Note: This is an encore edition of Reader's Corner. The episode originally aired in March 2022. This is part II of a two-part interview.
What happens to rural communities when their traditional economic base collapses? When new money comes in, who gets left behind?
In her book, Pushed Out: Contested Development and Rural Gentrification in the US West, sociologist Ryanne Pilgeram offers a rich portrait of Dover, Idaho, whose transformation from “thriving timber mill town” to “economically-depressed small town” to “trendy second-home location” over the past four decades embodies the story and challenges of many other rural communities. The book explores the structural forces driving rural gentrification and examines how social and environmental inequality are written onto these landscapes. Based on in-depth interviews and archival data, Pilgeram grounds this accessible ethnography in a long view of the region that takes account of geological history, settler colonialism, and histories of power and exploitation within capitalism.
Ryanne Pilgeram is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Idaho. She received her PhD from University of Oregon and her work focuses on qualitative research that focuses on how gender intersects with rural life.
