Urban and rural population types are not homogeneous or schematically opposed

Evidence

The relations between urban population and rural population are not of a single, schematic type—especially in Italy. It is therefore necessary to establish what is meant by “urban” and “rural” in modern civilisation, and what combinations may result from the fact that antiquated and retrograde forms continue to exist in the general composition of the population, studied from the viewpoint of its greater or lesser density. Sometimes the paradox occurs that a rural type is more progressive than a self-styled urban type. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 505

Categorization

• QUESTION: Gramsci’s insistence that ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ are contested, non-schematic categories anticipates later colonial/modernist critiques of false dichotomies — could matter for how Islamophobia scholarship treats geographic binaries.