Using Local, Rural Literature to Interrogate Rural Stereotypes: Counteracting the Essentialization, Marginalization, and Pathologization of Rurality

• In Event: Literatures of Marginalization and the Marginalization of Literatures

Abstract

This paper surveys the literature on stereotypes of rural people and provides a theoretical argument for the language arts classroom a site of resistance to those stereotypes. The themes emerging from this analysis fall into two categories, positive stereotypes and essentializations that position rural people as patriotic, simple, hardworking, honest, religious, concerned with family values and locked in a nostalgic past. The second category (negative stereotypes) included portrayals of rural people as uneducated, unintelligent, backward, racist and sexually deviant and violent. One site for dismantling such stereotypes is the language arts classroom. This paper offers suggestions for incorporating local, regional and rural literature into the language arts curriculum as counterforce against these stereotypes.

Author

• Jesse Moon Longhurst, Southern Oregon University