“Examining Rust Belt narratives: race, rural representation, and everyday experiences”

Keywords: Rust Belt, rurality, race, representation, settler colonialism
Abstract Type: Virtual Paper Abstract

Abstract

Media coverage of the rural Rust Belt has featured mainly white perspectives. Since 1970s manufacturing decline, the Rust Belt has been characterized as home to the “white working-class.” The “white working-class” trope, ubiquitous in political, social, and academic commentary, upholds settler colonial narratives that erase the experiences and histories of people of color. While according to the US Census, a large portion of the area is white, many people of color in rural areas are not counted in official Census data. Additionally, according to recent scholarship, the Rust Belt contains some of the fastest growing minority populations in the country. Popular Rust Belt narratives fail to account for experiences of many people of color who live and work in the rural Rust Belt. Drawing from in-depth interviews and landscape analysis in Northern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania, this article examines perspectives that challenge settler colonial discourses, providing a more inclusive narrative of everyday life in the rural Rust Belt.