Roundup: January 24, 2025
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 Indigenous Perspectives on Dismantling the Legacies of Settler Colonialism in Rural Sociology, published by Rural Sociology, Clint Carroll (Ethnic Studies, University of Colorado Boulder), Andrew Curley (Geography, Development and Environment, University of Arizona), Doreen E. Martinez, Lindsey Schneider (both Ethnic Studies, Colorado State University), Johann Strube (Zhaagimaa Waabo - Territorial Planning Unit, Grand Council Treaty #3) address how the discipline’s failure to incorporate Settler-colonialism and Indigenous theory has resulted in a gap in the conceptualization of land as the foundation of social reproduction.
The Journal of Peasant Studies published The Political Economy of Agroecological Transitions: Key Analytical Dimensions by Ben M. McKay (Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Calgary, Canada), Ryan Nehring (International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC) and Georgina Catacora-Vargas (Agricultural and Livestock Sciences, University Mayor de San Simón, Bolivia). The authors use a political economy approach to propose avenues for considering the agroecological transitions necessary to reconfigure unsustainable food systems.
In Are Rural Areas Holdouts in the Second Demographic Transition? Evidence From Canada and the United States, published in Demography, Shelley Clark, Ann-Marie Helou (both Sociology, McGill University, Canada), Matthew M. Brooks (Sociology, Florida State University), and Rachel Margolis (Sociology, Western University, Canada) examine the factors of family change in high-income countries through a rural–urban lens and investigate whether rural areas experience demographic change more slowly than urban areas.
News & Commentary
The Washington Post published an article on a new $100 million wave energy project that aims to generate power for thousands of homes and businesses in the coastal town of Newport, Oregon. Because wave energy projects are relatively unobtrusive, they are less controversial than offshore wind and may offer a useful alternative to solar and wind options.
An article in The Daily Yonder highlighted a new resource hub providing mental health support to rural Americans who may otherwise face barriers to accessing care. The website offers free, anonymous, online mental health screening assessments and a self-guided platform designed to help users navigate their options.
The Alabama Reflector covered the opening of a public health care boarding school located in the city of Demopolis, in west-central Alabama. The Alabama School of Healthcare Sciences hopes their students will fill positions across the medical field and alleviate the state’s rural staffing shortages.
KFF Health News reported on local residents’ negative experiences with the 20-hospital system across Tennessee and Virginia that provides the only option for hospital care for residents in the Appalachian region. Ballad Health formed through a merger between two rival health systems several years ago, creating the nation’s largest state-sanctioned hospital monopoly.
Recordings
A PBS NewsHour episode in their “Rethinking College” series covers a New Mexico initiative aiming to bolster rural students’ college application and degree completion rates which fall well below those of their peers in urban and suburban areas, despite the fact that students in rural communities have above average high school graduation rates.
Last month, the Rural Journalism Collective hosted a panel discussion on how the media’s focus on contentious issues can result in sweeping generalizations about rural communities’ perspectives on issues such as abortion access, natural resource management, school choice, and programming at their public libraries. The panel featured Nicholas Jacobs (Colby College), Sarah Melotte (Daily Yonder), and Natalia Alamdari (Flatwater Free Press). A recording of this informal conversation about what journalists should consider as they report on contentious issues in rural communities is available here.
