Engendering Identity(s) in a Rural Arkansas Ozark Community

While a number of recent health care studies have focused on the availability of modern health care services among rural U.S. populations, the commensurate study of access to folk medical systems has been relatively neglected. In this paper we explore the cultural conservation of folk medicinal plant use in 14 communities across the Ozark Mountain region of Arkansas and Missouri. Six relevant socioeconomic and demographic factors are examined in relation to the number of medicinal plant applications reported by expert informants in each locale. Using a multiple correlation and regression analysis, we find that the preservation of traditional medicine and praxis in the Ozarks is inversely related to community "delocalization." It is suggested that the survival of esoteric, albeit dynamic, medical knowledge and praxis among rural populations ultimately depends upon sustaining biological and cultural diversity.

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In Search of Arcadia: Agrarian Values and the Homesteading Tradition in the Ozarks, USA

Campbell¹

2016

Environmental Values

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The Ozark Highlands’ karst topography of caves and hollows has provided refuge and escape for myriad peoples seeking to evade mainstream society throughout history, ranging from displaced Native Americans to counter-cultural back-to-the-landers. This ethnographic and ethnohistorical research moves beyond the popular misconception that the back-to-the-land movement merely represented an offshoot of the countercultural revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, and situates it within a deeper historical context. In this paper, I present the Arcadian evocations in various Ozark-related media and how they relate to homesteading in the region, and demonstrate the shared agrarian values among diverse waves of agrarian Ozark homesteaders, recent and historical.

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Engendering Identity(s) in a Rural Arkansas Ozark Community

Cited by 4 publications

References 10 publications

Open-Pollinated Seed Exchange: Renewed Ozark Tradition as Agricultural Biodiversity Conservation

Open-Pollinated Seed Exchange: Renewed Ozark Tradition as Agricultural Biodiversity Conservation

Cultural Conservation of Medicinal Plant Use in the Ozarks

In Search of Arcadia: Agrarian Values and the Homesteading Tradition in the Ozarks, USA

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