Call for Participants: Conference on the Rural West
“We will emphasize those issues that have for too long gone under-studied by scholars and under-reported in the mainstream media. And we hope to begin conversations that will lead to some salutary results.”
– David M. Kennedy, Historian and faculty co-director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West
Bill Lane Center
for the American West,
Stanford University
.
The Rural West: Toward a Regional Approach to Common Issues
David Eccles Conference Center, Ogden, Utah, October 12-14, 2012
Photograph: Native American Woman with Basket of Huckleberries. OSU Archives WilliamsG:USFS281580 via Flickr Commons
SUMMARY
In October 2012, the Rural West Initiative of the Bill Lane Center for the American West will bring together in Ogden, Utah, approximately fifty scholars, journalists, representatives of NGOs, and state officials to discuss issues affecting the rural West. Participants will engage in seminar-style discussions of pre-circulated papers. Following the conference, selected peer-reviewed papers will be published in Rural Connections, a publication of the Western Rural Development Center at Utah State University.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Many parts of the rural West share several attributes: an abundance of fossil fuels, scarcity of water, vast tracts of land under federal control, sizeable migrant labor populations, distinctive patterns of drug and alcohol abuse, and limited access to credit, air and rail transportation, and health care, including reproductive health services.
But despite shared issues, scholars, journalists, and policymakers concerned with the rural West have had few opportunities to gather together, raise awareness, and seek solutions to the region's distinctive problems. Western governments have rarely succeeded in forging regional policies to address common rural issues.
Some examples:
- Hoping to be more attractive to energy companies, states levy dramatically different severance taxes for the extraction of fossil fuels.
- Rural community newspapers have proven successful with tightly-focused local stories, but often ignore their regional dimensions and implications.
- Stakeholders, including the Western Governors Association, refer to a new “era of cooperation” between the upper and lower basin states on the Colorado River, but have made little progress in rationalizing water transfers between rural farmers and cities.
- On the federal lands front, payments to rural counties from the Secure Rural Schools Act and Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) are in jeopardy as the budget tightens, threatening to escalate tensions between western states and the federal government.
- Airport and post-office closures threaten to further exacerbate rural isolation.
- Rural health care, already in short supply, is further jeopardized by new budget cuts.
In October 2012, the Rural West Initiative of the Bill Lane Center for the American West will bring together in Ogden, Utah, approximately fifty scholars, journalists, representatives of NGOs, and state officials to discuss issues affecting the rural West. Participants will engage in seminar-style discussions of pre-circulated papers. Following the conference, selected peer-reviewed papers will be published in Rural Connections, a publication of the Western Rural Development Center at Utah State University.
PROPOSING A PAPER
To propose a paper, send an abstract of up to 500 words and a 1-2 page CV to John McChesney (johnm16@stanford.edu). We are especially interested in the following topics: energy, labor/immigration, water, healthcare, communications/newspapers, transportation, federal lands, rural economies, religious and political preferences, credit access, education, and race/gender. We particularly welcome papers that highlight the distinctiveness of the rural West, as measured against both the urban West and other rural regions. We encourage those who have access to travel budgets to use them, but we are able provide a limited number of travel fellowships for those who need them. Travel and lodging information will be available in spring 2012.
SUBMIT PAPER PROPOSALS BY MARCH 15, 2012.
-----------------
Co-sponsored by The Bill Lane Center for the American West and by our partners, the Western Rural Development Center at Utah State University, the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University, and the American West Center at the University of Utah.