Prairie Town: Redefining Rural Life in the Age of Globalization
describes the contemporary rural condition and efforts to sustain rural
life in one small Minnesota community at the turn of the 21st century.
Like many other agricultural based towns, Prairie Town struggled for
survival within the context of the on-going farm crisis, NAFTA,
neoliberal agricultural policies, and growing agribusiness that
negatively impacted many farmers throughout the world. The effects of
globalization, the displacement of rural workers to urban areas, and the
deterioration of rural life were a widespread phenomenon. In spite of
these complex issues, Prairie Town worked to define a new rural-- life,
one which entailed a new rural literacy--a new way of reading rural
life-that changed the way rural life, work, and education were realized.
Prairie Town's story offers us hope as we learn that neoliberalism is
not inevitable, nor is the demise of rural America. From this community,
we learn that not everything can be bought and sold, and
disidentification with dominant societal structures is possible within a
participatory democratic society. New cultural models can be constructed
that enable individuals in Prairie Town and elsewhere to actively work
to construct ways of being that are consistent with their values and
hopes for how they might live together.