Shade & Van Sant: Researching Rural Land Ownership

In Geographies of Land Ownership Change in the Rural United States: Challenges, Methods, and Possibilities, Lindsay Shade (Community and Leadership Development, University of Kentucky) and Levi Van Sant (Integrative Studies, George Mason University) outline challenges and potential solutions to researching land ownership in rural United States. Their research draws on their particular experiences with a participatory action research project, the Appalachian Land Study.

First, the article identifies the numerous challenges of gathering and processing data related to rural land ownership. These include issues of political stonewalling, data accessibility and quality, evolving property law frameworks, and land fragmentation itself. The authors, as part of the Appalachian Land Study, worked to minimize these challenges by engaging in a participatory action research project that facilitated engagement and reflection by those most affected by the research and its themes.

The article then highlights three specific methods used in studying rural land ownership based on the authors’ experiences in the Appalachian Land Study. These three methods include participatory planning and design, approaches to estimating ownership and taxation disparities, and applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology and spatial statistics. These methods encourage active collaboration with local communities for research accessibility and accuracy by using local knowledge to supplement public records.

The authors especially note the success of robust, centralized state GIS systems in creating consistent and quality data of land ownership in rural communities. States like North Carolina and Tennessee have implemented such GIS systems, aiding in more accurate records and efficient research.

While the article focuses on the Appalachia Land Study, the methods discussed are broadly applicable. The article emphasizes the complexity and difficulty many researchers face in researching rural land ownership. Shade and Van Sant provide future researchers with methodologies they hope will assist in engaging diverse publics with important questions about who can access, make decisions about, and benefit from land.

For more on this important theme of who owns land in rural America, consider these workshop notes from the Project’s recent convening on this topic.