Rural Sotiowir/60(4), 1995, pp.

585-606
Copyright CO 1995 by the Rural Sociological Society

Empowering Rural Sociology: Exploring and Linking

Alternative Paradigms in Theory and Methodologyl

Rosalind P. Harris, Jeffrey C. Bridger, * Carolyn E. Sachs,*

and Suzanne E. Tallichet**
Department of Sociology, University of Kentuc1..-y,
Lexington, Kentuc1..-y 40546-0215
*Department ofAgricultural Economics and Rural Sociology,
Pennsylvania State University,
University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, and
**Department of Sociology, lIforehead State University,
1II0rehead, Kentuc1..-y 40351-1689

Assrsxcr Theoretical and methodological approaches to rural social

change are explored, especially those that give visibility to the range of
heterogeneous experiences and perspectives that often are overlooked
or ignored. Theoretical developments in postmodern, narrative, and fem-
inist theory are described as are the methodological approaches they
imply. Examples of research on rural social change that attempt to inte-
grate theory and methods in ways that respect the complicated, proces-
sual nature of social life are discussed. They provide concrete illustrations
of how alternative approaches can be fruitfully applied to some of the
issues and problems rural sociologists typically study.
Introduction
Rural sociology historically has distinguished itself as a subdiscipline
that is critical and forthcoming about its theoretical and method-
ologicallimitations (Bealer 1990; Copp 1972; Falk and Zhao 1989;
Flinn 1982; Harper 1991; Newby 1980; Newby and Buttel 1980; Pi-
cou et al. 1990; Stokes and Miller 1985). For the most part, attention
has focused on such deficiencies as methodological monism, ab-
stracted empiricism, the atheoretical nature of much research, and
the lack of theoretical diversity. For example, Busch and Lacy (1983)
argued for alternative approaches to counter reductionist tenden-
cies in agricultural science. Newby and Buttel (1980) stressed the
importance of using critical theory in understanding the complex
and contradictory nature of rural social change, and Bokemeier and
Garkovich (1987) pressed for attention to gender differences within
rural society.
More recently, Kloppenburg (1991, 1992) drew from such alter-
native epistemologies as constructivism, critical perspectives in the
sociology of science, and feminist standpoint and cultural theories
to illustrate the potential for engaging the heretofore subjugated
knowledge of local farmers. He suggested that local knowledge is
vital to the reconstruction of an alternative agriculture that gives
t The helpful comments of Lori Garkovich, Pat Mooney, Lou Swanson, and anon-
ymous reviewers are gratefully acknowledged.
586 Rural Sociology, Vol. 60, No.4, Winter 1995

credence and respect to the workable practices that already exist in

the traditional repertoires of many farmers. While these critiques
have been helpful in documenting the problems of the discipline,
rural sociology has been slow to move in new directions.
To do so, it is necessary to both understand and deconstruct the
ways that Western science, as a privileged and dominant epistemol-
ogy, has narrowed the discourse by effectively excluding vital per-
spectives and angles of vision. This is not to say that one epistemol-
ogy must be displaced with another. Rather, each must be
recognized as partial and bounded in its own peculiar way. As Burke
(1989) observed, every way of seeing is simultaneously a way of not
seeing. Understanding the economic and social forces shaping rural
areas requires a variety of theoretical and methodological approach-
es. Combined ways of looking at social phenomenon afford the pos-
sibility of constructing a more complete picture of rural people and
places.
In this essay, Kloppenburg's challenge is accepted by drawing
upon recent developments in postmodern, narrative, and feminist
theory to demonstrate how rural sociologists can begin to overcome
some of the obstacles that prevent integrating theory and methods
in ways that respect the complicated, processual nature of social life.
Social, economic, and demographic forces are transforming life in
rural areas at a pace that defies narrow approaches based largely on
convention, institutional constraints, and publication requirements.
Moreover, to the extent that rather glaring disjunctions between
theory and methods are allowed, the risk of generating research that
serves neither theoretical nor practical ends exists (Kaufman 1963).
Therefore, such an undertaking is needed perhaps more than ever
before.
Postmodemisnu overview
Postmodernism shares important epistemological critiques of posi-
tivist science with feminism and concerns with linking understand-
ings of social process to the embeddedness of peoples' experiences,
as expressed through stories, with narrative theory. Postmodernism
has had the greatest epistemological influence among the three and
without a doubt boasts its share of enthusiastic critics across social
science disciplines. Although scholars reproach postmodernism for
its convoluted dispute with the basic tenets of modern social science,
its impact within such disciplines as political science, geography, an-
thropology, and sociology has been incisive. Moreover, postmodern-
ism no longer appears to be a temporary theoretical dalliance within
the social sciences but a conceptual shift whose impact will be felt
for some time to come.
"Post" in postmodern signifies the belief on the part of postmod-
ernists that a definitive break or rupture with the historical period
 Empowering Rural Sociology - Harris et al. 587

called the modern era has occurred. Reactions to the idea of a rup-
ture vary. Postmodernists celebrate it as a liberation from constrain-
ing and oppressive forces and conditions (Lyotard 1984) while crit-
ics are uneasy with the idea that a rupture and the concomitant loss
of certainty, stability, and rationality really has occurred (Habermas
1987).
Essentially, postmodernists call attention to the disorientations
that seem to be dissolving, dismembering, and fracturing identities
and world views in an era of cataclysmic transformations that mod-
ernism did not anticipate. They argue, moreover, that modernity
made promises and inspired false hopes for progress, wealth, and
egalitarianism on which it did not deliver, at least to the extent pre-
dicted, and that unpredicted effects such as world wars, depressions,
widening gaps between the rich and the poor, and environmental
catastrophes are significant breeches of confidence as well.
Postmodernists argue that the unquestioned faith in progress in-
spired by modernism has succeeded in operating as a source of
subjugation and oppression for many because it has functioned as
an all-encompassing world view, metanarrative, or totalizing per-
spective. They argue that it also has spawned other metanarratives
(e.g., capitalism, liberal democracy, Western science) that have suc-
ceeded in shaping and ordering the lives of people worldwide, often
obscuring and co-opting the knowledge, realities, and small stories
or micronarratives that people in their particular lifeworlds use to
make sense of daily life (Foucault 1980).
Concerns among postmodernists about how the simultaneous val-
orization and subjugation of knowledge have come to be constituted
historically were most notably popularized by Foucault (1970, 1973,
1978). These works examine how relations of domination are pro-
duced through the unequal empowerment of one kind of knowl-
edge or way of knowing through the use of language and bureau-
cratic controls. This class of inquiry also has helped to raise
questions about how such practices force speakers of marginalized
knowledge to adopt the hegemonic world view of privileged knowl-
edge if they wish to participate as full members of society.
In a similar vein sociologists such as Brown (1987), Lemert
(1992), Richardson (1990), and Seidman and Wagner (1992) have
used postmodernism to inspire a radically new cultural climate for
understanding the processes by which knowledge about the social
world comes to be constituted. They challenged arguments asserting
that sociology is a foundational knowledge tradition. Moreover, they
challenge the conventional epistemological assumptions and meth-
odological procedures that represent sociological knowledge as a
reflection of an exterior reality that need only be observed and re-
corded. Instead, they argued that sociology itself should be under-
stood as a method of inquiry that has been shaped by the very social
588 Rural Sociology, Vol. 60, No.4, Winter 1995

relations it seeks to explain. From this perspective, these social re-

lations are seen as reflecting particular experiences and angles of
vision, not some generalized fixed reality.
Because postmodernists reject many of the conventional rules that
come with carrying out social science inquiries, they have been ac-
cused of promoting an attitude of "anything goes." Postmodernists
respond to this charge by arguing that traditional criteria, such as
validity, reliability, and generalizability, cannot insure claims about
the authenticity of research because they issue from epistemological
cannons that make unjustified assertions about their own authority
in this regard (Rosenau 1992). Instead postmodern research at-
tempts to decenter authority and claims about representing reality
through research findings anchored to one set of criteria or another.
Postmodernists argue that the authentic representation of any phe-
nomenon is impossible and that the positivist ambitions of certainty
and generalizability move investigators towards simplistic, homoge-
nous determinations that accentuate sameness rather than differ-
ence. It is their argument with representational methodologies and
their interest in highlighting difference that have given way to dis-
tinctive methodological preferences-that is deconstructionism and
intuitive interpretation (Rosenau 1992).
One of the major goals of deconstructionism is to expose the
inadequacy of representational claims-to illuminate the paradoxes,
ambivalences, and occlusions constituting texts. In other words,
texts, which can be official documents, stories, television shows,
films, discussions, academic lectures, public speeches, or virtually
any piece of recorded social activity, are thought to be rife with
interpretive conundrums and therefore are incapable of being au-
thentically represented. Unlike social science methodologies in-
formed by positivist epistemologies that attempt to identify facts,
truth, laws, and solutions, deconstructionism is interested in the
contradictions, discontinuities, and blurred mythologies within cer-
tain texts that give way to numerous, interminable interpretations.
Foucault, for instance, employed archeological and genealogical
analyses (i.e., deconstructive methods) in examinations of what he
called the history of the present. He used these strategies to exam-
ine historical texts not for the history within texts per se but to gain
an understanding of how the ideas and practices of particular eras
came to constitute power/knowledge regimes or discourses. He ex-
amined discourses about sexuality and mental illness and pointed
out that while these are reformulated into different expressions
from time to time, they nevertheless relate forms of knowledge and
power that rarely change. The need, he argued, is to examine texts
not for their normative portrayals of reality but to trace the ways in
which language, practices, and power configure and reconfigure at
particularjunctures in history and organize fields of visibilities (e.g.,
 Empowering Rural Sociology - Harris et al. 589

sanatoriums, mental hospitals) and regimes of truth (e.g., diagnostic

practices, labels, treatments, rationales for incarceration) that orient
thinking and acting with regard to certain phenomena.
Smith (1987) combined Foucaultian approaches and feminist ap-
proaches to create a methodology she calls institutional ethnogra-
phy. She has used this approach to examine the emergence and
impact of discourses about women and mental illness and on single
mothers and the state. Escobar (1995) used similar approaches to
examine the emergence of the development discourse after World
War II that has, he argues, succeeded in "colonizing" thinking
about the relationships between Western and nonWestern people.
Agger (1989), Derrida (1981), and Marcus and Fischer (1986)
offered approaches to textual deconstruction and literary criticism
designed not so much to unmask untruth and error but to identify
and re-situate hierarchies and dualities that appear to render texts
unambiguous and certain. They sought to deflate the authoritative
posture that gives texts their power. All told, de constructive "meth-
odologies" attempt to strip the appearances of normality and co-
hesion that disguise very particular and vested conceptions of the
way things work in the world by describing how particular intersec-
tions of knowledge and power came to constitute them historically.
Less skeptical postmodernists-those willing to employ strategies
other than deconstructionism-seek intuitive interpretation
through the exploration of feelings, personal experiences, emo-
tions, conflicts and contradictions, and intuitions and subjective
judgements through strategies that bring them close to the partic-
ular life-worlds of those they seek to understand. In their desire to
understand difference and complexity by centering the everyday
worlds and experiences of the marginalized and ignored, methods
such as life histories, oral histories, biographies, ethnographies, in-
depth interviews, and visual sociology often are employed. However,
even when using these approaches, scholars operating from a post-
modern perspective do not produce the kind of objective, "sani-
tized," research reports usually found in sociology. In fact, even the
concept of interpretation as understood within phenomenology and
hermeneutics is very different. Unlike modern social science inter-
pretive approaches that focus on analyzing text towards the end of
locating patterns, postmodern intuitive interpretations are intertex-
tual in the sense that they produce "... an endless conversation
between the texts with no prospect of ever arriving at or being halt-
ed at an agreed upon point ..." (Bauman 1990:427). Postmodern-
ists argue that all texts are ultimately undecidable because there are
an infinite number of interpretations and a multiplicity of readings
that make it impossible or at least unwise to privilege one interpre-
tation over the other.
590 Rural Sociology, Vol. 60, No.4, Winter 1995

This insistence on the intertextual nature of interpretation has

given rise to inquiries that center upon narrative, especially the ex-
change of stories between researcher and informant about such
things as home, community, and society. These narratives are treated
as exemplars of the many stories that could be told about lives em-
bedded in larger social and cultural contexts. This give and take
between researcher and informant produces an ongoing conversa-
tion about power tensions and authorial issues, how particular nar-
ratives will come to be represented in written form, and for whom
they will come to be written. In fact, these issues often constitute an
integral part of the knowledge-base that informs the inquiry. Such
research promotes the expression of those voices and experiences
that have been discounted and ignored. Richardson (1990:134) ar-
gued that by providing a forum for the disenfranchised, sociologists
can use their " ... privileges and skills to empower the people we
study...."
By opting to stress such criteria as emotionality, subjectivity, and
feelings connected with the personal, local, and political dynamics
of experience, postmodernists open the way to provide powerful
points of departure from which to explore the dynamics of social
change within respective localities. AJ3 Seidman (1991:136) suggest-
ed: "Instead of appealing to absolutist justifications, instead of con-
structing theoretical logics and epistemic casuistries to justify a con-
ceptual strategy ... I propose that we be satisfied with local,
pragmatic rationales for our conceptual approaches." Such a point
of departure suggests that the flexibility, fluidity, and focus on the
peculiarities of the personal/political intersections within particular
localities accorded by postmodern conceptual schemes and methods
offer opportunities to truly engage the incredibly complex social
worlds that rural sociologists are poised to study.

Narrative theory: overview

Though narrative theory shares postmodernism's concerns with rep-
resentation and discourse, it is more grounded in ontological con-
cerns about the connections between story-telling and social action
per se. It begins with the assumption that stories are a pervasive
feature of human existence. Narratives are used to organize an in-
dividual's experience of time (Bridger 1994; Richardson 1990; Ri-
coeur 1984), to construct and maintain social groups (Charland
1987; Maines 1991), to guide socialization processes (Denzin 1988),
to maintain control in organizations (Mumby 1987), and so forth.
AJ3 these examples suggest, narratives can be conceptualized as social
acts; they are an important part of the communicative processes
used to construct the social world. Until recently, however, this re-
lationship has been largely overlooked by social scientists because
 Empowering Rural Sociology - Harris et al. 591

stories are seen as epiphenomenal and hence not worthy of serious

attention. This thinking obscures the fact that stories are interven-
tions in the world and that they have material consequences (Char-
land 1987; Condit 1990). To see this, consider the debate currently
surrounding welfare reform. While the case for welfare reform is
often presented in the form of a logical argument in which statistics
are cited to demonstrate how the system fosters dependency, a large
part of the debate is based on stories, especially stories about welfare
mothers who bear children for the sole purpose of increasing ben-
efits. In situations such as this, anecdotes do matter because they
bring ideology and emotion to bear on statistics and provide a ra-
tionale for action. To ignore this relationship is to miss the discursive
processes which are inextricably linked to social change. Thus, it
becomes sociologically important to explicate the relationship be-
tween stories and their consequences.
As a first step in sketching the broad contours of this relationship,
it is necessary to define briefly what constitutes a narrative act. At a
minimum, such an act is comprised of at least three elements: se-
lecting events, which are simply occurrences or actions that can be
referred to; utilizing these events in the construction of the plot,
setting, and character; and arranging the selected events in a tem-
poral sequence (Maines and Bridger 1992).
Although these elements are intertwined, plot is arguably the
most important. When a sequence of events is placed within the
framework of a plot, what Ricoeur (1984) calls emplotment, there
occurs a transformation of what would otherwise be at most a chron-
icle. The plot binds the heterogenous elements of a story and con-
figures them into a temporal whole by combining two temporal di-
mensions: the chronological and the nonchronological. "The
chronological dimension characterizes the story and shows that it is
made of events along the line of time. The nonchronological di-
mension lifts events into a configuration so that, scattered though
they may be, they form a significant whole" (Polkinghorne 1988:
131). Through the act of emplotment, events are placed in signifi-
cant relationships to one another and lifted above the level of mere
succession. This dialectical character of the plot-its ability to pre-
serve linear time while simultaneously transcending it-ereates a
temporal gestalt that confers meanings on events. In and of itself, a
single occurrence is not particularly meaningful; events take on
meaning to the extent that they contribute to the development of
the plot (Ricoeur 1984).
The connection between meaning and the act of emplotment sug-
gests why narratives are a powerful social force: when stories are
competently emplotted, they can be engrossing and persuasive (Mai-
nes 1993). And, when particular stories become persuasive in the
public realm, they can produce changes in the public vocabulary,
592 Rural Sociology, Vol. 60, No.4, Winter 1995

" ... thus altering both a community's discursive and material prac-
tices" (Lucaites and Condit 1990:8). In the example of welfare dis-
course, for instance, poor mothers, who were once characterized
publicly as victims, have been recharacterized as a class of social
parasites. This was accomplished through the intentional displace-
ment of one narrative by another. When many of the social welfare
programs now under scrutiny were first enacted, they were justified
on the basis of a story that emphasized the plight of the poor in a
nation of great wealth. Such a nation, according to advocates of the
poor, had a moral responsibility to protect less fortunate citizens. To
many this is no longer a legitimate narrative. It has been replaced
by one whose plot links the failure of "The Great Society" and lib-
eralism in general to moral decay and the breakdown of the Amer-
ican family. Lazy mothers who produce offspring as a means of gain-
ing a bigger share of a "too generous" welfare system are simply
the logical outcome of this process.
As this story and its characterization of welfare mothers gains le-
gitimacy, it comes to stand for the reality it purports to describe. In
this sense, social and material conditions are not different from the
story that is told about them. The vast majority of Americans have
little if any contact with welfare recipients. Their understanding of
these people's lives depends almost entirely on the stories they read
or hear. As the story of failed liberalism comes to be taken as true,
it likely will have the practical effect of truncating public discourse
and legitimizing certain lines of action. Moreover, this story has so
charged the welfare mother characterization with rhetorical reso-
nance (Lucaites and Condit 1990) that when the term is used in the
course of conversation or debate, its meaning is taken for granted.
In fact, the characterization functions as a kind of concise summary
of the narrative. The narrative then recedes into what Jameson
(1981) calls the political unconscious, thereby further limiting the
acceptable boundaries of discourse and action.
The importance of this discussion is not so much to illuminate
the particulars of the welfare debate as to describe one of the ways
in which narratives are used to promote particular versions of reality
that favor particular groups or classes. Ordinarily, stories are not
thought of in rhetorical and political terms. However, it is precisely
because the ability to tell and understand stories is so deeply in-
grained in consciousness and so much a part of everyday commu-
nication that they are such an effective means of persuasion in the
political realm.
Although there are numerous methodological techniques for an-
alyzing narrative, including structural analysis (Agar and Hobbs
1982), conversation analysis (Potter and Reicher 1987), content
analysis, and depth hermeneutics (Thompson 1990), this focus on
narratives as social acts directs attention to a methodological ap-
 Empowering Rural Sociowgy - Harris et al. 593

proach that draws on rhetorical criticism and emphasizes the con-

struction, uses, and consequences of narratives. Moreover, because
a rhetorical approach typically entails analysis of discourse over a
substantial period of time, it is particularly well-suited to understand-
ing processes of social change.
The task of interpreting narrative data is hermeneutic (Condit
1990; Kocklemans 1975). Understanding a narrative depends on an
understanding of its parts; at the same time, the parts only make
sense in light of the whole. Moreover, specific narratives often are
nested within large narrative structures and these must be consid-
ered when analyzing a particular narrative. Finally, narratives are not
constructed or interpreted in a social and material vacuum. Failure
to pay attention to standard demographic and economic variables
results in a decontextualized interpretation which, while it may be
interesting, is not likely to be theoretically or practically useful.
By focusing on the ways in which different definitions of a situa-
tion are cast and deployed in narrative form, the narrative approach
provides a means of linking discourse to social change and vice ver-
sa. Moreover, the emphasis on narrative is compatible with the stan-
dard emphasis on structural variables. This feature makes it partic-
ularly well-suited to examining the link between structure and
agency in rural areas.

Feminist theory: overoieui

Feminist theory, like postmodern theory, also challenges conven-
tional interpretations of science and society by striving to under-
stand different ways of viewing the world and the complex identities
upon which these views are based according to gender, race, class,
region, ethnicity, and sexuality. However, while more feminists are
embracing aspects of postmodernism, many feminists actively reject
it largely because of its failure to further a political agenda. Unlike
postmodern theory, feminist theory focuses primarily on explaining
the subordination of women. Towards this end, narrative approach-
es often are employed to access the heterogeneous conceptualiza-
tions of oppression and their impacts on women's lives.
A strategic starting point would be to examine positivists' expec-
tations that scientific knowledge is objective and, thus, universal.
Feminists generally argue that dominant social science epistemology
emerges from and actually serves the purposes of the privileged
social classes and primarily the interests of men. They argue that
women have been excluded from defining what counts as knowl-
edge and that questions in various fields have rarely been asked
from women's perspectives. In recognizing this situation, feminists
join other critics of positivism in asking questions of conventional
epistemology: Can there actually be value-free, objective knowledge?
594 Rural Sociology, Vol. 60, No.4, Winter 1995

Who are the subjects and agents of knowledge? What is the purpose
of the pursuit of knowledge? Responding to these questions, femi-
nists offer several competing epistemologies listed here in the order
of their evolution: feminist empiricism, feminist standpoint theory,
and feminist postmodernism (Harding 1991).
Feminist empiricism attempts to eliminate sexist biases in research
by exposing androcentric biases in scientific research. Much of the
early feminist work in rural sociology (Bokemeier and Tickamyer
1985; Tickamyer and Bokemeier 1988) proceeded like that. How-
ever, many scholars working in this tradition soon understood that
employing scientific methods more rigorously failed to significantly
shift research questions to more adequately explain women's situa-
tions. Following such research trajectories, many feminist theorists
of knowledge recognized that women's experiences differed from
men's and that scholarship should begin from the daily life expe-
riences of women. Such a reconceptualization of women's experi-
ences simultaneously defies the assumption that women and men
possess the same sociocultural system of meaning and exposes male
bias in sociological theories and research.
Feminist standpoint theorists suggest that women have particular
standpoints (Smith 1987) or angles of vision (Collins 1991); because
of women's subordination to men, however, their standpoints re-
main subjugated and unheard. Standpoint theory examines how the
context of women's lives situates them in different positions than
men for understanding and changing the world. For example, Har-
away's (1991) concept of situated knowledge provides an avenue for
understanding multiple perspectives and the experiences of rural
women. While some rural sociologists have examined race (jensen
and Tienda 1989; Snipp et al. 1993), ethnicity (Salamon 1985), and
class (Goss et al. 1980), perhaps with the exception of class issues
findings from these studies are not central to the general theories
of rural society. Feminist attempts to include multiple perspectives
and identities of women from different races, regions, ethnicities,
classes, and sexualities also can prove useful for rural sociologists.
Feminist standpoint theorists also argue that women's standpoints
are privileged and offer emancipatory possibilities for transforming
gender relations. One common unifying theme that has emerged
among feminist scholars is women's modes of resistance to their
subjugation by males. They focus on what women know about those
who attempt to disempower them and how they compromise, ac-
commodate, and defy those individuals who represent the male sys-
tem. In her writing about African-American women, Collins (1991)
stated that women have developed a dual consciousness, enabling
them to deal with their "other" status in the white male world. This
consciousness contains knowledge about the oppressor common to
all women and knowledge about the self. The very separate nature
 Empowering Rural Sociology - Harris et al. 595

of the two types of knowledge sustains women in the face of domi-

nant forces. Investigations of this duality could be used to inform
the agendas of women's political activism in all spheres of their lives
including social science and the production of legitimate knowl-
edge.
However, much debate has ensued concerning what if anything
comprises the particular life experiences that women share. Just as
feminists avoid using the falsely universalistic practices of positivism,
they also strive to understand the diversity of women's voices. In
fact, some feminist theorists embrace the turn towards postmodern-
ism, critiquing earlier feminists for falling into the trap of "essen-
tializing" women. Recently, Haraway (1991) questioned the neces-
sity of delineating one feminist standpoint. Her work suggests that
knowledge claims are derived from situated, located positions; that
is, there are multiple standpoints and positions, not a singular fem-
inist standpoint. For example, Collins (1991) argued that black
women cannot separate their experiences of being women from be-
ing black. Anzaldua (1990) indicated how the hybrid, multiple iden-
tities and experiences of women of color force them to survive by
developing flexibility, tolerance for ambiguity, and divergent think-
ing. In a similar vein, lesbian theorists such as Allison (1994) chal-
lenge heterosexist assumptions in feminist theory and call for atten-
tion to the particular experiences of lesbians. Butler (1990) went
even further to question the very stability of the categories of sex
and gender. All of these turns broaden feminist analysis to include
and recognize the multiple perspectives of women and to provide
more complex and deeper pictures of women's lives.
Shifts in feminist epistemologies also compel feminist social sci-
entists to continually reshape their methodology. The issues raised
by recent work on feminist epistemology have implications for stud-
ies of rural women in terms of their life experiences, their differ-
ences, and their resistance to male dominance or institutions in ru-
ral society. As in sociology, most rural sociologists generally use
theories developed from men's perspectives in which women are
defined in terms of men's activities. Otherwise, rural sociologists
often have confined their investigation of gendered issues to the use
of gender as a variable. Recently, some studies have used feminist
theory and corresponding methodologies to demonstrate how rural
women's experiences differ substantially from men's. While feminist
methodological approaches vary widely, three key aspects will be
discussed by continuing the critique of positivism, noting different
investigations of women's experiences, and concluding with ways to
pursue an action agenda.
The tenets of feminist method stand in sharp contrast to tradi-
tional social science methods. Feminist epistemological goals veer
from the search for universal truth, thereby leading to a critique of
596 Rural Sociologj, Vol. 60, No.4, Winter 1995

positivist research methods that include claims to objectivity, value

neutrality, and sole reliance on statistics and quantitative methods.
Feminist social scientists claim that reliance on statistics and quan-
titative methods as the privileged way to describe the world limits
our understanding of women's lives.
Central to feminist methodology is the approach of beginning
with women's experiences as the starting point for analysis. Smith
(1987) emphasized how sociological work overlooks women's every-
day experiences and how men's categories traditionally have defined
research problems and approaches. For women scholars, " ... the
challenge to begin with our own experiences arose out of the frus-
tration at the realization that women's lives, their history, their strug-
gles, their ideas constitute no part of dominant science" (Mies 1991:
66). By understanding women's daily lives, scholars are better
positioned to interpret social life more fully. An important aspect of
this approach involves seriously considering emotions and feelings
as well as reason. Stanley and Wise (1983) noted that both the re-
searcher and the research subject's emotions are relevant.
While not arguing against the usefulness of statistics, feminist
methodologists have employed oral histories, ethnographies, in-
depth interviews, and other data-gathering techniques. Most often
they have used semistructured or unstructured interviews. These
techniques are a departure from the survey interview because they
allow for a guided conversation with the opportunity for clarification
and relatively free interaction between interviewer and interviewee
(Reinharz 1992). Thus, avoiding the standardization of response
and ultimate control over the research participant characteristic of
positivistic techniques, the relationship between the interviewer and
research participant becomes more egalitarian. Moreover, the data
gathered reveal a rich diversity of understanding unattainable via
dominant research approaches.
Feminist methodological approaches have become increasingly re-
flexive, recognizing the limitations of qualitative as well as quanti-
tative research. Many researchers focus on the nature of the rela-
tionship between the researcher and those they are researching.
Attempts to empower research participants may be problematic. By
rejecting the relations between researcher as subject and researched
as object, feminist scholars call for a participatory, empowering ap-
proach to research. By building on Marxist and critical theory, fem-
inist researchers pursue an explicitly political agenda for improving
women's lives, thus directly confronting scientific claims of value
neutrality.
The work of many feminist researchers appears biased from the
positivist perspective. Rather than claiming an objective, value-free
stance, feminist researchers emphasize subjective reality and explic-
itly support political agendas for improving women's lives. However,
 Empowering Rural Sociology - Harris et al. 597

their willingness to explicitly focus on the political nature of their

research can be instructive to rural sociologists, many of whom work
to improve rural communities and rural people's well-being. Rather
than drawing a strict line between action and research, feminists see
their research problems and methods as connected to social change.
Important similarities exist between feminist methods and partici-
patory action research strategies, as suggested by Chambers (1984)
and others. In sum, feminist methods are consistent with recent
sociological attention to people's agency and their potential to
change their lives.

Alternative approaches to rural development

Postmodern, narrative, and feminist approaches hold particular
promise by providing new angles of vision on the dynamics of rural
social change. Moreover, when combined with more conventional
approaches, postmodern, narrative, and feminist approaches offer
rich opportunities for linking levels of analysis and producing de-
tailed representations of social worlds. Rural development will be
used as an example to illustrate how these three frameworks and
the research strategies they suggest can be woven together to im-
prove understanding of rural life.
Most approaches to rural development stressjob creation and eco-
nomic growth. The underlying assumption is that rural areas lag
behind their urban and suburban counterparts on a variety of social
and economic indicators and that strategies that foster economic
growth will gradually improve the well-being of rural people and
communities. Much of the scholarship on rural development is firm-
ly rooted in the market paradigm supporting government policies
and private sector activities that encourage business investment in
rural areas. Research has focused on several questions: Should rural
development efforts be sectoral or regional? What are the local and
extra-local factors that inhibit and/or promote rural development?
What is the relationship between agriculture and rural economic
well-being? How are rural areas affected by federal agricultural pol-
icies? However, despite decades of research from a variety of theo-
retical perspectives including human ecology, internal colonialism,
uneven development, world systems theory, and neoclassical eco-
nomics, the failure of many rural areas to develop and the social
and economic dynamics involved in this process remain poorly un-
derstood. Indeed, the project recently completed by the Rural So-
ciological Society Task Force on Persistent Rural Poverty (1993) gave
dramatic testimony to the complexity, intensity, and variety of social,
political, and economic changes occurring across rural America.
Linear, one-dimensional discourses currently shaping rural devel-
opment would seem ill-prepared to engage these complexities.
598 Rural Sociology, Vol. 60, No.4, Winter 1995

A postmodern approach to rural development deconstructs the

concept of rural development. Theorists addressing development in
the Third World such as Escobar (1995) and Sachs (1992) have led
the way in deconstructing this concept. Following this approach,
rural development is an historically produced discourse that orders
thoughts, research, and actions concerning rural people and places.
Current discourse portrays rural people and places as "unfin-
ished" vis-a-vis urban people and places. The scholarly discourse on
rural development assumes that rural people have an endless list of
problems, such as poverty, poor schools, inadequate health care, and
poor job opportunities, that can be solved through economic de-
velopment or modernization. Rural places are viewed as backward
and development is posed as the only solution. Postmodernists em-
phasize that development has not delivered on its promises of sus-
tained economic and social well-being and that in the process of
revamping local institutions and sources of livelihood it has under-
mined the ability of rural areas ": . . to secure well-being without
joining unconditionally the economic race" (Sachs 1995:430). Rural
development policies from this perspective have pitted rural people
and communities against one another for forms of economic activity
that are disdained by more affluent areas. Moreover, integration of
rural areas into the global economic system has dangerously re-
duced the room to maneuver in times of economic uncertainty
(Sachs 1995). Finally, postmodernists argue that the development
discourse has silenced the voices and cultures of rural people, de-
fining their knowledge, practices, and experiences as impediments
to economic growth rather than as resources that could be drawn
on to simultaneously foster economic and social well-being while
preserving valued ways of life.
As Escobar (1995) realized, deconstructing the development dis-
course is not particularly useful unless it is accompanied by ap-
proaches that reconstruct and produce new ways of thinking and
acting. Narrative and feminist frameworks may lead rural sociolo-
gists in these directions. A narrative approach, for instance, may
attempt to explain the developmental trajectory of a place by ex-
amining the ways in which local history shapes debate and action.
This line of reasoning assumes that communities are defined in
large part by the stories people tell about them. Indeed, as John-
stone (1990:16) wrote, "[c]oming to know a place means coming
to know its stories; new cities and neighborhoods do not resonate
the way familiar ones do until they have stories to tell." The story
of Detroit, for instance, revolves around the rise and fall of the
automobile industry. Of course there are other stories that can be
told about Detroit, but for many people this one captures the city's
essence. It is through the telling, hearing, and reading of stories
such as this that a sense of familiarity is gained and a common basis
 Empowering Rural Sociology - Harris et al. 599

exists for talking about particular places and the people who inhabit
them (Johnstone 1990).
Such broad, sweeping renditions of a community's history consti-
tute a type of narrative that for want of a better term can be called
a heritage narrative (Maines and Bridger 1992). These are selective
representations of the past that feed into and are partially driven by
the demands, sentiments, and interests of those in the present.
Hence, they often play a defining role in determining local devel-
opment strategies. Heritage narratives give temporal persistence to
communities by providing an account of the community's origins,
the character of its people (both past and present), and its trials
and triumphs over time. The stories told about how communities
came to assume their present form provide an overarching frame-
work within which the meaning of contemporary events can be
placed. The community, in this sense, " ... is not different from the
story that is told about it; it ... is constituted by a story of the
community, of what it is and what it is doing, which is told, acted
out, and received in a kind of self-reflective narration" (Carr 1986:
149-50).
The notion that heritage narratives are central to the temporal
persistence of communities points to another important feature;
they are a form of constitutive rhetoric. Heritage narratives create
an audience to whom appeals can be made. To be specific, they
position audiences by identifying those in the present with real or
imagined forebears who can be depicted as a unique group (Char-
land 1987). When this process of identification is successful, individ-
uals are more likely to think of themselves as temporally persisting
collective agents with a history and a common identity.
Paradoxically, heritage narratives are powerful precisely because
they do not appear to be rhetorical. After all, they simply recount
the history of a community and its people. They can, however, be
put to rhetorical use. In fact, when heritage narratives are particu-
larly well-known and/or effectively mobilized, they can have a de-
cisive effect on the content and direction of public discourse and,
consequently, public action.
Lofland (1991) described this process in her discussion of land-
use planning in Davis, California. Davis has a population of 50,000;
in the dominant heritage narrative, however, Davis remains a small,
friendly agricultural community peopled by residents in single-fam-
ily dwellings on large lots. This is simply the way Davis has always
been, at least according to the story residents tell themselves. Within
this narrative structure, high-density development is anathema; the
only development proposals viewed favorably by the public and de-
cision-makers are those that are low in density. The scale of devel-
opment is a secondary if not irrelevant concern. "And the ironic
consequence of this for the form of a growing Davis is predictable:
600 Rural Sociology, Vol. 60, No.4, Winter 1995

sprawl" (Lofland 1991:214). In short, planning efforts are con-

strained by this heritage narrative in such a way that they result in
a pattern of growth that is " ... neither small in population nor in
area" (Lofland 1991:214).
As this case demonstrates, heritage narratives are never politically
neutral. They usually position audiences to support lines of action
that result in an inequitable distribution of costs and benefits. In
Davis, for instance, large-lot zoning undoubtedly impacts most neg-
ativelyon the poor, first-time homebuyers, single-parent households,
and others who cannot afford a single-family home. There is rarely,
if ever, a single heritage narrative in existence at a particular time,
of course. One may be dominant but others usually exist. These
other narratives can be used to create new audiences that will favor
different lines of action. Again, Davis is an instructive example. In
addition to the small-town narrative, there is an emerging heritage
narrative in which Davis and its residents are at the forefront of
efforts to conserve energy (Lofland 1991; Lofland and Lofland
1987). As this narrative gains adherents, one might expect to see a
shift to such energy-efficient uses of land as cluster developments
that also result in more affordable housing.
In approaching rural development, feminist theory asks: What are
the implications of rural development for women's and men's lives?
To what extent are the standpoints of women considered in rural
development research and policy? In the United States, rural devel-
opment policy has failed to address the role of women in the rural
economy (Tickamyer et al. 1993). Specifically, researchers often
have failed to recognize and address the gendered nature of eco-
nomic relationships that work to women's disadvantage. For exam-
ple, all rural residents suffer from a lack of employment opportu-
'nities. However, rural women are particularly vulnerable to
underemployment and unemployment due to traditional attitudes,
familial demands on their time and energy, and occupational and
job-level discrimination in hiring and promotion.
Rural development efforts that attract industries or promote tour-
ism are seldom considered from the perspective of gender. Research
documenting rural women's increasing participation in the labor
force and in the informal economy seldom has been incorporated
into rural development planning or research agendas. Recent work
by Gringeri (1993) and Naples (1991) reveals how attraction of in-
dustries to rural areas relies heavily on the availability of women's
labor and alters gender and social relations in rural places.
Feminist frameworks examine whether rural people are the sub-
jects or objects of research and reflect on how relations with the
people under study define the findings. Feminist methods focus on
giving voice to women's subjugated knowledge. For example, Mo-
hanty (1988) critiqued studies that intend to improve the lives of
 Empowering Rural Sociology - Harris et al. 601

Third World women but actually portray these women as victims,

illiterate and unable to speak or act for themselves. In response to
Mohanty's critique, feminist researchers are struggling to have these
women speak for themselves while simultaneously recognizing that
academic worlds are often alienating to rural women. How can mar-
ginalized voices be heard? Rural sociologists might ask several ques-
tions. What are the relationships between researchers and their sub-
jects? How do these relations affect research problems, results, and
interpretations of findings? Are rural people portrayed as victims or
as agents struggling to speak and act on their own behalf? Use of
certain methods suggested by feminist epistemologies give women a
voice useful in understanding their experiences.

Conclusions
Postmodern, narrative, and feminist theories share epistemological
and methodological assumptions that reflect a significant distancing
from the suppositions of positivist science.s Each is concerned with
centering the everyday lived experiences of people over illuminating
general principles and each gives significance to the intersecting
contingencies of language, self, and community that prevent the
objective detachment of researcher from research participant. Often
postmodern, narrative, and feminist theories are deployed by schol-
ars in the form of blurred genres. For example, feminist postmod-
ernists might employ the rhetorical tools offered by narrative theory
to conduct a feminist intertextual deconstruction of the diaries of
African-American women at the turn of the century in order to
observe how the contradictions within or between narratives illu-
minate the effects of the intersections of patriarchy, capitalism, and
racism.
Of the three frameworks, postmodernism proffers the strongest
epistemological orientation by calling into question what it considers
distinctly modern forms of representation and power that have
served to occlude and diminish vital epistemological, social, eco-
nomic, and political forces. While narrative theory shares postmod-
ernism's concern with the forms of representation that have come
to prevail in modern social science approaches and their impacts
on action and thought, its ontological orientation affirming story-
telling as the central means by which order is given to the social
world is what gives it distinction. Feminist theory intersects with and
accommodates many dimensions of both postmodern and narrative
theory but distinguishes itself by expressing an explicitly emanci-
patory agenda for women and other oppressed groups.

2 There also are striking differences and quarrels among these frameworks that are
difficult to treat within the limits of this article. Much of the literature cited would
provide useful introductions in this regard.
602 Rural Sociology, Vol. 60, No.4, Winter 1995

Rural sociologists are encouraged to broaden their epistemologi-

cal discourses and link them in meaningful dialogue to methodol-
ogies that provide deeper and more useful understandings of the
complexities of rural social change. Those less familiar with these
frameworks are invited to explore the possibilities they may offer for
their research.
These theoretical and methodological developments are particu-
larly useful for examining the strengths and weaknesses of more
conventional epistemological and methodological frameworks. Post-
modernism reveals the contradictions and power-laden nature of
dominant discourse and creates a space for marginalized peoples'
voices to be heard. However, like most theoretical perspectives, post-
modernism provides only a partial view of the world. In fact, when
deconstructive practices are pushed to an extreme, nihilism is often
the result. To move us beyond this impasse, narrative and feminist
frameworks are suggested as means of illuminating social practices
and processes. Both of these approaches provide the tools to rep-
resent the complexity of rural people and places. While much work
needs to be done in this area, the lines of inquiry opened by femi-
nist and narrative approaches hold promise for generating the kind
of knowledge necessary to inform policies that more fully benefit
the people for whom they are intended.
These approaches also could be applied to other areas of inves-
tigation, including the sociology of work, grassroots movements, so-
ciology of agriculture, and environmental sociology. Not only would
such an undertaking supplement existing research, it would suggest
new questions and approach old ones from new vantage points.
These are precisely the kinds of steps needed to remain relevant in
a rapidly changing world.

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