Risky Geographies: Teens, gender, and rural landscape in North America

Abstract

Young Vermonters living along the Canadian border experience cultural, spatial and material marginalisation, as well as historically high rates of death due to alcohol‐related motor vehicle accidents. This research examines the relationship between teens' place in society, their material geographies in a rural setting, and the strategies they employ to create social opportunities and produce ‘cultural gateways’. As active cultural producers, young people, especially older boys, are successful in building socio‐spatial networks that extend beyond their local area, across the US–Canada border, and into Quebec bars. The research reveals that teens live in a highly gendered social environment, one that encourages risk‐taking for boys and closes down social opportunities for girls. This study opens up new directions for further research into the social and environmental conditions under which North American teens craft their lives in rural places.

Notes

Correspondence: Cheryl Morse Dunkley, 24 White Church Road, Westford, VT 05494, USA. E‐mail: [email protected]

A microbrewery pub is a bar that sells beer it has brewed on premises, along with other commercial alcoholic beverages and food.

In this article I refer to young people aged 13–18 as teens or teenagers. I reserve the word children for people younger than age 13.

After consulting with several groups of teenagers, I have decided to refer to male teenagers as boys and female teenagers as girls. The teens I spoke with said that the terms ‘young men’ and ‘young women’ did not feel comfortable to them. Given that over 90% of the survey respondents were younger than 18, none of the interviewees were 18, and all the research participants were enrolled in high school, I feel that ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ adequately describes most young people in the study.

Exceptions to this include Cindi Katz' research with young people in rural Sudan (see for example Katz, 1991, 1998) and Herb Childress' (2000) ethnography of high school students in northern California.

Elsewhere (Vanderbeck & Dunkley, 2003) Vanderbeck and I argue that it is misleading to label young people as ‘rural’, ‘urban’ or ‘suburban’ based on the census definition of their residences because young people define their identities along a rural‐urban axis in relation to their life experiences. However, because teens living in rural areas are underrepresented in the literature, I continue to use ‘rural’ as an analytical category.

For a discussion of the separate hang‐outs different groupings of high school students occupy within their school, see Childress, 2000.

This mostly urban‐ and suburban‐based research has found that women access and experience public space differently than do men (e.g. Ruddick, 1996; Bondi & Domosh, 1998; McDowell, 1999; Domosh & Seager, 2001). Much of this literature focuses on women's fear of victimisation and has found that despite the fact that men are more likely to be victims of violent crime, women are more fearful of crime and therefore adjust their movement through space in order to avoid victimisation (Valentine, 1989; Gardner, 1990; Kemp, 2001). This research also reveals that the notion that women ought to take care to avoid specific places at specific times is so naturalised that if a woman is victimised she may shoulder a measure of responsibility for the crime victimisation (Valentine, 1989; Gardner, 1990; Kemp, 2001). The literature however, does not yet shed light on how younger women and girls perceive public space. Nor have researchers determined if public spaces in rural areas hold the same fears for women residents, or whether different kinds of spaces in rural areas elicit fear of victimisation. Furthermore, geographies of fear may not be the only narratives motivating female use of space.

Two additional studies on gender and rural landscape include Tucker and Matthews' (2001) study of 12–13‐year‐old girls in Northamptonshire, UK, which found that teen sites there are often contested by rival groups of young teens and by males and females, and Kraack and Kenway's (2002) study of young male identities in ‘Paradise’, New Zealand.

According to the 2000 US Census, the county's population is 97.7% white (Centre for Rural Studies, 2003).

A milking parlor is the barn or part of the barn where cows are milked. Many teens in St Elizabeth hold part‐time jobs on dairy farms.

St Elizabeth is a pseudonym. All place names and personal names are pseudonyms in order to protect subjects' identities. Furthermore, additional geographic features of the area including exact distances to the border, the location of mountains and lakes, and exact distances to large towns are not given. Vermont is a small state both in population and area; specific information could disclose informant identities by association.

For an in‐depth analysis of the development of an Anglo‐American rural ideal, see Bunce, 1994.

The percentage of children living in families receiving food stamps is a federal indicator for the percentage of children in poverty. Persons making 130% or less of the federal poverty level are eligible to receive food stamps. The federal poverty level for a family of four is $17 105 per year (Vermont Agency of Human Resources, 2003). David Murphy (2003), Senior Policy Analyst at the Vermont Agency of Human Services verifed in a personal communication that the Children Living in Families Eligible for Food Stamps statistic includes children ages 0–17 (this is not clarified in the Vermont Community Profiles report).

Since the research was conducted, one fast food restaurant—McDonald's—has opened in the area.

Informants' self‐identified their social groups, hobbies and income levels; all identified as white.

The social studies classes chosen for inclusion in the survey were selected so that students enrolled in accelerated courses, grade‐appropriate courses and remedial courses would be included.

In addition to changing place names, I have altered the topography of the region in order to protect informant anonymity.

Forty per cent of 12th graders reported using marijuana and 45% said they had smoked cigarettes within the previous 30 days (Vermont Agency of Human Services, 2003).

The small number of 16–18‐year‐old boys who responded to the questionnaire [seven (7.3%) of survey respondents who indicated their gender] compared to the number of 16–18‐year‐old girls [15 (16%) of respondents who indicated their gender] are sufficient only to indicate possible trends. However, the interview material collaborates the trends noted in the questionnaire results.