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The arts and arts management exist in every corner of the world, from the largest city to the smallest town. However, just as a metropolis and a hamlet bear little resemblance to each other despite similar basic needs, arts organizations in the former frequently bear little resemblance to those in the latter, and many foundational arts management texts give little attention to rural settings. This book combines insights from research and practice to fill that knowledge gap and help readers understand arts administration in rural communities.Focusing on the North American setting but including comparative examples and references from around the world, this book examines how areas of practice familiar to any arts manager work in rural areas, including research and best practices for navigating the paucity of resources frequently encountered in rural communities. Emphasizing a “by rural, for rural” perspective, this book frames the arts as integral components of vibrant rural communities and valuable tools for meeting these communities'needs.Written by arts and nonprofit management professors with backgrounds in rural arts research and practice, this book provides a valuable resource for scholars, advanced students and reflective practitioners at the intersection of the arts and rural studies.

Rural Geographies provides a critical, contemporary and accessible introduction to rural change by using geographical ideas to understand current issues affecting the countryside.The book discusses how the countryside has been studied by geographers across a range of different scales, from village community to the global countryside. Each chapter provides a concise and well-illustrated introduction to a key theme in rural geography, using current literature and contemporary examples. The book is divided into four sections that cover rural contexts, changes, contests and cultures. The volume takes a global perspective but is largely centred on the Global North, reflecting the tradition of scholarship in rural geography.Rural Geographies is driven by thinking in human geography. It reflects how major paradigmatic changes in the discipline have impacted, and have been informed by, the sub-discipline of rural geography. The aim is to introduce key ideas and concepts that will teach students the critical skills necessary to analyse rural issues themselves. The text will be a valuable resource for undergraduate students studying rural geography and rural studies.

Gender-based violence (GBV) can take many forms and have detrimental effects across generations and cultures. The triangulation of GBV, rurality and rural culture is a challenging and essential topic and this edited collection provides an innovative analysis of GBV in rural communities. Focusing on under-studied and/or oppressed groups such as immigrants and LGBTQIA+ people, the book explores new theories on patterns of violence. Giving insights into GBV education and prevention, the text introduces community justice and victim advocacy approaches to tackling issues of GBV in rural areas. From policy review into actionable change, the editors examine best practices to positively affect the lives of survivors.

A touching four-year chronicle of five girls coming of age in impoverished rural Maine and learning to forge their own paths through life's struggles.“Remarkably poignant and timely... should be read by anyone who cares to understand rural America's human tragedies and heroic triumphs.” —John J. Dilulio, Jr.Nestled in Maine's far northeast corner, Washington County sits an hour's drive from the heart of famed and bustling Acadia National Park. Yet it's a world away. For Willow, Vivian, McKenna, Audrey, and Josie—five teenage girls caught between tradition and transformation in this remote region—it's home. Based on four years of intimate reporting, Downeast follows their journeys of heartbreak and hope in uncertain times, creating a nuanced and unique portrait of small-town life with women at its center. It crafts a powerful and optimistic counternarrative to the dominant downbeat stories about rural America as a place of hopelessness and despair.All five girls know the pain and joy of life in a region whose rugged beauty and stoicism mask dwindling populations, vanishing job opportunities, and pervasive opioid addiction. As the girls reach adulthood, they discover that despite significant challenges, there is much to celebrate in “the valley of the overlooked.”Their stories remind us of the value of timeless ideals: strength of family and community, resilience in the face of hurdles, reverence for nature's rule, dignity in cracked hands and muddied shoes, and the enduring power of home.“A remarkable book.... Downeast is important, arresting, and engrossing.” —Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times–bestselling author“It's almost impossible not to care about these fierce young women and cheer for their hard-won successes.” —Kirkus Reviews“Well-researched and compelling... a celebration of hard work rewarded and family connections cherished. It is not in any way saccharine, but it is a welcome dose of positivity in a troubled time.” —Portland Press Herald

In this collection, researchers analyze rural societies, economies, and governance in North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia through the lens of rights and citizenship, across such varied domains as education, employment, and health. The provocative concept of a “right to be rural” illuminates not only the challenges faced by rural communities worldwide, but also underappreciated facets of community resilience in the face of these challenges. The book's central question—“is there a right to be rural?”—offers insights into how these communities are created, maintained, and challenged. The authors illustrate that citizenship rights have a spatial character, and that this observation is critical to studying and understanding rural life in the twenty-first century. Scholars and policymakers concerned with the health and well-being of rural communities will be interested in this book. Contributors: Ray Bollman, Clement Chipenda, Innocent Chirisa, Logan Cochrane, Pallavi Das, Laura Domingo-Peñafiel, Laura Farré-Riera, Jens Kaae Fisker, Karen R. Foster, Lesley Frank, Greg Hadley, Stacey Haugen, Jennifer Jarman, Kathleen Kevany, Eshetayehu Kinfu, Al Lauzon, Katie MacLeod, Jeofrey Matai, Ilona Matysiak, Kayla McCarney, Rachel McLay, Egon Noe, Howard Ramos, Katja Rinne-Koski, Sulevi Riukulehto, Sarah Rudrum, Ario Seto, Nuria Simo-Gil, Peggy Smith, Sara Teitelbaum, Annette Aagaard Thuesen, Tom Tom, Ashleigh Weeden, Satenia Zimmermann

Issues concerning globalisation, protection of identity and resistance to change at the national level (e.g., Brexit) have been the cause of much public and scholarly debate. With this in mind, this book demonstrates how these national, and indeed global narratives, have impacted on and are influenced by ‘going-ons'in local contexts. By situating these national narratives within a rural context, Kerrigan expertly explores, through ethnographic research, how similar consequences of informal social control and exclusion are maintained in rural England in order to protect rural identity from social and infrastructural change. Drawing on observation, participant observation, and in-depth interviews, ‘A Threatened Rural Idyll'illustrates how residents from a small but developing rural town in the South of England perceived changes associated with globalisation, such as population growth, inappropriate building developments, and the influx of service industries. For many of the residents, particularly those of middle-class status and long-standing in the town, these changes were seen as a direct threat to the rural character of the town. The investigation highlights how community dynamics and socio-spatial organisation of daily life work to protect the rural traditions inherent in the social and spatial landscape of the town and to maintain the dominance of its largely white, middle-class character. As a result, Kerrigan contends that the resistance to change has the consequence of constructing a social identity that attempts to reinforce the notions of a rural idyll to the exclusion of processes and people seen as representing different values and ideals.

The world has been witnessing a long unfolding process of urbanization that not only has altered the structural basis of society in terms of political economy, but has also symbolically relegated rural people and life to a secondary or deviant status through an ideology of urbanormativity. Both structural and cultural changes rooted in urbanization are connected in complex ways to spatial arrangements that can be described in terms of inequality and uneven development. Through a focus on localities, Studies in Urbanormativity: Rural Community in Urban Society examines the implications of urbanization and its corresponding ideology. Urbanormativity justifies rural domination by holding urban life as the standard against which rural forms are compared and deemed to be irregular, inferior, or deviant. Urban production, as conceptualized in this book, is inherently exploitative of rural resources—natural, social, cultural, and symbolic. As this exploitation advances, a wake of entropic conditions is left behind in the forms of degraded landscapes, broken social institutions, and denigrated communities, cultures and identities. Edited by Gregory M. Fulkerson and Alexander R. Thomas, Studies in Urbanormativity engages a topic on which scholars have been surprisingly silent. Designed for advancing theory and practice, the chapters provide new theoretical tools for understanding the complex relationship between the urban and rural. While primarily intended for scholars and practitioners interested in rural life, rural policy, and community development, the insights of this book will also be of interest to scholars studying various forms of cultural and social domination, as well as identity politics.

Rural life in North America has changed dramatically since the days of the family farm, when people worked the same land for generations, let their cows graze in pastures and their chickens scratch in dirt, and sold their produce locally. The few remaining small farmers now struggle to survive, strangled by debt and a rash of complex regulations designed to drive them out of business. In their place are corporate-backed factory farms with little understanding of, or sympathy for, rural life. But the corporate and political interests determined to make this life extinct are meeting with fierce resistance. In this passionate and persuasive book, writer and farmer Thomas Pawlick uses his own rural community as a microcosm for the battle between industrial agriculture and local farming — a clash whose outcome will determine the future of rural life in North America — and also the quality and sustainability of our food, water, soil, and air.