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Community discourse and the emerging amenity landscapes of the rural American West

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Abstract

We explore the construction of community meaning on an emerging amenity landscape in the western United States through in-depth interviews and ethnographic fieldwork with residents of rural Fremont County, Colorado. The meanings ascribed to community center on different interpretations of home, social interaction, and personal identity. Although in some cases these differences correspond to the conventional division between new and long-term residents, the more significant finding was a discourse of “co-opetition” that captures a broader countywide understanding of community as simultaneous cooperation and competition among local stakeholders. Ultimately, this conceptualization of rural community is a way of negotiating the form and function of the amenity landscape. The production of meaningful social interaction points to opportunities for engaging residents in land management as they interact with one another and the landscape.

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Notes

  1. In this region, the practice of transhumance was vertical and involved wintering cattle on private land in the valleys and transporting the animals to summer pasture, typically on public lands, in the higher elevations.

  2. The principal author spent 2 months in residence each summer over 5 years; the second author spent 2 months in residence in 2008. The field camp students were in the valley for 3 weeks near the end of each summer. The interviews were recorded digitally and subsequently transcribed. At the close of each discussion, interviewees were thanked, given a gift card for a complementary drink at a Cañon City coffee shop, and invited to a barbecue at the field camp near the end of the summer field course in August. Following each interview, a post-interview reflection was completed noting observations on the setting, quality of interaction, and any other impressions not captured by the digital recording or interviewer notes.

  3. These interviews were conducted with employees from the Bureau of Land Management, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Office of Fremont County, US and State of Colorado Forest Service, Royal Gorge History Center, and the Winery at The Abbey in Cañon City.

  4. Grounded codes are the themes and patterns that emerge from an immersive, inductive reading of the interviews. Often, the phrasing or description used to define the code comes directly from a particularly perceptive participant response that effectively characterizes other, similar responses in the data set.

  5. Total interviews in which the participant talked about community in terms of the volume and quality of local social interactions: for residents with 20 or more years: 15/15; for residents with less than 20 years: 87/98.

  6. The right to use surface water is administered by the State of Colorado. A rancher holding a water right may choose to sell that asset along with the property when subdivision occurs, although the two remain separate pieces of property. Consequently, a few households (or a single household) can own water rights to the local stream. Sometimes, the new owners may fail to use their water allocation, which violates state law concerning “beneficial use.” Seven subdivisions in the county have developed Conservation Plans with the local conservation district, in some instances because it satisfies this requirement of state water law.

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Acknowledgments

The research presented here was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation Geography & Regional Science Division (Grant #0752183). We would like to thank Terry Slocum, Chair of the Department of Geography at the University of Kansas, for supporting the collaborative research endeavor that made this project possible, as well as the residents and natural-resource professionals of Fremont County, Colorado, who gave us their time and perspectives on the topic of environmental learning. Finally, this research would not have been possible without the time and energy invested by students at the University of Kansas Geography Field Camp who enrolled or participated in the “Field Experience” course during the summers of 2008 and 2009: Andrew Allen, Robbie Anderson, Emmanuel Birdling, Lesley Clark, Stephanie Day, Jared Doke, David Fox, Keith French, Erin Garity, Jessica Garrett, Aaron Gilbreath, Jessey Gilley, Cara Haas, Katie Haselwood, Hilary Hungerford, Lauren James, Mike Loader, Stephanie Meador, Lisa McKinney, Andrew Norris, John Oakes, Emily Pabst, Matt Petrie, Tanner Popp, Nicole Reiz, Evie Schlife, Andrew Sherman, Luke Struckman, Austin Thelen, Zach Tuthill, Travis White, Paula Smith, Henry Shiu, Eric Weber, and Joe Wimmer.

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  1. University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA

    Soren Larsen

  2. Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Craig Hutton

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  1. Soren Larsen
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  2. Craig Hutton
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Correspondence to Soren Larsen.

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Larsen, S., Hutton, C. Community discourse and the emerging amenity landscapes of the rural American West. GeoJournal 77, 651–665 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-011-9410-1

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