Returning Rural Residents: Their Role in Realizing Inclusive Communities in the U.S. South

• In Event: Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 8: Small Towns and Rural Regions

Abstract

We theorize and typologize the under-researched “returning resident” role in inclusive community-building, based on the empirical case of post-Jim Crow economic development and social change in Cotton County (pseudonym), a cotton-producing county in the rural U.S. South. We discern from our preliminary interviews with four Cotton County senior (age 80+) returning residents who grew up under Jim Crow—county residents with deep place attachment who have returned to their home county after a 10- to 20-year career sojourn far beyond the county line—a fourfold typology of activist roles in post-Jim Crow inclusive community-building that are informed by the visions and narratives for social change they brought back home upon their return to post-Jim Crow Cotton County.

Authors

• Daniel B. Cornfield, Vanderbilt University

• Qingyao Sun, Vanderbilt University

• Basma El-Bathy, Vanderbilt University

• Katherine Beekman, Vanderbilt University