Book Review
Country boys: Masculinity and rural life
H Campbell, M Bell and M Finney (eds)
ISBN: 978-0-271028-74-3; 2006; 272 pages; Pennsylvania, USA: Pennsylvania State University Press;
Ian Coldwell
Rural Health Academic Centre, University of Melbourne, Shepparton VIC
Country Boys is an edited collection of essays, by noted international scholars in the field of masculinity studies focused on the rural, that address the myths and stereotypes behind the perception that ‘country boys rule the world' (p. 1) and the many realities of and contradictions in the lives of rural men in various settings in a number of countries. The editors claim the collection yields two major insights. First, that the different ways of being a rural man have important implications for relationships of power in rural society and for how rural people establish their sense of self and other. Second, that the ‘mountain' of masculinity ‘is a human creation' and thus ‘subject to constant change and variation in the face of the geology of the social' (p. 25). Twenty years ago the emergence of similar insights in masculinity studies - described as the ‘ethnographic moment' by Raewyn Connell - led to a theoretical framework conceptualised around hegemonic masculinities that has been used extensively in research. Rural masculinity achieves its own ‘ethnographic moment' in this book. By giving rural masculinity a hard nudge, the book reveals much about it that has hitherto been invisible.
The foreword by Carolyn Sachs suggests that Country Boys ‘provides compelling evidence that rural masculinity matters' (viii). Even in these postmodern times there is a convincing argument that knowledge about representations and practices of rural masculinities is fundamental to understanding culture and society in broader terms. The book's ‘emphasis that rural masculinities are changing and these changes occur in multiple directions' (x) brings a sense of hope that emerging rural masculinities ‘may become sources of empowerment with others rather than sources of power over others' (xi). Accordingly the three parts of the book focus in turn on the ways in which rural masculinities are (i) practised, (ii) represented and (iii) change over time.
Part One, ‘Practices' (Chapters 2-8), addresses the masculine rural by situating masculine practices in specifically rural spaces: the turn to sustainable agriculture, small business ownership at the nexus of community and capitalism, rural pubs in small town New Zealand, rural youth in North Cork and Upper Swaledale, Right wing militias restoring Rural American masculinity, and how risk factors in rural men's health are implicated in negotiating masculinity. Based on the notion that masculinity is something that we do over and over, this section reveals how we inevitably shape and reshape masculinity to the specific local contexts in which we live and how as a result masculinity is constantly changing.
Part Two, ‘Representations' (Chapter 9-13), by exploring the ways in which rural imagery, ideas and representations influence all masculinities both rural and urban (p.189), addresses the second part of a contrasting theme: the masculine in the rural with the rural in the masculine - a theme that has been emphasised by two of the book's editors, Hugh Campbell and Michael Bell, since their co-authored paper ‘The Question of Rural Masculinities' first appeared in a special edition of Rural Sociology which they edited together in 2000. David Bell's essay opens up ‘social sites that were previously invisible or ignored by the average reader' (p. 160), revealing that behind the heterosexual hegemonies of rural masculine representation are other different ‘worlds of gay and rural masculinities' (p. 160). This is complemented by Jo Little's exploration of the comfortable, unthreatening side of heterosexual hegemony in rural areas. The role of media in raising the profile of some rural masculinities whilst at the same time obscuring others is taken up in essays by Robin Law and Berit Brandth, who pioneered masculinity studies in agriculture, and Marit Haugen, her co-author in this and many other works. Each work in this section addresses the power questions of gender and definitions of the rural.
Part Three, ‘Changes', serves as a conclusion to the book. In Chapter 14 Raewyn Connell looks toward history to reveal possibilities for change. Drawing on Virgil's poetry Connell juxtaposes the deep conservatism associated with the male farmer and the countryside with a history of rural radicalism where intellectuals saw the countryside as a place for new beginnings: alternative gender relations and resistance to the ‘depredations of mammon' (p. 252). The final chapter focuses an overview of the book toward a future agenda for social science research. Linda Lobao takes up a spatial perspective to consider the ways in which the writers in the book have demonstrated the social significance of rural masculinities, how the rural and the masculine intersect, and how possibilities for change might be identified from these significant intersections. It is here that we are returned to one of the central contributions of this fine book: the question of power. Lobao points out that there is much to be done by research, policy and political action as gendered inequalities persist across time and space and in the ways these inequalities are appropriated by some individuals and groups seeking to maintain their positions of power over others.
The book is very well organised: it has a detailed table of contents, a short biography of each contributing author, a comprehensive reference list and a consolidated index. Each part has an editor's introduction which gives an overview of the theoretical underpinnings of the book as a whole and of the essays within the part. The black and white photographs - one preceding each essay - by documentary photographer, Cynthia Vagnetti, of men in different rural settings, are not just decoration: they add another dimension of meaning. Their interpretation left to the reader, they testify to Susan Sontag's notion - linked to a theoretical current of the book - that every picture conceals as much as it reveals. For example, the photograph preceding Peggy Bartlett's essay ‘Three Visions of Masculine Success on American Farms' depicts only one vision. The image of one man standing in an expansive mono-cultural wheat field reveals the hegemony of industrial agriculture, a hegemony which conceals many other agricultural realities.
Country Boys had a long gestation before it finally appeared in mid 2006. On a cold night last November, at a celebratory dinner of the Australasian Agri-food Research Network hosted by Hugh Campbell in Central Otago, New Zealand, Geoffrey Lawrence, once the director of the research centre that publishes this journal, rose to his feet to give the book an impromptu and very enthusiastic launch. Earlier that day, at a hunting lodge on a farm station further along the valley, under the watchful eye of many a bright-eyed stag and doe shot by hunters and mounted on the walls, we listened to Carolyn Morris's detailed analysis of how New Zealand's high country women must negotiate gender relations in order to participate in the world of guns, farm dogs and sheep, a reminder that here those outdoor pursuits are still in the domain of men: gender relations are little changed and country boys do indeed rule. I am certain that the small international audience at the launch of Country Boys that night will continue to grow. This splendid book makes a significant contribution to rural gender and cultural studies, opening the way for theoretical and methodological development and further research. It should be in every library.
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