Creating regional identity, moral orders and spatial contiguity: imagined landscapes of Mormon Americanization

Abstract

I explore how moral orders, regional identity, and regional space were simultaneously reconstructed in the Mormon culture region during a period of great social change. Careful attention to the concept of moral orders helps us understand how regions are culturally constructed. In addition, I urge more attention to the spatial form of such regional cultural constructions. In recent years, scholars have been prone to disregard contiguity as deserving of spatial theorizing. I argue, to the contrary, that we need to understand how, where and why contiguities arise. I use the example of the Mormon culture region's reworked moral orders that utilize cultural visions of particular natural environments to demonstrate this point. prominent figure in the fictional literature for Mormon youth from a century ago was the pure and innocent Latter-day Saint young woman. 1 This figure typically worked hard and was unselfish. She was mostly unfamiliar with the vices that tempt young women who had more time on their hands. But in spite of her innocence, she had a solid education and an appreciation for civilization's niceties. She typically lived on the edge of poverty and knew that her own hard work made the difference between her family's comfort (if minimal) and desperation. She was eminently capable as a housewife and possessed a sweet, undemanding personality, making her attractive to young men seeking a wife. If she had a weakness, it invariably lay in her attraction to non-Mormon city boys, who possessed smooth public manners and promised her a life of greater sophistication and comfort than she had hitherto enjoyed. The point of stories with such a figure was to show how she overcame, or occasionally was destroyed by, her attraction to such characters. With many slight variations, authors of literature for Mormon (especially female) youth repeated this general story over and over.As such, this figure is important, if not especially remarkable geographically. These

Region and place: regional identity in question

“…Scholars have traced culturalhistorical processes in specific regions (Brace, 1999;Crang, 1999;Oakes, 2000;Yorgason, 2002;Alvarez, 2002) and have at times been explicitly interested in the globalizing economy and the regional 'responses' to it (Cartier, 2001;Sletto, 2002). Research has also been carried out in urban and rural contexts (Haartsen et al, 2000;Van Houtum and Lagendijk, 2001;van Langevelde and Pellenbarg, 2001).…”

“…Regional identity as the 'identity of a region' or as a supposed combination of this identity and 'regional consciousness' has become a very popular, clearly international topic in cultural, political and economic geography. Scholars have traced culturalhistorical processes in specific regions (Brace, 1999;Crang, 1999;Oakes, 2000;Yorgason, 2002;Alvarez, 2002) and have at times been explicitly interested in the globalizing economy and the regional 'responses' to it (Cartier, 2001;Sletto, 2002). Research has also been carried out in urban and rural contexts (Haartsen et al, 2000;Van Houtum and Lagendijk, 2001;van Langevelde and Pellenbarg, 2001).…”

From eco‐theology to eco‐skepticism: How American Latter‐day Saint environmental perspectives changed over time, and how they may change again

“…However, by then, the culture had radically changed. The agrarian, egalitarian values that had animated Mormon communities during the 30-year period of Youngian leadership (1847-1877) fell increasingly out of fashion (Flores, 1983;Kelson, 2006) and the church began to, "Americanize" (Larson, 1970;Mazur, 1999;Yorgason, 2002). Several factors contributed to this.…”

“…As eco‐theology disappeared, Mormon values shifted. Yorgason identifies a major transformation of what he calls the “moral order” during this period of Americanization (Yorgason, 2002). The most obvious changes included a transformation in gender roles, national identity, and economy (leaders began to laud efforts to gain individual rather than collective wealth) (Yorgason, 2002, pp.…”