Sundown Town to “Little Mexico”: Old‐timers and Newcomers in an American Small Town*

Abstract For more than a century, communities across the United States legally employed strategies to create and maintain racial divides. One particularly widespread and effective practice was that of “sundown towns,” which signaled to African Americans and others that they were not welcome within the city limits after dark. Though nearly 1,000 small towns, larger communities, and suburbs across the country may have engaged in these practices, until recently there has been little scholarship on the topic. Drawing from qualitative and quantitative sources, this article presents a case study of a midwestern rural community with a sundown history. Since 1990 large numbers of Mexican migrants have arrived there to work at the local meat‐processing plant, earning the town the nickname “Little Mexico.” The study identifies a substantial decline in Hispanic‐white residential segregation in the community between 1990 and 2000. We consider possible explanations for the increased spatial integration of Latino and white residents, including local housing characteristics and the weak enforcement of preexisting housing policies. We also describe the racialized history of this former sundown town and whether, paradoxically, its history of excluding nonwhites may have played a role in the spatial configurations of Latinos and non‐Hispanic whites in 2000. Scholars investigating the contemporary processes of Latino population growth in “new” destinations, both in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas, may want to explore the importance of sociohistorical considerations, particularly localities' racialized historical contexts before the arrival of Mexican and other Latino immigrants.     

The Aural and Moral Idylls of “Englishness” and Folk Music

The idea of “Englishness” is explored as an historical social construction that is subject to ongoing negotiation. Important features of “Englishness” are embedded in the sacralized symbolism of the “rural idyll,” which represents traditional English values. “Landscapes” and “soundscapes” are utilized to construct personal and national identities in periods of “revivalism.” By viewing English folk music through an interactionist framework, responses to the music build upon earlier collective works that have shaped traditional song. “Englishness” is problematized as either an inclusive, or exclusive, identity. Ideational artifacts thus provide a foundation for social action.¹     

Young People,Social Exclusion and Inter‐Generational Tension in a Rural Somerset Town

This article seeks to explore how the myth of the ‘rural idyll’ can be detrimental to those who currently experience some of the greatest social exclusion in rural areas — children and young people. The research explores the views and experiences of the young residents of a small town in the south‐west of England (n = 157, ages 12–18 years). The results suggest that rural policy and practice have failed to meet the needs of young people, contributing to their social exclusion in rural communities. Community engagement, facilities and youth consultation are discussed in the context of policy and practice.     

Repelling the “Rutter”: Social Differentiation Among Rural Teenagers

This paper examines low‐income white rural teenagers' management of race and class‐based inequality. It analyzes how these teenagers constructed boundaries to distinguish themselves from outsiders, but also to distinguish themselves from the local abject category of “rutter.” The findings reveal hidden interconnections between race and class in interactional practice, and highlight local processes of differentiation through which actors attempt to deflect stigma and attain credibility. The paper discusses how interactional mechanisms such as “internal othering” and “stigma‐theory” bolster race and class credibility, but reproduce inequality.     

Representations of “the West,”“Japan,” and “the Periphery” in the Discourse of Lafcadio Hearn Studies

The purpose of this article is to analyze representations of “the West,”“Japan,” and “the Periphery” in the discourse of research on Lafcadio Hearn (“Hearn studies”) from pre‐war Japan. The nature and construction of nationality will be analyzed by examining where the representations of “the West,”“Japan,” and “the Periphery” intersected. During the 1900s, researchers in the field of Hearn studies recognized that “Japan” lacked—and thus sought—a universality similar to what existed in “the West.” The tone of the discourse shifted during the 1910s through 1920s however, and what came to be emphasized was “Japan's” peculiarity. By the 1930s through 1940s, “Japan” aimed to show to “the West” a new universality that was different from what existed in Europe and America. Yet simultaneously, in order to legitimize its representation of its self, “Japan” portrayed “the Periphery” as an object that was both excluded and absorbed or appropriated into that image. On the one hand, “Japan” received and internalized the Orientalist viewpoint of “the West.” In fact, “Japan” was always conscious of its self‐image as something to display to “the West.” On the other hand, in order to create that self‐portrayal, both a representation of “the Periphery” and a reflection from that same “Periphery” were essential. While representations of “Japan” were produced, reproduced, and reinforced through interactions with “the West” and “the Periphery,” the intersecting behavior of these three entities also points to a residual ambiguity in “Japan's” nationality. By analyzing the discourse in Hearn studies, this paper reveals how the interaction between “Japan” and the two others of “the West” and “the Periphery” helped construct and destabilize its nationality.     

Single Mothers “Do” Family

This paper explores how single mothers both incorporate others into family life (e.g., when they ask others to care for their children) and simultaneously “do families” in a manner that holds out a vision of a “traditional” family structure. Drawing on research with White, rural single mothers, the author explores the manner in which these women both endorse their children’s attachment to other caregivers and maintain boundaries around issues of discipline and attachment vis‐à‐vis these others. The author demonstrates that single mothers are willing to share this protected realm of family life with a new man (a fiancé or cohabiting boyfriend) as they pursue the goal of what has been called the “Standard North American Family.”     

Agriculture and Rurality: Beginning the “Final Separation”?*

Abstract When is a farm a farm? When is rural rural? Has the issue of the rural‐urban continuum returned? Decades ago rural sociology worked itself into two blind alleys: rural‐urban differences and attempts to define the rural‐urban fringe. Although these conceptual problems eventually were exhausted, recent developments in California raise the possibility of a phoenix‐like revival, although in new form. Three cases—the success of Napa Valley winemaking and the urban crowding that has accompanied it, the explosion of wine grape acreage in neighboring Sonoma County as demand for premium wine grapes has increased dramatically, and an antibody‐manufacturing goat “farm” in Santa Cruz County—have spurred community controversies and are now generating debates over the definition of “agriculture,” whether agriculture is rural, and “When is rural rural?”     

“There Ain’t No Bond in Town Like There Used to Be”: The Destruction of Social Capital in the West Virginia Coalfields1

There is a paucity of research focusing on the circumstances that cause or contribute to a decline in social capital within communities. Furthermore, relatively few researchers employ qualitative methods in their studies of social capital, despite the multidimensional and many‐layered nature of this concept, characteristics that make social capital well suited for qualitative analysis. To address these two gaps in social capital research, I explore the mechanisms that have led to a depletion of social capital in the southern coal‐producing region of West Virginia. I examine whether the coal industry, which has caused bitter conflicts among residents over environmental degradation and union loyalties, has also undermined social capital in the region. My principal data include 40 semi‐structured, face‐to‐face interviews with randomly selected individuals in a coal‐mining town and a demographically similar non‐coal‐mining town in West Virginia. I analyze the experiences of residents in each town, assessing the qualitative differences in community and personal life associated with social capital. I find that the loss of social capital in the coal‐mining community has arisen through a combination of depopulation and the community‐wide conflict that arose when an anti‐union coal company bought out the union coal mine at which many in the community worked, challenging the union identity so engrained in this region.     

Fighting Corruption without the State: Civil Society Agency and the “Otokoto Saga”

The violent outburst of Owerri's civil society in September 1996 arguably signaled a new order in the fighting of corruption – through self‐help efforts. This outburst was a demonstration of public discontent over the activities of a few rich citizens in that town who were believed to have been involved in varied corrupt practices in making “fast” wealth. It was also a vociferous indictment on the State and its agents for ineptitude in fighting corruption, and complicity in criminal acts. Drawing from both primary and secondary sources in social research, this study critically examines the chain of events preceding, and the dynamics of the developments surrounding the societal conflicts in Owerri, Nigeria, popularly dubbed “Otokoto Saga.” It analyzes the varied dimensions of the societal conflicts, the authentic roles of civil society agency in a “self‐help strategy” and the responses of the State (and its actors) to the inadvertent eruptions. It further shows how Owerri's civil society agency “forced” the state to take critical steps towards the restoration of sanity in the town. The paper argues that civil society's critical awareness of its own roles in maintaining a corrupt‐free society was instrumental to their violent reactions. It concludes that deep‐seated fear and frustration underlined the reactions of the civil society, while moral panic and outrage triggered such reactions.     

“Not Allowed to Inherit My Kingdom”: Amenity Development and Social Inequality in the Rural West

This article, based on 84 in‐depth interviews and 10 months of ethnography, focuses on the rural Washington community of “Paradise Valley,” whose economic bases in mining, ranching, and logging declined by the end of the twentieth century. Recently, economic development has focused on amenity‐based tourism and second‐home ownership, as well as attracting wealthy in‐migrants. Job growth has been concentrated in construction and service sectors, particularly low‐paid, part‐time, and seasonal jobs in hospitality, retail, and food services. The community has changed from a relatively homogenous population of working‐class residents to a more diverse and divided community. The article explores outcomes of these changes, including gentrification and housing shortages, unemployment and underemployment, and a social divide in which the community's longtime and working‐class residents are marginalized. I explore these social consequences of amenity‐based development, illustrating the ways in which the social divide is reproduced and the gradual disenfranchisement of those with roots in earlier social and economic systems in the valley, focusing on the changing meanings and uses of different types of symbolic capital.     

When Bad Things Happen in Good Places: Pastoralism in Big‐City Newspaper Coverage of Small‐Town Violence*

Abstract An examination of big‐city newspaper coverage of violent crimes in small towns during a recent five‐year period reveals a remarkable degree of uniformity in the language reporters use to characterize life in these places. The cliches signal an underlying set of stereotypes of small‐town life: They are safe, close‐knit communities where bad things are “not supposed to happen.” Yet the point of the stories is that bad things do happen. Drawing upon culturological and sociological approaches to the study of news production, this paper argues that the small towns described in the news are symbolic landscapes that reflect a pastoral orientation among journalists and in the culture at large.     

“Taking Back Our Country”: Tea Party Membership and Support for Punitive Crime Control Policies

The Tea Party Movement (TPM) emerged shortly after the 2008 election, with members rallying behind the call to “take back our country.” Many observers suggest that the movement represents, in part, a racialized backlash against the election of Barack Obama, the nation's first black president, motivated by perceived threats to the racial hierarchy. Racial threat theory predicts that if the TPM is motivated by and reinforces racial concerns, racialized support for punitive crime policies that disproportionately impact blacks should be higher among Tea Partiers. Drawing on recent national survey data, this study tests this prediction. The results show that TPM membership is positively associated with punitiveness and that this relationship is mediated, in part, by Tea Partiers’ animus toward blacks. We discuss the import of these findings for competing accounts of the TPM, racial threat theory, and the argument that the United States has become a “post‐racial society.”     

Paving Paradise Exploring an Urban “Partnership‐with‐Nature” Frame

This article explores the possibility of a “partnership‐with‐nature” frame as experienced through interactions with urban “green” buildings. The discussion is situated in the broader context of an emerging green building movement and the cultural role played by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification framework and its supporting networks. Examples are drawn from an ethnographic case study of a particular green building, the Heifer International headquarters in Little Rock. More broadly, the article reflects on how nature and culture are coming together in new ways in our real and imagined urban spaces.     

Community,Ethnicity, and Class in a Changing Rural California Town*

Abstract This study investigates how community is constructed, maintained, and contested among diverse residents of a rural town in California's Central Valley. Drawing on observations, interviews, and archival material, I examine the way in which ethnicity and class play a significant role in recasting how community is organized and interpreted by Mexicans and long‐term white residents. In my field site, Mexicans have long been involved in (in)formal community‐making, yet long‐term white residents perceive a “loss of community” because social relations are no longer structured around an agrarian culture that at one time reinforced ties through volunteerism and interaction in local mainstream institutions. This article demonstrates the continual significance of place and interaction in defining community, but suggests that immigrants develop communities of need aimed at providing important social, emotional, and political support absent in mainstream society. Finally, this study also speaks of the competition for representation and respectability among rural residents developing a sense of belonging. “Community” is never simply the recognition of cultural similarity or social contiguity but a categorical identity that is premised on various forms of exclusion and constructions of otherness     

“More Normal than Welfare”: The Mincome Experiment,Stigma, and Community Experience

Cet article traite de l'impact d'une expérience sociale menée dans les années 1970, l'Expérience du revenu annuel de base du Manitoba (MINCOME). J'examine le lieu de “saturation” de la MINCOME, la ville de Dauphin au Manitoba, où tous les habitants étaient admissibles à des versements de revenus annuels garantis pendant trois ans. À partir d'archives de récits qualitatifs des participants je montre que la conception et le discours autour de la MINCOME ont amené les participants à voir les versements d'un oeil pragmatique, contrairement à la perspective moralisatrice qu'inspire le bien‐être sociale. Conformément à la théorie existante cet article constate que la participation à la MINCOME n'a pas produit de stigmate social. Plus largement, cette étude discute de la faisabilité d'autres formes d'organisation socio‐économique à travers une prise en compte des aspects moraux de la politique économique. La signification sociale de la MINCOME était suffisamment puissante pour que même les participants ayant des attitudes négatives à l'égard d'aides gouvernementales se sentirent capables de recevoir des versements de la MINCOME sans un sentiment de contradiction. En occultant les distinctions entre les “pauvres méritants” et les “pauvres non‐méritants”, les programmes universalistes de support économique peuvent affaiblir la stigmatisation sociale et augmenter la durabilité du programme. This paper examines the impact of a social experiment from the 1970s called the Manitoba Basic Annual Income Experiment (Mincome). I examine Mincome's “saturation” site located in Dauphin, Manitoba, where all town residents were eligible for guaranteed annual income payments for three years. Drawing on archived qualitative participant accounts I show that the design and framing of Mincome led participants to view payments through a pragmatic lens, rather than the moralistic lens through which welfare is viewed. Consistent with prior theory, this paper finds that Mincome participation did not produce social stigma. More broadly, this paper bears on the feasibility of alternative forms of socioeconomic organization through a consideration of the moral aspects of economic policy. The social meaning of Mincome was sufficiently powerful that even participants with particularly negative attitudes toward government assistance felt able to collect Mincome payments without a sense of contradiction. By obscuring the distinctions between the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor, universalistic income maintenance programs may weaken social stigmatization and strengthen program sustainability.     

Examining the Association between Hazardous Waste Facilities and Rural “Brain Drain”*

Abstract Rural communities are increasingly being faced with the prospect of accepting facilities characterized as “opportunity‐threat,” such as facilities that generate, treat, store, or otherwise dispose of hazardous wastes. Such facilities may offer economic gains through jobs and tax revenue, although they may also act as environmental “disamenities.” This analysis examines the possibility that the presence of such facilities equates with lower loss of rural human capital, a question as yet unexamined on a national scale within the academic literature. Making use of secondary data from several different sources, we examine the association between age‐ and education‐specific outmigration and 1) the number of hazardous waste facilities, 2) the number of large quantity hazardous waste generators, and 3) the number of hazardous waste landfills and incinerators across rural counties within the 48 contiguous states. Our findings suggest that the presence of hazardous waste facilities does not clearly equate with reductions in rural “brain drain.”     

“Being Raised by White People”: Navigating Racial Difference Among Adopted Multiracial Adults

There are increasing numbers of multiracial families created through marriage, adoption, birth, and a growing population of multiracial persons. Multiracials are a hidden but dominant group of transracially adopted children in both the United Kingdom and the United States. This paper introduces findings from an interpretive study of 25 transracially adopted multiracials regarding a set of experiences participants called “being raised by White people.” Three aspects of this experience are explored: (1) the centrality yet absence of racial resemblance, (2) navigating discordant parent‐child racial experiences, and (3) managing societal perceptions of transracial adoption. Whereas research suggests some parents believe race is less salient for multiracial children than for Black children, this study finds participants experienced highly racialized worlds into adulthood.     

“Moroccan youngsters”: category politics in the Netherlands

The article analyses the categorization of “Moroccan youngsters” as a problem group in the Netherlands. Since the 1990s Dutch‐Moroccan boys and young men are set apart as a problematic group that presents a social and security threat and an emblem of the failure of multicultural society. We analyse the intersectional “category politics” of Dutch politicians to situate Moroccan‐Dutch youngsters as problematic outsiders. Our analysis makes clear how national origin, culture, class and gender intersect in the categorization of “Moroccan youngsters” constituting a national‐cultural category, which is also defined in terms of a disadvantaged socio‐economic position. This categorization has important implications for policy arrangements and proposed measures. Existing schooling and training measures are seen as inadequate to end incessant intergenerational patterns of dependence and poverty. Intervention in the sphere of the family and parenting are deemed necessary to transform “Moroccan youngsters” into “good citizens.”     

“Culture Clash' Revisited: Newcomer and Longer‐Term Residents' Attitudes Toward Land Use,Development, and Environmental Issues in Rural Communities in the Rocky Mountain West*

Abstract Many rural communities in the Rocky Mountain West with high amenity values have experienced substantial in‐migration in the 1990s. Popular media accounts and some social science literature suggest that newcomers have very different values than longer‐term residents regarding environment, growth, and development issues, and that these differences are resulting in widespread social conflict. We evaluate these “culture clash” and “gangplank” hypotheses using survey data from three rural communities in the Rocky Mountain West that are experiencing amenity‐related in‐migration. We examine attitudes about environmental concern, population growth, economic development, and tourism development. Results indicate that newcomers differ significantly from longer‐term residents on a number of sociodemographic dimensions, but either there are no significant attitude differences between the two groups, or, where difference exist, longer‐term residents wish more strongly than newcomers to limit population growth and development in their communities. We offer explanations for why the results differ from media accounts and from the earlier research observations and hypotheses.     

Trends in Latin American Skilled Migration: “Brain Drain” or “Brain Exchange”?

During the last half of the twentieth century the Latin American sub‐continent, historically a region of immigration, became one of emigration characterized by intra‐regional movements and movements towards the developed world, particularly the US. The emigration of highly skilled resources was a new phenomenon in the 1960s and debate on “brain drain” took a significant place in academia and in international organizations. In recent years, within the context of intensification of the globalization process and by virtue of the drive for technological development and the subsequent demand for specialization, the issue has returned to both the arena of political debate and to the academic world. This article presents an analysis of trends in Latin American migration in the context of the new situation. It discusses whether there is a continuation of the “brain drain” phenomenon or the emergence of a trend towards “brain exchange” or “brain circulation”, as appears to be occurring in other parts of the world.