In the Sticks but Not in the Weeds: Diversity, Remembrance, and the Forging of the Rural American West

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "In the Sticks but Not in the Weeds: Diversity, Remembrance, and the Forging of the Rural American West," at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Diversity has long been a facet of life in the American West but is commonly understood to be a phenomenon largely confined to urban areas. This session brings together papers that challenge that narrative or question the framing of rural spaces as perpetually homogenous, bucolic, and out-of-the-way places where only a narrowly defined set of actors played any meaningful role. By exploring the unique dynamics of rural communities, these presentations highlight how various groups navigated the opportunities, constraints, and complex social worlds of small-town life. The papers in this session reflect on the various ways that popular Western narratives have romanticized, whitewashed, and winnowed away the complexity of rural spaces. The erasure of these experiences has haunted both currently and formerly rural areas, disconnecting modern communities from their rich social and cultural pasts.