Knowing Your Place

by Ching, Barbara; Creed, Gerald W.

• ISBN13: 9780415915458
• ISBN10: 0415915457
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-11-01
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Knowing Your Placedirects 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.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction. Recognizing Rusticity: Identity and the Power of Place	p. 1
Rurality and "Racial" Landscapes in Trinidad	p. 39
"Is It True What They Say About Dixie?": Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, and Rural/Urban Exchange in Modern African-American Literature	p. 71
"Ain't It Funny How Time Slips Away?": Talk, Trash, and Technology in a Texas "Redneck" Bar	p. 105
"Campesinos" and "Tecnicos": New Peasant Intellectuals in Central American Politics	p. 131
Class, Gender, and the Rural in James Joyce's "The Dead"	p. 149
The Roman du Terroir au Feminin in Quebec: Guevremont's and Blais' Re-visioning of a Rural Tradition	p. 171
Rurality, Rusticity, and Contested Identity Politics in Brittany	p. 195
The Rise and Fall of "Peasantry" as a Culturally Constructed National Elite in Israel	p. 219
The Alpine Landscape in Australian Mythologies of Ecology and Nation	p. 237
Contributors	p. 267
Index	p. 269
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