An Examination of Post-Place Communities: Using Discourse to Reinvent Group Identity in Rural Nebraska

• In Event: Communities of Practice: Negotiating Identities in Church, College, a Small Town, and a Family of Fisherman

Abstract

Rural communities face survival threats after losing local schools to consolidation efforts, including weakened identity and community collapse (Bard et al., 2005). However, focus group research in Decatur, Nebraska illustrates that post-place communities can combat survival threats by shifting their identity from a primary source, the local school, onto secondary sources. Implications discuss how rural citizens (1) symbolically interpret post-place communities, and (2) develop rhetorical strategies to sustain identity, project desirable images, and promote action.

Author

• Abbie Farrens Syrek, University of Nebraska, Omaha