Survival narratives: Constructing an intersectional masculinity through stories of the rural/urban divide.

This paper extends research emphasizing gender and gendered inequalities in rural communities are influenced by goods, jobs, and people moving between rural and urban contexts. Drawing from over 1,800 hours of participant observation in a rural community in the central United States, I analyze men's narratives about their trips to nearby cities to illustrate how they constructed and achieved an intersectional ideal of rural masculinity complicated by race, class, and sexuality. Through this analysis I stress the need to consider how multiple, intersecting dimensions of difference and inequality inform constructions of masculinities in rural contexts as rural communities are increasingly linked with cities. Second, and related, I illustrate perceived divisions between rural and urban spaces inform constructions of intersectional masculinities and inequalities even as rural and urban places are increasingly linked, materially, through political-economic processes such as labor markets and immigration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]