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The Rural in the American Geographical Imagination

The Rural in the American Geographical Imagination. Cheryl Morse University 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.

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The Rural in the American Geographical Imagination

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  1. The Rural in the American Geographical Imagination Cheryl Morse University of Vermont Geography Department

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. Is the Rural an important subject of geographical study?

  5. 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.

  6. the importance of a “geographical mind”

  7. How do we develop our Geographical Imaginations? Discourse 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) Lay (everyday) Media Academic 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)

  8. Defining the Rural • At 3 scales of analysis: • Global • United States • Vermont Iceland photo: Florence Lynds

  9. Common Attempts to Define the Rural • Population-Based Definitions • Socio-cultural Definitions (descriptive) • Defining the Location and What is Done There • Social Representation

  10. The Global Rural New Zealand photo: Ben Fleishman

  11. Global Demographic and Economic Trends in Rural Places Bergen, Norway photo: UVM Student Ashley Barnes

  12. The Global ‘North’ Vernazzo, Italy

  13. …and the Global ‘South’ Three Villages, Ghana photo: Justine Jackson

  14. Rural in the United States Lay Discourses: What did you come up with in your writing exercise?

  15. Media Discourses

  16. 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

  17. 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)

  18. What do we learn about the rural from Rango? http://www.rangomovie.com/

  19. Mr Foxworthy, tell us about Rednecks • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7E-isbgwpk&feature=list_related&playnext=1&list=MLGxdCwVVULXdGOxoVj82mJftdnaxTQil2

  20. 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

  21. 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

  22. Detachment of the Sign from the Place

  23. The Rural in Vermont Who was that “Vermonter” you imagined at the beginning of class?

  24. Bumper stickers of VT

  25. Vermont County Population, 2010 Two Vermonts: One Rural and One Urban? Or are we becoming more urban and more rural at the same time? GRAND ISLE 6,970 FRANKLIN 47,746 ORLEANS One of every four Vermonters lives in Chittenden County ESSEX 6,306 LAMOILLE 24,575 CHITTENDEN 156,545 CALEDONIA WASHINGTON Chitt. County’s population is 2.5 times larger than the next most populated county, Rutland ADDISON 36,821 ORANGE WINDSOR RUTLAND 61,642 POPULATION 6,000-7,000 24,000-62,000 BENNINGTON 156, 545 loss of pop since 2000 WINDHAM Data: US Census

  26. Rural – Urban Differences in Vermont Data: USDA Economic Research Service

  27. Media Discourse on Vermont’s Rural Culture and Landscape 1947: Vermont Life is Born

  28. The Co-Dependence of Rurality and Tourism in Vermont photo and logo: VermontVacation.com

  29. Sabra Field Woody Jackson Phyllis Chase Contemporary Representations of Vermont Landscapes – How Media Reproduces Constructs

  30. Vermont’s Media Discourses Rusty DeWees One of Vermont’s Rural Representatives

  31. 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

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