“Sophisticated People Versus Rednecks”: Economic Restructuring and Class Difference in America’s West

Abstract

Lawson) In this paper, we argue for the importance of constructing a human geography of white class difference. More particularly, we present a theoretical framework for understanding the cultural politics of class and whiteness in the context of rural restructuring. We theorize these politics through an examination of the national discourse of redneck that has emerged in the US. We analyze the term "redneck" as one of several rhetorical categories that refer to rural white poor people. We argue that while various terms are employed in geographically specific ways and cannot be used interchangeably, they nonetheless function similarly in positioning the white rural poor. Our examination of redneck discourse exemplifies these processes and points up the need for a broader analysis of representational strategies that reinforce class difference among whites. Drawing upon three case studies of white rural poverty, we deconstruct these imagined rural spaces by situating discourses about white rural poor people in the context of geographically specific political economies of power and social relations in Kentucky, Florida, and Washington. These case studies, as well as the national discourse of redneck, represent rural poverty as a lifestyle choice and as an individualized cultural trait. Abstract rural spaces are construed as poor, underdeveloped, and wild; rural, white poor people are represented as lazy, dirty, obsolescent, conservative, or alternative. A focus upon the political economy of community resource relationships and the construction and reproduction of redneck discourses reveals how exploitative material processes are justified by naming others and blaming the persistence of rural poverty upon the poor themselves.

Playing in the woods: youth, leisure and the performance of gender relations in rural Newfoundland

“…Here, rurality is constructed as consisting of regressive, premodern and backward communities (Jarosz and Lawson, 2002;Li Naoire, 2008) that offer youth 'nothing to do' and 'nowhere to go' (Kenway, Kraack and Hickey-Moody, 2006).…”

“…Of these gendered, rural topographies, Kenway et al (2006) Spatial constructions of the 'rural' and the 'urban' are multiple, fluid and, at times, contradictory. Constructions of the rural as a tough, free, independent space (Hogan and Pursell, 2008), on the one hand, and as a backward and uncivilized space (Jarosz and Lawson, 2002), on the other, sits in binary opposition to contradictory constructions of the urban as civilized, sophisticated, as well as congested, unsafe, and dirty (Jarosz and Lawson, 2002;Jones, 2007;Vanderbeck and Dunkely, 2003). These multiple and shifting constructions of the rural and urban, although messy, nonetheless serve as central representations in the performance of rural masculinities and, indeed, are reflective of the fragmented and shifting masculine subjectivities (Pringle and Markula, 2005) that young men performatively embody.…”

Que penser de l’embourgeoisement rural au Québec ? Visions différenciées d’acteurs locaux

“…Ils s'investissent ainsi dans des causes visant à protéger les atouts de leur MRC. Pour reprendre les termes de Mormont et Mougenot (2002), l'action environnementale crée des alliances et des « nouvelles sociabilités » entre les populations rurales, ce qui a notamment été observé au Québec (Simard, 2007), aux États-Unis (Jarosz et Lawson, 2002) et en Europe (Bossuet, 2005 ;Sotiropoulou, 2007). Ainsi, d'après les quatre types d'acteurs de Brome-Missisquoi, les néo-ruraux sont sensibilisés à la préservation du patrimoine local, ce qui renvoie aux caractéristiques des « gentrifi eurs », à savoir, leur conscience environnementale et leur souhait de s'éloigner de la société de surconsommation :…”

Under-served and un-deserving: Youth empowerment programs, poverty discourses and subject formation

“…These organizations, though unique in their empowerment language, are but one example of a broader field of anti-poverty nonprofit programs. Thus, I approach this work through two overlapping literatures: feminist geographers' critiques of neoliberalization (Larner, 2000;Cope and Gilbert, 2001;Jarosz and Lawson, 2002;Larner and Craig, 2005;Bondi and Laurie, 2005;Kingfisher, 2007;Dolhinow, 2005; and relational poverty studies (Goode and Maskovsky, 2001;Harriss, 2009;Hickey, 2009;Schram et al, 2010;Mosse, 2010;Lawson et al, 2008;Lawson, 2012). Feminist critiques of neoliberalization emphasize that there is no one uniform experience of neoliberalism.…”