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.
Arvustused
"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
Preface vii Introduction Recognizing Rusticity Identity and the Power of Place 1(38) GERALD W. CREED BARBARA CHING AISHA KHAN 1 Rurality and Racial Landscapes in Trinidad 39(32) WILLIAM J. MAXWELL 2 Is It True What They Say About Dixie? Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurtson, and Rural/Urban Exchange in Modern African-American Literature 71(34) AARON A. FOX 3 Aint It Funny How Time Slips Away? Talk, Trash, and Technology in a Texas Redneck Bar 105(26) MARC EDELMAN 4 Campesinos and Tecnicos New Peasant Intellectuals in Central American Politics 131(18) ELIZABETH A. SHEEHAN 5 Class, Gender, and the Rural in James Joyces The Dead 149(22) BEATRICE GUENTHER 6 The Roman du Terroir au Feminin in Quebec Guevremonts and Blais Re-visioning of a Rural Tradition 171(24) DAVID MAYNARD Rurality, Rusticity, and Contested Identity Politics in Brittany 195(24) SUSAN H. LEES 8 The Rise and Fall of Peasantry as a Culturally Constructed National Elite in Israel 219(18) MICHELE D. DOMINY 9 The Alpine Landscape in Australian Mythologies of Ecology and Nation 237(30) Contributors 267(2) Index 269
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.
