‘The Sky Is Too Big’: Reclaimed Flatlands and their Communities, What Happens When the Edge of the World Becomes Its Centre, and Romanticization in Fieldwork

Abstract

Around the east and south-east coast of England are many areas of drained marshland and reclaimed flatlands. While their histories vary, many were specifically reclaimed for agricultural purposes, some quite deliberately as remote but resource-rich locations. Romney Marsh, in Kent, provided rich sheep grazing for upland farmers but was a hostile place not easy of habitation. What happens to such places as demographics, infrastructure, and access change? This article reflects on the author’s lifelong experiences of the Marsh and periodic fieldwork in its fishing and farming communities as well as among the more recent migrants. Even into the 1980s Dungeness had a reputation for remoteness, despite the presence of a nuclear power station. Feelings of surprise at increased traffic there raise questions of romanticization in folklore fieldwork.