The Rural Problem: Justice in the Countryside

Abstract

This paper makes the case that justice scholarship cannot adequately account for the rural grievances that helped launch Trump to the presidency. This relative blind spot in the literature offers an opportunity for rural sociologists and rural studies scholars more generally to elevate their relevance in the academy and beyond. From late‐2012 to late‐2017, I traversed the state of Colorado interviewing and participating alongside non metro residents from its 24 “rural” and 23 “frontier” counties—the latter designation refers to those counties with a population density of six or fewer persons per square mile (the state has 64 counties in total). The argument is informed by 129 face‐to‐face interviews with residents from across these 47 counties. An additional 144 participant observation‐related conversations help further inform the argument. After explaining why rural grievances driving much of today's populism remains a problem for justice scholarship, I document injustices experienced among those interviewed, categorizing them along the three axes of distribution, recognition, and representation. I then offer tentative suggestions for building recognition and empathy between metro and non metro Coloradans. The paper concludes discussing its limitations and the next steps for future scholarship.

On the Environmental Embeddedness of Redneck Identity and Politics: The Original Redneck Fishin’ Tournament and Invasive Species in a Rural Community

“…‘The Original Redneck Fishin’ Tournament’ took form in part through a historically established anti‐state politics, specifically via what Ashwood (2018a) terms a ‘rural rebel’ defence of environmental relationships, yet, only in part, for the complexities of redneck identity and its environmental embeddedness take many forms. Accordingly, our examination of redneck identity, politics, and environmental embeddedness dovetails with recent literature in rural sociology (e.g., Ashwood 2018a, 2018b; Carolan 2019) and beyond (e.g., Hochschild 2016) that is in the process or reappraising the political and cultural complexity of rural life.…”

“…Akin to Carolan’s (2019) recent call for justice scholarship to pay more attention to rural grievances, we believe it is important to better understand the great diversity of ways rural, specifically redneck, identity, politics, and environmental embeddedness build through each other, placing such understanding within broader contexts of socioenvironmental change. Contemporary divisions in national and global politics, in addition to the public acceptability in the United States of the label ‘redneck’ to dismiss rural concerns, often enables the reproduction of existing biases against rural peoples that does not appreciate the depth and complexity of rural environmental relationships.…”

Race, Ethnicity, and Twenty‐First Century Rural Sociological Imaginings: A Special Issue Introduction*

“…As the arrival of new immigrants has made the rural United States less racially and ethnically homogenous, demographic change has also challenged and reshaped community identities (Donato et al 2007). White rural residents have often confronted the twin phenomena of de-industrialization and demographic change, in which economic hardship is accompanied by both racial anxieties and decreases in cultural and moral capital (Burton et al 2013;Carolan 2020;Sherman 2009).…”

Settler Colonialism and Rural Environmental Injustice: Water Inequality on the Navajo Nation*

“…Recent work on the rural dimension of justice highlights the unique grammars and structures of injustice in the countryside (Carolan 2020). Rural areas across the United States face serious challenges related to water quality, quantity, and infrastructure (Flint and Krogman 2014).…”