The 21st century has seen a rise in far right sentiment and politics across Europe. This is sometimes attributed to rural communities and the spaces imagined to be backward within states. I am interested in the effect on people who live in communities which are portrayed as backwards, peripheral and extreme. To what extent do people in these communities feel part of the national project? How is whiteness performed in these spaces? Are there differences between national and local discourses on the national project, rurality and whiteness? How are immigrants seen in these peripheries and what is it like to be an immigrant within them?

The research will be conducted in Wales and Northern Sweden. It will broaden our understanding of the relationship between peripheral rural communities and the national project as well as how the notions of whiteness and migration are performed, understood, contested and valued in these locations.