Roundup: May 18, 2023
A regular feature of our growing online journal, The Rural Review, these roundup posts collect notable recent research, analysis, and related rural news and commentary. Feel free to send suggestions for future collections to us here. And, more details on other opportunities to contribute to The Rural Review can be found here.
Recent Publications
In their 50th anniversary edition of The Journal of Peasant Studies, the journal’s editors, Annie Shattuck (Indiana University, Geography), Jacobo Grajales (University of Lille, Political Science), Ricardo Jacobs (University of California, Global Studies), Sergio Sauer (University of Brasília, Political Sociology), Shaila Seshia Galvin (Geneva Graduate Institute, Anthropology and Sociology), and Ruth Hall (University of the Western Cape, Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies) revisit the agrarian question through four major topics of consideration: urbanization and labor; care and social reproduction; financialization and global food systems; and social movements. They find inspiration in the rise in rural movements and land struggles - which have driven up interest in critical agrarian studies - and extend an invitation for more research, vigorous debate, and scholar-activism on the agrarian politics that will shape our future.
In an article published in Sociologia Ruralis, authors Faye Shortland (University of Reading, Agriculture, Policy and Development), Jilly Hall (Supporting the People who Support Nature, UK), Paul Hurley (Geography and Environmental Science, University of Southampton), Ruth Little (Department of Geography, University of Sheffield), David Christian Rose (Water, Energy, and the Environment, Cranfield University), and Caroline Nye and Matt Lobley (both of Centre for Rural Policy Research, University of Exeter), address issues around farmers’ mental health and well-being and identify what they term “landscapes of support” for farmers. Using the UK as a case study, the article explores how support for farmers’ mental health can be improved by increasing the adaptability of these critical landscapes of support to better respond to needs in times of crisis.
A recent cross-sectional study published by JAMA Network Open raises concerns about the danger diabetes poses to rural Americans. Researchers Sagar B. Dugani, Christina M. Wood-Wentz, Kent R. Bailey, Adrian Vella (all of Mayo Cinic) and Michelle M. Mielke (Wake Forest University School of Medicine) found that rural counties in the US have higher diabetes mortality rates than urban areas. Reasons for the disparity likely stem from location-based challenges including access to medical treatment, nutrition, and exposure to environmental pollution. Rural health disparities in diabetes were consistent across gender, age group, and region of the country, highlighting the complexities facing rural health.
Regulatory Alchemy: How the Water Cycle Becomes Capital in the California Desert, recently published in Antipode, explores how perplexing scientific and regulatory approval processes have sustained a proposed groundwater extraction project for over 30 years, despite staunch opposition and an inability to secure the project approvals necessary to get started. Author Julia Sizek (University of California - Berkeley, Social Science Matrix) proposes not that companies involved are engaging in conspiracies and corruption, but instead that they are using regulatory processes to portray their projects as both scientifically sound and financially investable. This self-sustaining “regulatory alchemy” demonstrates how ideas about nature are created in environmental compliance documents to make a project appear profitable and more broadly legitimizes narratives for how wealth can be extracted from nature.
News & Commentary
Headwaters Economics took a closer look into the cost sharing requirements included in federal funding programs. In theory, these matching requirements are meant to ensure that affected communities are invested in the programs, but in practice, author Kris Smith (Headwaters Economics’ FloodWise Community Assistance) writes, they can create disadvantages for rural and lower-capacity communities who are unable to meet the requirements and thus are shut out from receiving federal funding. The report offers three potential solutions: expanding the definitions of what counts as local match, creating funding at the state level to help local governments, and eliminating local match requirements for climate resilience funding.
The Arkansas Democrat Gazette reported on a new project designed to research and preserve the history of African American communities along Highway 365. In response to a dearth of written history of rural areas, leaders from six Arkansas communities—Hensley, Woodson, Wrightsville, Higgins, Sweet Home, and College Station—established Project 365. Cemetery transcriptions, slave narratives, oral history, church histories, and photographs form the basis of the project, and leaders are reaching out to members of their communities to solicit feedback and confirmation about what the project has uncovered and to invite participants to help tell the story of these rural communities’ historical legacies.
Olive Hill, Kentucky, a small town with a population of under 1,500, was recently featured in this Daily Mail article for being host to six dollar stores, prompting locals to jokingly start referring to the stores as units of distance. But, the article notes, with fully-stocked produce and grocery options more than “three dollar stores away,” critics raise concerns about the high-calorie, highly-processed food offerings that make up the bulk of budget retailers’ food offerings. The article describes how dollar stores have expanded aggressively in rural areas and small towns in the past decade, reshaping the food landscape for American communities with limited supermarket options.
A report by the Daily Yonder found that rural homelessness has increased by nearly 6% from 2020 to 2022. A lack of access to affordable housing is a common factor, and the article notes that there may be more pressure on rural housing markets in recent years as people have moved out of the cities and into rural areas. While the article notes that the causes of rural homelessness are often distinct from those in other regions, it argues that even among rural communities, driving factors are multifaceted and often specific to individual localities, making it all the more “imperative to have systems in place to respond to those unique needs.”
The LA Times reported on the precarious position many rural US schools may find themselves in as the latest version of the Secure Rural Schools & Community Self-Determination Act, first enacted in 2000 but never made permanent, is set to expire later this year. The consequences of losing funding are wide-ranging as in rural areas, schools may function not just as places of education for children, but as support systems for small towns. The rural Northern California town of Hayfork, for example, depends on its school district not only to provide medical care and mental health support for its children, but also to act as evacuation centers for the community as a whole when wildfires threaten the area.
Events & Recordings
Recently, Better News invited three journalists, Sarah Nagem (Editor, Border Belt Independent), Hadley Hitson (Reporter, Montgomery Advertiser), and Danny McArthur (Reporter, Gulf States Newsroom) who serve rural communities to share their tips for building trust when acting in the role of “the media.” The panel urged journalists who live in areas different than those they cover to recognize the specific challenges they must navigate including learning cultural norms and pitfalls and addressing skepticism from local communities about their intentions. Listen in on the discussion and learn their top three tips here.
After decades of population growth in America’s big cities, recent trends show that some Americans are reconsidering urban life and moving beyond city limits. Listen in on this conversation with Claire Donnelly and Meghna Chakrabarti as part of the podcast On Point about the gentrification of rural areas as transplants with accumulated wealth buy property, shift class demographics, and potentially reshape the future of rural communities.
