Roundup: August 5, 2021
Recent Publications
The National Academy of Sciences has published Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Rural America by J. Tom Mueller (Utah State, Sociology), Kathryn McConnell (Yale School of the Environment), Paul Berne Burow (Yale, Anthropology), Katie Pofahl (Yale School of the Environment), Alexis A. Merdjanoff (New York University School of Global Public Health), and Justin Farrell (Yale School of the Environment). (Spolier: Not good, and we need a lot more information on rural-specific outcomes. The authors focus on the North American West and find rural population effects have been “severe, with significant negative impacts on unemployment, overall life satisfaction, mental health, and economic outlook.”)
Grace Olmstead recently published a book that is part memoir and part journalism: Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We’ve Left Behind. Based on the author’s experience growing up in, and then leaving, rural Idaha, Kirkus Reviews calls this book a “superior exploration of the consequences of the hollowing out of our agricultural heartlands."
Cassidy C. Duckett (J.D. Candidate, Temple University, 2021) published Downtowns and Diverted Dollars: How the Metronormativity Narrative Damages Rural Queer Political Organizing in the Tulane Journal of Law & Sexuality.
Mabel Denzin Gergan (Vanderbilt, Asian Studies) and Andrew Curley (University of Arizona, Geography, Development & Environment published Indigenous Youth and Decolonial Futures: Energy and Environmentalism among the Diné in the Navajo Nation and the Lepchas of Sikkim, India in Antipode.
Joshua D. Petit, Mark D. Needham, and Gleen T. Howe (all of Oregon State, Forest Ecosystems and Society) published Effects of Message Framing on Public Responses to Using Genetic Engineering to Restore American Chestnut Trees in Society & Natural Resources.
Jed J. Cohen (Johannes Kepler University, Energy Institute), Levan Elbakidze (West Virginia University, Resource Economics and Management), and Randall Jackson (West Virginia University, Geology and Geography) published Interstate Protectionism: The Case of Solar Renewable Energy Credits in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.
Ngaio Hotte (University of British Columbia, Forestry), Robert Kozak (University of British Columbia, Forestry), Stephen Wyatt (Université de Moncton, Forestry), and Rima Wilkes (University of British Columbia, Sociology) published Discrimination Impacts Trust During Collaborative Natural Resource Governance Involving Indigenous Communities in Society & Natural Resources.
News & Commentary
Lisa R. Pruitt and Ezera Miller-Walfish published The Silver Lining for Rural America in the Supreme Court’s Voting-Rights Decision in The Daily Yonder. (So good! Must read.)
Robert Leonard and Matt Russel recently published an essay in The New York Times entitled Why Rural America Needs Immigrants.
Ximena Bustillo published USDA Implements Heirs’ Property Lending Program from 2018 Farm Bill in Politico.
Sarah Blackwood published a look at photographer Lora Webb Nichols’ work in A Woman’s Intimate Record of Wyoming in the Early Twentieth Century in The New Yorker.
In the second part of a two-part series, Summer Sewell published ‘It’s Five Years Since a White Person Applied’: The Immigrant Workforce Milking America’s Cows in The Guardian.
Roberto Gallard provides analysis of new census data in Rural America’s Population Loss Stems from Out-migration, Not Deaths for The Daily Yonder.
Cost Range Radio recently interviewed Levi Van Sant (George Mason University) in Land Reform and the Green New Deal, Part One.
Max Graham published A Native-led Initiative Seeks to Spur an Agricultural Revolution in Rural Alaska in Civil Eats.
Emily Pontecorvo published The Next Test for Environmental Justice Policy? Defining ‘Disadvantaged Communities’ in Grist.
‘A Double Whammy of Tragedy’- Rainelle Residents Document Ongoing 2016 Flood Recovery Work in the Time of COVID-19 as Part of WVU Project discusses Jamie Shinn’s (WVU, Geology and Geography) work documenting the effects of the pandemic and flooding in WVU Today.
Liora Engel-Smith published an article highlighting the fact that even before coronavirus, almost half of adults in rural areas went without dental care in North Carolina Health News.
Events & Recordings
The West Central Initiative has organized an August 11th webinar discussing the loss of community newspapers and democracy. More details and registration here.
The 54th Annual Meeting of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Legal Assistance Fund will be August 19-21st. The theme is Build Back Cooperatively: Retooling for a New Economy. More information and registration is available here.