The Center for U.S. Rural Cultures Studies (June 2018-March 2020)

[All work has been transferred to The Relational Democracy Project]

The Center’s Purpose

Rural American Cultures (RAC) face enormous challenges and, currently, also exert considerable influence on the rest of the country and the rest of the world. Research communities interested in addressing rural challenges have focused their efforts internationally, leaving RAC without the cultural knowledge conventionally provided by research institutions. Much is written about the economics and politics of U.S. rural places, but a focus on cultural norms and how humans grow in them is largely absent.

The Center for U.S. Rural Cultures Studies focuses on understanding norms in the variety of Rural American Cultures embodied by 60 million people in the U.S. The Center seeks to understand what’s normal in rural America, working quietly — immersed in the field — to first understand each RAC. The research is designed to remain quiet, in the field, and focused on describing actual conditions. The creative projects — which grow out of field research findings — show how power moves in human relations, how power is shared or stolen, and how everyone can help create healthy social soil.

The Center’s research also avoids one-factor analysis (race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, species); attention is focused on relations, which always already connect those factors. Indeed…