1st Edition

Knowing Your Place Rural Identity and Cultural Hierarchy

Edited By Barbara Ching, Gerald W. Creed Copyright 1997
    285 Pages
    by Routledge

    286 Pages
    by Routledge

    Knowing Your Place directs groundbreaking attention to the role of rural and urban places in identity construction. Written to redress the longstanding neglect and denigration of the rural, this book argues that the cultural dominance of the city has been reinforced by postmodern theory's near fixation on the urban and the sophisticated.

    The essays explore rural identity in a number of cultures and situations, and look at issues of contemporary interest. Topics covered include the uses of popular and high culture, the explosion of high technology, the social and economic impact of ecological policy, the role of labor in the global marketplace, museum curatorship, and post-colonial politics. Throughout, the essays address the many ways in which place identity alters and influences the experience of race, class, gender and ethnicity.

    INTRODUCTION ~ Recognizing Rusticity, Gerald W. Creed, Barbara Ching; Chapter 1 ~ Rurality and “Racial” Landscapes in Trinidad, Aisha Khan; Chapter 2 ~ “Is It True What They Say About Dixie?”, William J. Maxwell; Chapter 3 ~ “Ain't It Funny How Time Slips Away?”, Aaron A. Fox; Chapter 4 ~ “Campesinos” and “Técnicos”, Marc Edelman; Chapter 5 ~ Class, Gender, and the Rural in James Joyce's “The Dead”, Elizabeth A. Sheehan; Chapter 6 ~ The Roman du Terroir au Féminin in Quebec, Beatrice Guenther; Chapter 7 ~ Rurality, Rusticity, and Contested Identity Politics in Brittany, DavidMaynard; Chapter 8 ~ The Rise and Fall of “Peasantry” as a Culturally Constructed National Elite in Israel, Susan H.Lees; Chapter 9 ~ The Alpine Landscape in Australian Mythologies of Ecology and Nation, MichÈle D. Dominy; CONTRIBUTORS; Index;

    Biography

    Gerald Creed is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Hunter College and the Graduate School of the City University of New York. Barbara Ching is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Memphis.

    "The "Introduction" by editors Barbara Ching and Gerald Creed is worth the price of the book. Ching and Creed argue that there is a "culturally valuable rusticity" that must be identified and explored by scholars because of its great shaping power in human behavior and experience." -- H-Rural Book Review