The Global Rural: Gentrification and linked migration in the rural USA

Lise Nelson, Pennsylvania State University

Lise Nelson is interested in how landscapes of affluence, as reflected in this photo taken in rural northern Georgia, are linked intimately to landscapes of poverty and social exclusion. Her current research, conducted in collaboration with Peter Nelson of Middlebury College and funded by the National Science Foundation, examines these connections in rural U.S. high amenity areas that have attracted wealthy and mostly white urbanites seeking their version of a rural paradise—beautiful vistas, hiking, skiing, fishing as well as that ‘small town’ feel and sense of security many seek as they flee large urban areas (examples include Jackson Hole, WY or Cooperstown, NY). As millions of amenity migrants moved to or built second homes in such areas, a process that intensified during the mid-1990s and beyond, they drove rural gentrification and a set of labor market transformations that we contend recruited low-wage Latino/a immigrants to these same destinations throughout the rural USA. Our research traces the emergence of immigrant-based precarious labor regimes in areas affected by rural gentrification, and empirically examines how these regimes are fundamentally constituted by race, class and ‘illegality.’ We are also interested in how these same social hierarchies affect spaces of social reproduction, citizenship and local ‘sense of place’ in these contexts.

Contact: lknelson@psu.edu – Website