Where is the rural in rhetoric

In this review essay, I focus on how rurality is understood within rhetorical studies. I consider how rural places are important sites of rhetorical inquiry that need to be rethought within our field. To highlight the contemporary complexity of rural places, I begin by presenting places of meat production within the United States as a brief example that demonstrates how COVID-19 transformed some rural places into sites of violence that disproportionately impacted racialized bodies. Further, sites of rural violence, like meat-processing communities, can help rhetorical studies critically rethink our (mis)assumptions about rurality and who lives there. Next, this essay reflects, reviews, and gently critiques three themes of literature that may aid in rhetorical scholarships’ commitment to more effectively advance innovative strategies for studying rurality. First, I investigate how rural extraction has become increasingly racialized. Second, I challenge the normativity of rural space and place by contemplating who is deemed “in place” to rethink race, gender, and rurality. Finally, I confront the racialization of rural containment. I end the essay by concluding and reflecting on areas of tension and future possibilities for rhetorical scholarship when rurality, race, and place are theorized together

Geography · Linguistics · Political science · Rhetoric · Rural area · Rurality · Sociology · Culinary Culture and Tourism · Gender Studies · Rhetoric and Communication Studies