18 interviews with key
informants were completed and while they are not
discussed in detail here, material from some of the
interviews has been used to support the questionnaire
data.
Questioning people about sensitive issues such as
personal safety raises concerns about the relationship
between researcher and respondent. Feminist research
has generally been conducted within a methodological
framework which recognises the power relations in-
herent in such a relationship and has discussed ways of
negotiating the research process such that the respon-
dent can not only feel comfortable but also empowered
by the experience (see McDowell, 1992). At a practical
level we took care in our research to be constantly aware
of the power relations involved in the process of
gathering data and the sensitivity of the topic. We made
careful preparations before undertaking the question-
naires, discussing our research with relevant actors from
community organisations (including women’s groups,
health officials, the police and Victim Support). All
aspects of the questionnaire and subsequent interviews
were entirely voluntary with women opting in to the
research process as opposed to having to opt out.
Respondents were told in detail what was involved in
the questionnaire before being asked to complete it
together with how any information they provided would
be used. Contact numbers for women’s support services
and victim support were provided in case the ques-
tionnaire raised issues or sparked memories which made
women anxious or fearful.
The questionnaire and interviews were carried out in
two separate rural locations in both the UK and New
Zealand. This was to provide a spread of different sorts
of rural community—in particular to look at differences
between the accessible and well-populated rural centres
and the scattered, outlying communities. Neither the
inter or intra country studies were set up to be directly
comparative and, where differences in our data occur
between communities, we are careful not to assume that
it is a function of either nationality or remoteness. We
were keen to go beyond the one case study and believe
that the use of material from the differing locations
provides us with rich and robust data which helps to
demonstrate both variety and sameness. It allows us to
put into context the commonly held assumptions about
the rural community to test their widespread use and
applicability in very differing physical and cultural
contexts. We set up the studies to provide us with
different examples of the way ‘community’ is done and
fear is encountered. We started from the recognition that
experiences of rurality differ between people and places
but that there are common elements in understandings of
the countryside that may provide common threads in
explaining and dealing with those experiences. This paper
examines findings of the research, both place specific and
more general, and some of these findings we relate to
what we have observed as frequently observed academic
and lay constructions of rurality. We do not, however,
attempt to explain in detail the reasons behind these
findings or account for the way they may vary over space.
3.3. The case study communities
‘Otago Town’1 is a small rural township in central
south Island, New Zealand, surrounded by orchards
1
‘Otago Town’ and ‘Otago Valley’ are used to distinguish between
the two New Zealand case study communities as ‘accessible’ and
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J. Little et al. / Journal of Rural Studies 21 (2005) 151–163
and hillside pastoral properties, about one hour’s drive
from a regional centre. The population is approximately
650 people, however, this number fluctuates a great deal
seasonally. In summer large numbers of itinerant
workers move into the community to work in the fruit
orchards. This community has a large percentage of
retired people (23.7%—nearly double the national
average of 12.1%). There is very little ethnic diversity,
with the vast majority of people being New Zealand
Europeans. Maori make up only 9.4% of the popula-
tion. The township has been experiencing some eco-
nomic hardship in recent years with only 12.4% of the
population earning over $30,000 in 2001 (compared to
30.7% nationally). There is generally a strong sense of
community within the township with many residents
participating in the local school, churches, and commu-
nity organisations. There are two community police
officers based in the town.
‘Otago Valley’ is a more remote sheep farming
community situated within a long narrow valley
bordered by two ranges that are part of the foothills
of the Southern Alps. The majority of residents live on
farms that are stretched out over the large valley, with
two main communities clustered at either end. There
are some seasonal variation in population with an
influx in the shearing season, but generally the popula-
tion is stable. Again the valley is mainly New Zealand
European , with a smaller Maori population than Otago
Town. There are also fewer retired people living in the
valley. Recently there has been a growth of holiday
homes. The valley is approximately half way between
two regional centres and thus relatively isolated from
service providers; there is no resident police officer and
there are also no medical facilities or shops. There is a
primary school but older students go away to boarding
school. Despite the physical isolation ‘community’ is
actively constructed in the valley. There is a roster of
local women, who provide assistance to any family in
need. There is also a lot of social contact made through
the school.
The ‘accessible’ rural community in Devon lies just 5
miles from one of the county’s major towns. Most of
those in paid employment commute to this, or another
more distant local centre. The village is relatively large
with a growing population of around 1860. There has
been some recent house building including some ‘low
cost’ housing. Numbers of retired are slightly higher
than the average for the county although, unlike many
of the region’s villages, is not generally seen as a
‘retirement community’. The village is relatively well-
serviced with a school, a post office and several shops,
community centre and two pubs. The village is generally
(footnote continued)
‘remote’, used in the Devon case, have rather different meanings to the
UK and were not felt to be appropriate here.
157
felt to be a friendly place and to have a strong sense of
‘community’ and there are active community groups and
well-supported children’s activities. There is no resident
‘community’ police officer in the village and the lack of a
police presence seen as significant in terms of changing
levels of crime in the area, as is discussed later.
The ‘remote’ Devon community is in an area
dominated by sheep and dairy farming. It is a smaller
village with a total of about 850 residents. Commuting
into the regional centres does, increasingly, take place
from the village but a greater proportion of the work
force work locally, many in agriculturally related jobs.
The village is more strung out than the ‘accessible’
community, lying along a small but well-used secondary
road. There are some limited services; a few shops, a
post office, primary school and pub but for health
services, supermarket and more specialist shops, villa-
gers need to travel for about 45 minutes by car. There is
a sense of community in the village although it does tend
to divide into two parts, both geographically and
socially. Again, there is no regular or permanent police
presence in the village, the appearance of the police
being almost entirely confined to responding to specific
calls for assistance.
In the following section we discuss the findings from
the research; first we consider women’s views of rurality
and, in particular, the place of safety within dominant
constructions of the countryside as they were expressed
by those responding to the questionnaire. We then go on
to examine women’s actual experience of rural crime
and their feelings of fear in various rural spaces. Finally
we explore the actual source(s) of women’s fear, drawing
attention, in particular to the concerns emerging about
‘outsiders’ in the rural community and about young
people. As well as providing a rural dimension to the
issue of women’s fear of crime, the discussion aims to
contribute specifically to an understanding of the social
causes of fear and its links to social exclusion and
marginality and to the relationship between construc-
tions of place and the situatedness of fear.
4. Research findings
4.1. Safety and the construction of the rural community
As the research sought explicitly to examine the
relationship between the cultural construction of rur-
ality and issues of fear and safety, it was important to
identify the kinds of beliefs and understandings women
had about the countryside and, specifically, their own
communities. The questionnaire revealed highly tradi-
tional views of rurality amongst both the New Zealand
and the UK women questioned. Rural communities
were seen as friendly places by the vast majority of those
questioned (96.6% of the New Zealand respondents and
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158 J. Little et al. / Journal of Rural Studies 21 (2005) 151–163
86.6% of those in the UK used the word ‘friendly’ in
describing their village/community). Positive aspects of
living in the countryside were stressed including the
existence of a strong sense of community, peace and
quiet, lifestyle and climate. Typical comments about the
positive aspects of living in the countryside included:
It’s a very friendly village, even the shopkeepers are
helpful. Lovely neighbours that will do anything for
you. People talk in the street and there is a relaxed
atmosphere. (Devon accessible village, older woman
who lives alone)
Everybody knows everybody. Post Office is excellent,
superb church. You never need to be short of
anything—everyone shares everything. We started a
scheme to visit people with problems- death, illness,
bereavement, financialy no one need ever need
anything. My apple pies are well-known in the area.
(Devon accessible village, middle aged woman, lives
with partner)
The belief that the countryside was a safe place also
featured in respondents’ views of rurality in general.
Although few respondents identified safety specifically
in answer to questions about the countryside and their
reasons for moving there (3.2% of New Zealand and
2.6% of UK respondents), it was mentioned in the wider
discussions with respondents about the research gen-
erally. In certain cases a discourse of safety and rurality
was present in relation to women’s reasoning for moving
to these country areas in the context of specific and
personal experience of crime (normally violent crime).
For example:
I was a victim of a violent crime in Ry and wanted
to live somewhere safer. (Otago Town, middle aged
woman living alone)
[I moved] to have some peace, to get away from the
fear of being hounded by the person who brutally
assaulted me. (Otago Town, middle aged woman,
living with partner)
When asked directly, the overwhelming majority of
respondents in both countries (78.6% in NZ and 80.2%
in the UK) said that they thought the countryside was
safer than the city. Of the rest, most believed the
countryside and the city to be equally safe. Elaborating
on her answer, one respondent claimed:
As some-one who has lived in both big cities, small
urban areas and now in the middle of nowhere I feel
most safe here. I leave the keys in my car, sleep with
the windows open and enjoy the informal checking
up by neighbours—i.e. waving as they drive by or just
calling if they know I am home alone at all. (Otago
Valley, middle aged woman, living with partner)
Other respondents also suggested reasons for their
views, linking safety to other aspects of the rural idyll,
particular the notion of a tight-knit, caring and watchful
community, as in the following quotes from women
living in Otago and Devon
In a sense we are protected by one another. As most
people know one another and the community they
notice if something does not seem right. (Otago
Valley, middle aged woman, living with partner and
children)
While another respondent summed up her reasons for
saying the countryside is safer:
I believe women are safer in rural communities
because: (a) you are identified by the community,
(b) anyone arriving in the community with a suspect
past is quickly identified and this soon goes round the
‘bush telegraph’ (and) (c) a much more caring
atmosphere than the city where people look out/after
others. (Otago Town, middle aged woman living with
partner)
While it is true to say that the women questioned in
the study retained, for the most part, traditional ideas
about the friendliness and safety of the rural commu-
nity, some also acknowledged a degree of change. Just
under a third of all respondents believed the countryside
to be less safe than it was five years ago, suggesting that
the construction of rurality as ‘safe’ may be shifting
(at least in relative terms). This is not conclusive,
however, and, importantly, the actual source of danger
is generally perceived as external to the rural community
and, as we discuss later, more a case of the growing
influence of the city rather than of change in the intrinsic
character of rural places and people.
These findings resonate with rather generalised under-
standings of crime rates in rural areas in both the UK
and New Zealand. A recent report from the British
Crime Survey (Aust and Simmons, 2002), for example,
claims that both actual and perceived levels of crime
(including burglary and violent crime) remain lower in
rural areas. It goes on to note, however, that fear of
crime in rural areas has increased markedly over the last
ten years. While the report documents the fears
associated with different forms of crime it provides little
by way of explanation for the figures observed—such
omissions reinforce the importance attached in this
research of attempting to look behind the responses to
fear and safety and to highlight the spatial specificity of
explanations as well as the patterns themselves.
There were many comments on the questionnaire
relating to the increasing security risks involved in living
in the countryside (especially in terms of crimes against
property) and the need to be more vigilant now about
locking doors and watching out for ‘strangers’.
I assume the countryside is safe but everybody has to
be careful these days. I never used to lock the door
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J. Little et al. / Journal of Rural Studies 21 (2005) 151–163
but now I would not go to the shop next door
without locking everything. You can’t trust anyone
these days. (Devon remote village, older woman
living with partner)
.. I am aware of dangers, take precautions when
alone—and have a dog inside with me at night.
(Otago Town, older woman living alone)
For some respondents reduced safety in the country-
side was linked to more practical aspects of rural service
provision and not to the particular ‘qualities’ of rurality.
A noted decline in police presence was seen as highly
significant in the UK with 35.5% of respondents
commenting on the absence of police within their
community. In both New Zealand and the UK the
concentration of emergency services in larger towns and
cities had led to a greater feeling of vulnerability
amongst rural women according to some respondents.
In some ways its (the countryside) is safer. Less crime
because of the isolation but more dangerous if it does
happen (as it) takes too long for the emergency
services to get here. (Otago Valley, middle aged
woman living with partner and children)
While the remoteness and lack of services may have
been cited as reasons for the growing feelings of
insecurity amongst rural people, the declining gap
between town and country was seen by some as
increasing the vulnerability of rural people. Respon-
dents in both countries believed increased access to
media coverage of crimes to be partly responsible for the
fears experienced by some rural women. The fact that
rural areas are no longer isolated from urban areas
means that people are more aware of and exposed to
criminal behaviour. Again, as discussed below, this
point draws on the association of fear with the ‘other’ or
outsider.
We hear about it a lot. Police don’t do anything.
Crime is everywhere today, nowhere is any different.
You only have to see TV. Children as young as 5
create crime—what’s the world coming to? (Devon
accessible village, older woman, lives alone)
4.2. Women’s experience of crime
Despite the strong belief that the countryside repre-
sented a safer environment than the town, there was
clear evidence from both NZ and the UK that some fear
did exist amongst the women living in the rural
communities studied. Women were asked whether they
ever felt afraid in either their home, the rural community
or in the countryside beyond. Table 1 shows that not
insignificant numbers of women did claim to feeling
scared at times.
Interestingly, as the table indicates, there is a clear
difference between the two countries in the spatial
159
Table 1
Rural women who had felt afraid
Place where they NZ respondents UK respondents
were afraid
Home 25 (21.4%) 6 (3.9%)
Community 17 (14.5%) 22 (14.4%)
Open countryside 15 (12.8%) 21 (13.8%)
pattern of women’s fear; more women in New Zealand
said that they felt afraid in their homes than in the
community or open countryside, while in the UK
villages fear was much less commonly experienced in
the home than outside. This is possibly a function of
the remoteness of the New Zealand study area and the
fears associated with a lack of surveillance and close
neighbours although the breakdown of figures between
the two New Zealand communities, however, does cast
doubt on this explanation with only marginally more
women in the remoter ‘Otago Valley’ community stating
that they felt afraid within the home.
As well as asking about feelings of fear, the
questionnaire also enquired about women’s actual
experience of or involvement in criminal or other ‘scary’
incidents. Overall there was little evidence that specific
experience of more minor crimes had led to higher levels
of fear amongst the rural women questioned. Being a
victim of crime or witnessing scary incidents did not
appear to correlate directly with levels of fear amongst
the women questioned, although in the UK both
experience of crime and feelings of fear were consider-
ably higher in the accessible village. In general, then,
fears seemed to be related to more general perceptions
about the existence of threats in the area rather than to
direct experience. As discussed in the literature and
illustrated by the following quote, such fears may be
transitory and difficult to link to one specific incident
(Koskela, 1997).
I would never walk at night anywhere—isolated cases
in the South West but too many unsolved murders
etc. in the world today. You just can’t be too careful
anywhere. (Devon accessible village, older woman
living with partner)
Some women reported having been scared by threats
to themselves personally, however. In such cases their
fears were related to specific incidents and not simply to
more general ideas about danger.
[We] had an altercation with a neighbour regarding
his wandering stock. He trespassed onto our property
in the middle for the day and verbally abused myself
and my husband and tried to physically abuse my
husband. This happened about 18 months ago.
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160 J. Little et al. / Journal of Rural Studies 21 (2005) 151–163
(Otago Town, young woman living with partner and
children)
In the case of more serious threats to individuals,
however, the questionnaire is unlikely to reveal the
complex reality of women’s fears and it is dangerous to
draw firm conclusions on the basis of the questionnaire
returns. The reluctance of women to reveal that they
have experienced domestic violence, for example, is very
well known and there is still a paucity of research on
domestic violence in rural areas in particular. It is
possible that the fears expressed by some rural women
are directly related to the experience or threat of
violence that has not been disclosed. Some indication
as to the extent of hidden fear and violence with the
rural community came, however, from key informants
interviewed as part of the research. In both the UK and
NZ those working for organisations such as the police,
the health service and women’s support groups believed
that despite the lower levels of recorded crime in rural
areas, there is significant hidden violence in rural
communities. While recognising that violent crimes
against people often go unreported, particularly where
this involves domestic violence against women, some
informants believed that levels of under reporting in
rural areas were higher due not only to more practical
considerations such as the size of the rural community,
the lack of anonymity and the absence of support
services, but also to the existence of strong expectations
surrounding the safety of rural communities and the
harmony of rural social relations. The following quotes
from key informants in New Zealand and the UK
confirm the view that there are particular constructions
of the rural community that serve to reinforce a culture
of non-recognition and under reporting.
One of the big issues that I hear in terms of rural
women is that, it is very difficult for them to actually,
because their community is so small. I mean you
don’t, you know, everybody knows everything and so
it makes it more difficult for them to actually get
away from that. (Ministry of Social Policy, Well-
ington)
Probably not talked about or bought out as much
because everybody knows everybody and the fear of
your neighbour finding out or someone down the
street who’s a real gossip, you know, it’s just I think
it’s probably a different type of fear to what there
would be in the city. I mean, I don’t know that like all
the neighbours and everybody in the street knows
each other in the city. Whereas here, you just about
know everyone in town really, don’t you? (Women’s
Support Link, Otago)
(T)here’s still quite a lot more family around—in
towns and cities there seems to be a lot more
movement, I know some families still all live in the
area they were brought up in, but most families are
quite, sort of, dispersed, whereas around here there’s
a lot of family—aunties, uncles, cousins, you know,
and there is all that side of things—which can make it
difficult to actually admit what’s going on, but if you
do and leave, then you’re losing all those people, so
there’s an element of it I think. (Women’s Aid,
Devon)
The link between constructions of rurality and the
nature of women’s fear is also important in discussions
of the causes of rural crime, our final section in this
examination of research findings. Here, in recognition of
the arguments raised earlier in the consideration of
debates surrounding the conceptualisation of women’s
fear, we draw attention to social exclusion and the
relationship between crime, fear and the marginalisation
of particular groups in rural society.
4.3. Women, fear and the rural ‘other’
As discussed earlier, the notion of the stranger has
been seen as critical to an understanding of social
marginalisation. Constructions of the countryside serve
specifically to exclude ‘the other’, suggesting that
strangers are to be avoided, distrusted and feared. Rural
women’s fears are, we argue here, bound up with ideas
of invasion and threat and concerns about ‘outsiders’
undermining security. They are seen to unsettle the close
knit nature of the community by their very presence and
to challenge accepted values and expectations by
behaving differently.
Two clear sources of fear emerged from the survey,
both reflecting concerns about the threats from ‘others’;
either people from outside the rural area in the case of
New Zealand or local marginalised groups seen to be
behaving inappropriately in the case of the UK. In the
Otago accessible area seasonal workers (involved in the
fruit industry) are mainly itinerant groups or indivi-
duals. These were seen as the cause of much local
criminal activity and were feared in relation to both
crimes against property and people. In the remoter New
Zealand case study area fears were linked not to a
specific group of workers but more generally to
‘outsiders’ from urban areas – those moving in search
of cheap housing, for example or those looking for
casual employment. In the UK, in each of the study
villages, fear was often attributed to groups of ‘youth’
who were described as behaving in threatening or
intimidating ways or simply ‘hanging out’, causing
alarm to some residents. These young people were
identified as being mainly from the village itself although
reference was made by some residents to ‘outsiders’
coming out from the towns to hang around in the
village.
The identification of the itinerant fruit picker was the
clearest example of the association between the outside
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J. Little et al. / Journal of Rural Studies 21 (2005) 151–163
‘other’ and the source of criminal activity and thus fear.
Reference was made by women to increases in burglary
during the fruit picking season and to the social
problems (fights, drunken behaviour and domestic
violence) that were more common during this time.
Comments included:
In Central the crime rates go up in summer due to the
influx of seasonal workers. It can be a bit daunting if
walking alone at night and street lighting could be
better. In general quite safe. Although I could feel
unsafe on my own at night in summer. (Otago Town,
middle aged woman living with partner)
Most of the crime committed in our area seems to be
by outsiders. Fruit pickers, pruners, packers etc.
More and more of these people are employed as the
orchards are growing to full maturity. (Otago Town,
woman living with partner)
While the women often acknowledged that ‘local men’
were also involved in disturbances and fights, it was the
disruption in social relations caused by the ‘influx’ of
outsiders that was seen as responsible. The idea of the
rural community as harmonious and somehow ‘in
balance’ was clearly very strong and outsiders were seen
as threatening that balance simply by being present in
the spaces of the village. Although most of the women
who referred to the disruption caused by the itinerant
workers rarely used the same spaces as these outsiders
(the pub, the orchard bunk houses etc), their fear was
based not so much on a feeling of personal vulnerability
but on an awareness of a change in the social mix and
the atmosphere of the rural community during the fruit
picking season. The itinerant outsiders’ challenge to
notions of ‘community’ parallels previous findings
involving the ‘threat’ posed by travellers in UK village
communities (Halfacree, 1996; Sibley, 1995). In both
cases the itinerant others are constructed as abject
and threatening to the order of the sedentary/settled
population.
In the UK it was the ‘otherness’ of groups of rural
youth that seemed to cause most fear and anxiety
amongst the women respondents. These young people
were not as often strangers as in the case of the itinerant
workers in New Zealand, yet they were seen as acting as
outsiders; marginal within dominant constructions of
community as reported elsewhere (Matthews et al.,
2000; Panelli, 2002). Comments by respondents in-
cluded:
I used to be afraid when we had trouble with
youngsters. (Devon accessible village, older women,
lives with partner)
Gangs of youth at night in dimly lit places can be
very intimidating. (Devon accessible village, young
woman living with parents)
161
I’m scared at night because the kids all seem to hang
around in gangs. The bus shelter seems to be the
prime place. Look at all the graffiti and litter. Its just
not good enough. (Devon accessible village, older
woman living with partner)
The labelling of a particular village family as ‘trouble
makers’ by residents of the accessible Devon village
showed a similar process of othering from within. In
other words crime and fear were associated with a
known family rather than with outsiders or strangers.
While this family was technically a village family,
however, it was othered by residents as some kind of
rogue element and one which did not belong to the
village. The family was described as temporary and its
eventual disappearance from the village natural and
understandable, in keeping with its disruptive influence.
Again, the behaviour of this family was felt to be at odds
with what was expected of a rural or village way of life.
This year seems better as I understand the family
have moved away from the village and with it most of
our troubles. (Devon accessible village, middle aged
woman living with partner and children)
A friend’s son got beaten up really badly. All seemed
to be with this one family who lived in the council
houses. Daily trouble makers but they have been
moved from the village. (Devon accessible village,
older woman living alone)
5. Conclusion
In this paper we have argued that the spatiality of
women’s fear of crime needs to be further investigated
and that debates around the nature and causes of
women’s fear can be usefully extended by a rural
perspective. In doing so we are not arguing for a return
to an environmentally determinist perspective whereby
fear is explained entirely through the identification of
‘dangerous’ or ‘scary’ places. Rather we are suggesting
that our understanding of women’s fear will be
improved by broadening our inquiry beyond those areas
that have tended to be associated with crime and fear in
the past. More importantly we argue that the study of
fear needs to pay greater attention to the social and
cultural construction of space and place, specifically,
how constructions of place can influence the ways in
which fear is perceived and experienced. The country-
side, with its strong associations of safety and commu-
nity provides an important socio-spatial construction
within which to position an attempt to understand the
spatiality of women’s fear. The paper has provided a
broad-based discussion of a number of areas that need
to be developed further within research on gender, fear
of crime, safety and the countryside and we recognise
the somewhat general and inconclusive nature of our
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
162 J. Little et al. / Journal of Rural Studies 21 (2005) 151–163
arguments here. A number of conclusions can, however,
be drawn which provide foundations for future inves-
tigation.
Our research demonstrates the enduring importance
of notions of community, friendship, caring and safety
to women’s understandings of rurality. This parallels
previous research documenting lay discourses of rural
communities as idyllic, harmonious, safe places (Half-
acree, 1994; Jones, 1995; Valentine, 1997). Changes to
the countryside, especially the encroachment of the
urban in the form of development, people and attitudes,
has not, in the majority of cases, threatened a belief
in the value and superiority of rural areas as places
to live. Despite these beliefs fear was not absent from
the rural community, and this included reports from
women claiming to feel afraid in their homes, the village
or rural area beyond. While the relative safety of the
rural may be appreciated, there is recognition of
change—represented here as the disruption of specifi-
cally rural values and qualities by the alien influences of
the urban.
The paper has shown how constructions of rurality
and fear also impinge on beliefs and attitudes surround-
ing fear and the wider causes of that fear. The idea that
fear is caused by ‘strangers’ is not a new one—here,
however, the research has shown that the ways in which
we view rurality has implications for who may be
defined as strangers, others or threats to the idealized
construction of rural community. Outsiders are fre-
quently seen to threaten the notion of the rural idyll,
particularly the social and cultural values that have
endured in the ‘timeless’ rural community. Fears are
attributed here to a particular kind of stranger or
outsider; their abject bodies are out of place and their
strangeness defined as much by the failure to understand
and respect ‘rural’ behaviour as by their geographical
origin.
Having established the existence of fear amongst rural
women, more work needs to be done to identify in more
detail the nature and causes of that fear and its
relationship with rurality. This paper has focused on
positive associations of the rural community and their
implications for the recognition and explanation of fear.
There were also indications within the research that the
positive images and understandings of rurality may also
serve to obscure women’s fear and deny the existence of
danger. This is particularly true in the case of sexual and
domestic violence against women. The belief that the
closeness of the rural community and the lack of
anonymity afforded by living in such a friendly and
supportive environment could exacerbate the problem
of domestic violence, especially its acknowledgement
and reporting, was commonly asserted by key infor-
mants interviewed during the course of the research. The
problem of ‘hidden’ violence, both within and outside
the home, is not easily researched and yet remains
crucial to the experience of fear as it is shaped within the
rural community. Clearly there is not a simple relation-
ship between the perceived ‘qualities’ of rurality and
issues of fear and safety amongst rural women and there
remains considerable potential for research to further
investigate the complexities that have started to emerge
in this paper.
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