Languages of attachment: personal and meta-narratives of rurality in Nebraska

Media and popular discourse about “Rural America” – including both positive and negative stereotypes – tend to homogenize the places and people associated with the rural United States and overpower the voices of those who inhabit those settings. As a partial corrective, this paper presents insights from an interview-based study with “stayers” and “leavers” of rural Nebraska communities. We draw on scholarship in cultural and rural geography, anthropology, sociology, and environmental psychology to explore the interplay of personal stories and these “meta-narratives of place” in discursive expressions of rural place attachment. This study complements survey-based measures of attachment in the Central Plains region. Individuals with rural roots incorporate public tropes of “the rural” (and “the urban”), and versions of the “rural idyll” as they relate memories, evoke qualities of place, and share opinions on their past or present rural communities. Their nuanced comments also capture the complex realities and positive and negative qualities of rural Nebraska communities. We argue that both “stayers” and “leavers” express this ambivalent “language of attachment”, thus highlighting an important dimension of place attachment to consider alongside approaches emphasizing “strong” or “weak” bonds of attachment and their implications for (im)mobility.