Doctoral Dissertation Research: Intentional Peasants: The Unexpected Persistence of Homesteading in Appalachia

BCS 0703373 Michael Watts Jason Strange意想不到的农民：阿巴拉契亚的宅基地出乎意料的持续小规模的农村自给自足生产在美国许多地区是一种重要的、持续的做法。尽管这种当代宅基地很普遍，但在流行媒体和学术文献中几乎都被忽视了。当代宅基地建设并不是一种陈旧的、日渐衰落的历史遗迹；它直接产生于当前的政治、经济和文化动态。因此，它为了解许多关键的社会问题提供了一个极好的、未被使用的窗口。运用人种学和历史学的方法，对肯塔基州东部阿巴拉契亚县的宅基地进行了深入的案例研究，这一博士论文研究项目将检验两个假设。首先，寻求宅基地在一定程度上是对当地劳动力市场重组对工薪家庭的影响的直接回应。虽然资本主义经济的发展使广泛的物质繁荣成为可能，但资本主义固有的集中财产所有制在很大程度上排除了这种可能性的实现。资本主义劳动力市场越来越多地让美国各地的工人，尤其是肯塔基州东部的工人面临这样的前景：为了不断下降的工资而长时间工作，在没有福利或工作保障的情况下从事枯燥、重复的工作。在一定程度上，宅基地是一种限制人们对就业市场依赖的战略。简而言之，这是一种未被认可的劳工维权形式。第二种假设始于这样的观察，即肯塔基州东部的农民被分为两个亚文化群体，即乡下人和回归土地的人。这两个群体是全国范围内“乡下人”和“嬉皮士”、右翼和左翼，或者最近的红州和蓝州之间的显著区别的本地例证。尽管它被广泛误解，但这是一个真正的区别，在新自由主义候选人的选举成功和为劳工创造敌意政策氛围方面发挥了关键作用。研究人员将证明，就像在肯塔基州东部发生的那样，这种亚文化差异不是农村或城市出身、家庭背景或社会经济地位的产物，而是一个群体的口语能力卓越和另一个群体的活跃识字能力的产物。尽管被忽视了，但宅基地正是批判性社会学者在过去几十年里卓有成效地强调的那种非精英社会行动。作为一种被忽视的社会运动，宅基地提供了一个无与伦比的机会，可以让人们看到和了解1)主导的政治经济趋势对工薪家庭的影响，2)有多少农村家庭正在以创造性和意想不到的方式应对这些影响，以及3)新自由主义秩序的文化基础，在这种秩序中，许多人被迫转向宅基地，而其他抵抗途径被取消。该项目将为研究当代美国和资本主义全球现代性增添一个根本性的新篇章，为创新的农村经济和社会发展政策开辟新的领域。它还可能有助于为以民间社会为基础的行为者的社会正义努力提供信息或调整方向。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究生涯。

BCS 0703373Michael WattsJason StrangeIntentional Peasants: the Unexpected Persistence of Homesteading in AppalachiaSmall-scale rural subsistence production is a vital, ongoing practice in many regions of the United States. Despite its prevalence, such contemporary homesteading has been virtually overlooked in both the popular media and in the academic literature. Contemporary homesteading is not a quaint and fading historical vestige; it emerges directly from current political, economic and cultural dynamics. Thus, it offers an excellent, and unused, window into numerous key social issues. Applying ethnographic and historical methods to an intensive case-study of homesteading in an Appalachian county in eastern Kentucky, this doctoral dissertation research project will examine two hypotheses. First, homesteading is pursued, in part, as a direct response to the impacts on working families of restructuring in local labor markets. While capitalist economic development has made widespread material prosperity possible, the concentrated property ownership intrinsic to capitalism has substantially precluded the realization of that possibility. The capitalist labor market increasingly confronts workers throughout the US, and particularly in eastern Kentucky, with the prospect of working long hours for declining wages, performing dull, repetitive tasks without benefits or job security. Homesteading is, in part, a strategy for limiting one's dependence upon this job market. It is, in short, an unrecognized form of labor activism. The second hypothesis begins from the observation that homesteaders in eastern Kentucky are divided into two sub-cultural groups, the country-folks and the back-to-the-landers. These two groups are local instantiations of a nationally prominent distinction between "hicks" and "hippies", right and left, or, more recently, red state and blue state. Even though it has been widely misunderstood, this is a real distinction that has played a key role in the electoral success of neo-liberal candidates and in the creation of a hostile policy climate for labor. The investigators will demonstrate that, as it occurs in eastern Kentucky, this sub-cultural distinction is not a product of rural or urban origins, family background, or socio-economic status, but of the preeminence of orality in one group and of active literacy in the other. Although overlooked, homesteading is precisely the kind of non-elite social action that critical social scholars have productively emphasized over the past several decades. As a disregarded social movement, homesteading provides an unparalleled opportunity to bring into view and understand 1) the impacts on working families of dominant political-economic trends, 2) how many rural families are responding to these impacts in creative and unexpected ways, as well as 3) the cultural foundations of a neo-liberal order in which many people are forced to turn to homesteading, while other avenues of resistance are foreclosed. This project will add a fundamental new chapter to research on the contemporary US and capitalist global modernity, opening novel terrain for innovative rural economic and social development policy. It may also help inform or reorient the social-justice efforts of civil society-based actors. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.