The Rural in the American Geographical
Imagination
Cheryl MorseUniversity of Vermont Geography Department
One and a Half Minute Writes
A.
Please write about a rural place you have experienced.
Name the place and describe it as if you were explaining it to a Martian.
One and a Half Minute Writes
B.
Please describe what immediately comes to your mind when I say “Vermonter”. Describe this person: their age, attire, occupation, setting, actions, race, gender, etc.
Again, you are writing to a Martian, so be descriptive.
Is the Rural an important subject of geographical study?
Geographical Imagination
Our mental maps of places; and the ways we render spaces and places
“a lot of geography is in the mind”Doreen Massey
What we expect of a place, even before we experience it for ourselves.
what we expect of other social groups within specific spaces.
the importance of a “geographical mind”
Discourse
Lay (everyday)
Media
Academic
How do we develop our Geographical Imaginations?
A collection of ideas, beliefs and understandings that inform the way in which we act, and which are expressed in the material, taken-for-granted, everyday world. They are always partial and contested views of the world.
(Woods, M. 2005)
Social construct: a social concept or idea (such as race, class, gender, age) that is institutionalized and normalized within a culture to the extent that people behave as if it were a ‘real’ or a pre-social given. (Woods, M. 2005)
Defining the Rural
Iceland photo: Florence Lynds
At 3 scales of analysis:
GlobalUnited StatesVermont
Population-Based Definitions
Socio-cultural Definitions (descriptive)
Defining the Location and What is Done There
Social Representation
Common Attempts to Define the Rural
The Global Rural
New Zealand photo: Ben Fleishman
Global Demographic and Economic Trends in Rural Places
Bergen, Norway photo: UVM Student Ashley Barnes
The Global ‘North’
Vernazzo, Italy
…and the Global ‘South’
Three Villages, Ghana photo: Justine Jackson
Rural in the United States
Lay Discourses:What did you come up with in your writing
exercise?
Media Discourses
America’s Favorite Rural Representative:Kenneth!
In case you haven’t yet met Kenneth Parcells from NBC’s 30 Rock :
Clogging!
Here’s what we learn about New Yorkers’ views of the rural when Jack and Liz visit Stone Mountain:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/105439/30-rock-rule-of-three#s-p10-n4-sr-i1
Academic Discourses, part 1
• Wild Nature – Social Culture continuum (W. Cronon)
• Geographies of Exclusion – marginalized people are often located in marginal spaces, and aligned with dirt (D. Sibley)
• Rural norm is coded as male, white, working-class, heterosexual, conservative
• Bias against rural in the Academy (urban is the assumed norm)
Mr Foxworthy, tell us about Rednecks
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7E-isbgwpk&feature=list_related&playnext=1&list=MLGxdCwVVULXdGOxoVj82mJftdnaxTQil2
Academic Discourse, part 2
• Redneck is code for poor rural whites (Jarosz and Larson)– Obsolete– Unsophisticated– Not quite white– Racist– ‘lowest’ class / white trash
• There are hierarchies of whiteness
The Rural and Identity
• The rural/urban opposition generates not only political and economic conflict, but social identification as well. (Creed and Ching)
• Our identities are crafted from and developed in opposition to place identities
• These place markers can travel
Detachment of the Sign from the Place
The Rural in Vermont
Who was that “Vermonter” you imagined at the beginning of class?
Bumper stickers of VT
6,000-7,000
24,000-62,000
156, 545
ORLEANSFRANKLIN47,746
ADDISON36,821
ESSEX6,306
RUTLAND61,642
GRAND ISLE6,970
CHITTENDEN156,545
LAMOILLE24,575
CALEDONIA
WASHINGTON
ORANGE
WINDSOR
WINDHAM
BENNINGTON
Vermont County Population, 2010
POPULATION
One of every four Vermonters lives in Chittenden County
Chitt. County’s population is 2.5 times larger than the next most populated county, Rutland
loss of pop since 2000
Two Vermonts:One Rural and One Urban?
Or are we becoming more urban and more rural at the same time?
Data: US Census
Rural Urban
Population (2009 est) 413,705 (66.5%) 205,055 (33.5%)
Per Capita Income (2008)
$37,480 $41,139
Earnings per Job (2008) $35,867 $46,043
Poverty Rate (2009 est) 12.0% 10.5%
Not completed High School
14.5% 11.5%
Completed College 27.0% 34.8%
Rural – Urban Differences in Vermont
Data: USDA Economic Research Service
Media Discourse on Vermont’s Rural Culture and Landscape
1947: Vermont Life is Born
photo and logo: VermontVacation.com
The Co-Dependence of Rurality and Tourism in Vermont
Sabra Field
Phyllis Chase
Woody Jackson
Contemporary Representations of Vermont Landscapes – How Media Reproduces Constructs
Vermont’s Media Discourses
Rusty DeWees
One of Vermont’s Rural Representatives
Summary• ‘Rural’ is a social construct, that like race and gender,
spatializes social, political, and economic differences
• There are many ‘rurals’
• The ‘rural’ plays a powerful role in the construction of geographical imaginations, and in the formation of identities