Despite the high level of urbanisation in Australia, rural and regional political identities remain a prominent feature of Australian politics. This paper explores the ways elected representatives construct rural political identities and rural political needs and wants in Australia. The paper also considers the contested nature of these constructions and their interaction with party politics. In doing so the paper engages with the constructivist turn in political representation, which has to date had little to say on the place of geography. The empirical analysis draws on a range of qualitative sources including close observation of, and semi-structured interviews with, federal elected representatives, as well as other sources such as Hansard. The paper reflects on the implications of the empirical findings for our understanding of rural representation and, more broadly, for the role of geography in the contemporary study of political representation.
