Roundup: August 30, 2024
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
Mustering the Political Will to Help Left-behind Places in a Polarized USA by Lisa R. Pruitt (UC Davis Law), published in Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, considers how the current era of extreme political polarization hampers efforts to focus on the shared progress and coalition building necessary to address regional inequality. While rural voters alone cannot decide presidential elections, the article acknowledges that the swing of rural voters suggests that the rural-urban divide is now the biggest source of political friction.
In I'm Not ‘Fake Rural’: Rural Student Negotiation of Identity and Place in Medical School published by Sociologia Ruralis, a team of Australian-based researchers examined the accessibility of medical education for rural students, focusing on the intersection of rurality and socioeconomic privilege. Based on a study of rural medical students from four Australian medical schools, authors Nicole Shepherd, Romy Wilson Gray (both Medical Education, University of Queensland), Wendy Hu (Medicine, Western Sydney University), Sarah Hyde (Rural Medicine, Charles Sturt University), Riitta Partanen (UQ Rural Clinical School, University of Queensland), Alexia Pena (Robinson Research Institute, University of Adelaide), Lucie Walters (Adelaide Rural Clinical School, University of Adelaide), and Rebecca Olson (Social Science, University of Queensland) share findings that may help widen accessibility to medical education.
In Just a Place or a Just Place: Domestic Violence, Urban-Rural Differences, and Access to Justice in the Kentucky Law Journal, Cassie Chambers Armstrong (University of Louisville School of Law) examines rural court systems to understand how they are serving survivors of domestic violence. The article explores why outcomes based on the rate of legal representation, provision of non-court resources and information, the structures of a given court system, and patterns of judicial discretion are different in rural communities and highlights the barriers survivors face when navigating court systems.
News & Commentary
The Guardian published a story on the use of autonomous, artificial intelligence robots used on an increasing number of US farms to tackle weeding and other field work. The robotic services allow farmers to rely less on chemicals, beneficial to both environmental and human health, and is pitched as sparing workers from being in the fields on excessively hot days.
The Nevada Current covered efforts urging state lawmakers to establish policies requiring federal agencies to coordinate land use planning and management decisions with state and county governments when considering massive utility-scale energy projects as officials in cash-strapped rural Nevada counties struggle to manage the influx of proposed energy projects.
An article in the Los Angeles Times noted that despite declaring clean drinking water a human right in 2012, many of California’s rural areas are still reliant on contaminated water. Small systems, typical in rural areas, and factors such as extreme weather, new contaminants, and increasing cost further exacerbate communities experiencing disinvestment.
A USDA Economic Research Service study examined the devastating effect an influx of dollar stores into rural areas can have on small businesses, especially in rural communities. Dollar stores upend the historical role of independent grocery stores or small-scale grocers who accounted for about half of the food retailers in 44 percent of U.S. counties in 2015.
Events & Recordings
A recent episode of Food Tank’s Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg shares a conversation with Veronica Womack, Executive Director of the Rural Studies Institute at George College, about the country’s long overlooked and underdeveloped Black Belt region which extends from eastern Texas to eastern Virginia. The podcast delves into the resilience of the people of the region, the storytelling that is essential to amplifying people’s voices and connecting one another, and the plans for future rural development that will meet the needs of the communities that comprise the region. Listen here.
Rural Power Coalition shared a short video highlighting the benefits of agrivoltaics, a practice that integrates agriculture with solar energy with the goal of benefiting farmers, crops, livestock, the environment, and rural communities. Watch the two-minute introduction to agrivoltaics here.
