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)

What do we learn about the rural from Rango?

http://www.rangomovie.com/

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