Feminisms and Ruralities

Feminist concern with difference has rarely extended to rurality even if it is now widely recognized that experiences of inequality depend on intersections of several identities in each individual life. This lack of concern may reflect the urban background of the majority of feminist academics or at least their urban positionality once in the academy. It may equivalently be that feminists have been influenced by stereotypes of rural women as traditional and reactionary, and thus seen them as unlikely exponents of gender equality, and an unfruitful focus for scholarly energies. Perhaps the problem is a broader one, that is, reflective of the much documented, but still apparent unwillingness of many feminists to recognize and address difference in any of its manifestations. Regardless, even with the recent interest in intersectionality which has necessarily renewed and reenergized debates in feminism about diversity and inclusion, the question of how women are differently positioned because of their non-metropolitan location has remained largely overlooked.

Kate Cairns is Assistant Professor of Childhood Studies at Rutgers University-Camden, USA. Her research brings an interdisciplinary approach to the study of culture and inequality, with particular focus on childhood, gender, and consumption. Kate has published in venues such as Gender & Society, Theory and Society, Journal of Consumer Culture, Antipode, and Gender and Education. Her current research explores educational initiatives that seek to connect children to their food.

IMELDA WHELEHAN is Research Professor and Dean in the Graduate Research School at the University of Western Australia.