Ideas

Respecting rural as a culture

Recognizing and respecting the distinctiveness of rural as culture is a critical step in the journey toward rural cultural competency in funding, technical assistance, research, and evaluation. Rural communities share many traits with urban ones in terms of the building blocks for thriving, including good jobs and schools, affordable homes, solid infrastructure, access to quality food and healthcare, and strong social relationships and trust. But differences in culture — the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular community — set rural towns apart in some key areas, including:

1. Intergenerational connections to people and land: Research shows that family and social ties and connection to the land (e.g., natural resources, agriculture, animal husbandry) appear to be stronger the smaller the community. It also finds a strong place-based rural identity that persists even after people move away from their hometown.
2. Community institutions as social and service hubs. When community members live far apart from one another and lack public gathering spaces, institutions like schools, libraries, and places of worship become the connection points between neighbors. In the absence of other nonprofits and government service centers more common in large cities, community institutions also become comprehensive service sites, connecting residents to needs like food, internet, and job training.
3. Importance of social connections and volunteerism. For more than a century, groups like 4H have been central to fostering rural community service and civic leadership. Based on necessity due to limited resources to start with as well as religious beliefs, rural residents have higher rates of volunteerism than urban dwellers, stepping in to fill gaps in community needs left by a lack of government, nonprofit, and private sector support.
4. Local traditions celebrating rural roots: Regular events highlight unique local features, histories, or practices. From agricultural and county fairs to rodeos and Indigenous celebrations, these events connect communities across time and invite others in.

Accepting rural diversity

Attuning to the cultural landscape is an important step in recognizing rural diversity and supporting rural-focused programming, capacity building, and research. The presence of some strong common cultural characteristics across rural communities makes it tempting to conclude that there is a single “rural culture” in America. But that is incorrect. Instead, there are strong regional and local differences based on history, people, natural resources, and economy. There is no typical rural resident, despite white, non-Hispanic individuals representing a rural majority at the national level. More than 14 million rural residents are Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native, and multiracial and up to 3.8 million identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. In rural communities, racial and ethnic groups tend to cluster by counties and regions instead of census tracts and neighborhoods like in cities. There is also no standard economic trajectory for rural communities. Despite an overwhelming national narrative of rural decline, communities across rural America have quite different trajectories of growth, stability, and decline of industry and populations.

However, myths of one “rural America” in decline persist. Research and media stories tend to emphasize deficits and problems facing rural communities while ignoring strengths and solutions. This is made worse by conflicting definitions of what rural actually is — often simply defined as “not urban” — and resulting problems with data compiled across geographic areas that are too large to show true diversity across small communities.

Three practices for building rural cultural competencies

Undervaluing rural culture and diversity can give rise to paternalistic perspectives on what is “good” and “right” for rural community development investments, programs and practices, and outcomes and impacts. This can lead to misguided programming and incorrect metrics and evaluation of what positive results look like for rural places and the people who call them home. For example, funders may approach their work using an urban-oriented framework premised on leveraging a deep, rich network of local nonprofits that does not exist in many rural places. Researchers may assume that other group identities are stronger (and more important) than local rural cultures and attachments to place. While commonalities such as economic distress, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity, and job (e.g., farm laborer, miner, educator) also create shared identities, rural community culture cuts across and adds a shared narrative around place.

In the coming weeks, we will explore three core practices for building rural cultural competencies to improve the way we build capacity, conduct research, and evaluate community development investments and programming. The practices are to:

1. Practice self-reflection. For those who have never lived in rural America or the specific community engaged or worked directly with those who do, self-reflection is the first step to recognizing and releasing personal biases.
2. Be curious. Learning about local histories, experiences, and ways of living is key to replacing bad assumptions with real knowledge and expertise.
3. Build trust. Trust is built through authentic human connection and relationships, including partnering with respected local groups and engaging over multiple years.

Investing in these competencies upfront makes us better partners to join rural communities to build capacity and learn about and evaluate programs meant to serve them. Community Science is committed to helping clients grow their rural cultural competencies and applying these principles to our work in rural communities. Look out for our next blog post where we dive deeper into one of the practices we can strengthen and apply.

References

Center on Rural Innovation. (2023). Who lives in rural America? How data shapes (and misshapes) conceptions of diversity in rural America. https://ruralinnovation.us/blog/who-lives-in-rural-america-part-i/

De Guzman, M.R.T., Durden, T.R., Taylor, S. A., Guzman, J.M., & Potthoff, K.L. (2016). Cultural Competence: An Important Skill for the 21^st Century. University of Nebraska—Lincoln Extension.

Husa, A., & Morse, C.E. (2020). Rurality as a key factor for place attachment in the Great Plains. Geographical Review, 112(1), 27–45. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00167428.2020.1786384

Movement Advancement Project. (2019). Where we call home: LGBT people in rural America. www.lgbtmap.org/rural-lgbt

Paarlberg, L.E., Nesbit, R., Choi, S.Y., & Moss, R. (2022). The rural/urban volunteering divide. Voluntas 33(1), 107–120. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-021-00401-2

Roberts, H. (2015). Place-identity and the geographies of contemporary county fairs in Oklahoma. Doctoral dissertation. University of Oklahoma.

Clark, S., Harper, S., & Weber, B. (2022). Growing up in rural America. Russell Sage Foundation Journal of Social Sciences, 8(4), 1–47. https://doi.org/10.7758/RSF.2022.8.4.01