{"title":"Saviors and Services: The Interface of Neoliberal Deprivation, Hegemonic Christianity, Social Exclusion, and Rural Church Resource Provision☆","authors":"Amy M. Magnus, Alyse Sherrick","doi":"10.1111/ruso.12470","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.12470","url":null,"abstract":"With one-third of rural areas in the United States living in persistently high poverty, churches are some of the most prolific—and often only—sources of resource-provision in rural places. This paper qualitatively examines the complex role that churches play as resource providers in rural areas. Further, we examine the ways churches are helpful and/or harmful in meeting the needs of those experiencing vulnerability. We fuse hegemonic Christianity with social exclusion and neoliberalism to argue that rural people may not only experience ostracization and othering, but can also lose access to already-limited resources in rural areas as a result. Using community-based action research, ethnography, 47 semi-structured interviews, and research participant-driven photography from a town we call Gordon, we find that while churches are important resource-providers, they perpetuate hegemonic Christianity, hold exclusionary power, and act as critical gatekeepers for resources. This often results in ostracization and jeopardizes resource provision for those most vulnerable. This is a critical finding that demonstrates the complexity of resource provision, church influence, and rurality. We highlight participants’ suggestions for ways to expand services in rural places without solely relying on religious organizations.","PeriodicalId":47924,"journal":{"name":"RURAL SOCIOLOGY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50167758","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Food Expensiveness in Scotland's Remote Areas: An Analysis of Household Food Purchases\u0000 ☆","authors":"C. Revoredo‐Giha, C. Russo","doi":"10.1111/ruso.12468","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.12468","url":null,"abstract":"The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether consumers in Scotland’s remote areas suffer from food prices that are higher than the average national prices (i.e., whether a ‘remoteness premium’ exists). The question has been raised by several organisations in those communities looking at the high prices in local stores. This paper provides a new perspective using actual purchasing prices of a sample of 5,252 households in Scotland for 2017 and 2018. In this way, households’ ability to shop for lower prices is considered, unlike previous studies. The Aguiar and Hurst (2007) expensiveness index (AHEI) was computed to measure of expensiveness of food at household level and controlling for differences in quality. It showed that consumers in remote areas pay a small premium (0.3 to 0.4 per cent) with respect to average prices, which is statistically significant but economically not relevant. To understand the effect of several factors, AHEI was regressed on a number of explanatory variables including local area characteristics and household demographics and consumers’ shopping strategy. The results were used to simulate three hypothetical scenarios related to impact of changes in population’s age, access to discount stores and social deprivation on food expensiveness.","PeriodicalId":47924,"journal":{"name":"RURAL SOCIOLOGY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2022-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83946925","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}