Rural Place: Media, Violent Cartographies, and Chaotic Disruptions

Presentation given at the American Educational Research Association Conference (AERA). This paper discusses the framing of our understandings of the rural. First, the author relates the conceptualizations of Deleuze and Guattari (1987, 1988) cartographies and mappings alongside the concept of violent cartographies enumerated by Shapiro (1997, 2007) and the way in which these can explicate the stereotyping of rural areas and individuals. In their text A Thousand Plateaus (1987), Deleuze and Guattari enumerate the characteristics of the rhizome. One of the principles of the rhizome is that of cartography or mapping. Michael J. Shapiro elucidates his use of “violent cartographies” as ways of “imagining” warring spaces that become, in Foucauldian fashion, “frames” around which policy debates from any number of areas can be rendered intelligible to citizens. “Maps of enmity” have driven domestic U.S. elections and subsequent policy decisions by their victors, the strongest one has been the ‘red/blue” state divide or perhaps in this context, the rural/urban divide. For years, the rural as a mythical or ritualistic place has been an object or frame of humor, other, or curiosity. The 21st century concept of the rural is centuries away from the manner in which Romantic poets like, Blake, Wordsworth, and Shelly conceived the pastoral (read rural) as places to “escape” the evil of the cities. Images of hillbillies, trailer park dwellers, backwoods ignorance, and a like are frequently reinforced by various forms of media from political news shows to situation comedies to reality shows. There is a violent cartography at work in the mapping of the rural. This is the result of reducing the rural to a fixed concept, a stereotype. This leads to the next section in the paper and an explanation of the various forms of media and their depiction of rural life. Media programs, centering on the rural, are analyzed in historical fashion from the 1950s to the 21st century. First, the paper discusses the outwardly “innocent” and humorous ways in which television from the 1960s through the 1980s operated. Second, it analyzes the influence of reality television in continuing and altering those notions constructed decades ago and moving them into the 21st century. One common construction of the early shows, but replicated in the reality shows of the 21st century is that the “rural” is framed as an exclusively white experience. These mappings and media representations are shown to replicate long-standing stereotypes and only one-sided portrayals. The final section of the paper on chaotic disruptions demonstrates that there are other issues in rural community activities. A chaotic disruption of the cartography, frame, or diagram of the rural is necessary. These chaotic disruptions can occur in a number of ways. The presentation concludes with a discussion of the ways to contradict, create and disrupt deeply embedded cartographies about the rural raising issues of race, class, gender, LGBTQ, social justice, progressive movements, union history