Nicholls et al.: “No Tyson for Tongie!”: The Battle to Protect a Rural Way of Life in Kansas

In “No Tyson in Tongie!”: The Battle to Protect a Rural Way of Life in Kansas, authors Walter J. Nicholls (Urban Planning and Public Policy, University of California), Cecilia Menjívar (Sociology, University of California), and Daniel Alvord (Sociology, University of Kansas) examine in-depth study of a massive local campaign in Tonganoxie, Kansas, to block the installation of a Tyson chicken processing plant in the town.

The authors used ethnographic study, interviews, and media data to evaluate the “No Tyson for Tongie” movement and concluded that the effort was largely motivated by and mobilized around a perceived “threat” of Tyson harming the natural environment and attracting immigrant workers, thereby destroying Tonganoxie’s middle class and White cultural framework.

According to the authors, political, social, and organizational obstacles would seem to make Tonganoxie an unlikely candidate for a successful mass mobilization against one of the largest corporations in rural America. However, the authors argue that three key conditions allowed the town to overcome these obstacles and stage such a powerful mobilization effort.

First, Tonganoxie is a “hybrid town” consisting of both established and longtime residents and newcomers. The authors note that while this heterogeneity could create challenges for some mobilization efforts here it was helpful in that Tonganoxie benefited from a “new middle-class,” with new residents offering “crucial resources and ‘civic skills.’”

Second, the town shared a powerful “rural idyll” cultural framework that valorized the White middle-class (with romanticized rural representations imbued with racial and class-based norms) and marked a powerful “moral boundary between the sacred rural community and threatening outside forces.” This common rural imagery helped coalese otherwise heterogeneous residents in this hybrid town around a perceived common external threat.

Finally, the authors also note how the town created conditions for network building, including common physical spaces for residents to nurture internal relationships (schools and public spaces) and used social media to make additional connections and build social cohesion. These organizational tools helped increase the town’s capacity to pool resources and enforce social cohesion and norms.

The authors situate this specific Tonganoxie case study in a wider literature and discussion on rural mobilizations and changing rural demographics. Against all the obstacles for mobilization, the rural idyll serves as a cultural framework that provides different groups of residents with a common way to value their life, assess threat, and be motivated for contentious collective action. In sum, the authors suggest Tonganoxie’s efforts were successful because a middle class provided resources and civic skills, a racialized cultural framework provided unity and motive, and social networks served as the organizational vehicle to connect residents and mount a robust mobilization to keep their town “rural.”

This battle in Tonganoxie is not an isolated event for rural America and No Tyson for Tongie! attempts to decipher the factors that make these local mobilizations work. The authors stress this battle reflects the political desire of some residents to protect rural areas from perceived polluting forces—whehter that be environmentally or racially—and, in so doing, raise difficult questions about what it means to preserve a “rural idyll.”