Exploring a law that's all about rural women

For the past several years, my scholarship has explored the legal relevance of rurality. One of my goals has been to expose rural difference—which is often also rural disadvantage—with respect to a range of domestic legal issues, e.g., abortion access), youth substance abuse, intimate partner violence, and availability of health and human services. My work reveals a pervasive presumption of the urban in culture, law and legal scholarship. Rural women have been the focus of a great deal of my writing, including an article that theorizes the intersection of gender with the rural-urban axis.

My most recent publication goes international with this “critical legal ruralist” (and feminist) project. Migration, Development and the Promise of CEDAW for Rural Women, has just been published in Volume 30 of the Michigan Journal of International Law (MJIL). To the best of my knowledge, this is the first publication to look in any systematic way at Article 14 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Why has Article 14 been overlooked by scholars? I can't say for sure, but it might have something to do with the fact that the provision is all about rural women, suggesting they are a distinct population.

For a self-proclaimed ruralist like me, Article 14 was a very exciting find. I am delighted that an MJIL symposium, "Territory without Boundaries," provided a timely opportunity to write about it. While U.S. law largely ignores the rural-urban axis, here in an international human rights instrument is an express legal recognition of rural difference—accompanied by a call to action.

My new article looks at the Travaux Préparatoires to explore how this marginalized population got included in CEDAW and how drafters determined which particular concerns of rural women got addressed. Several developing nations first put rural women on the CEDAW agenda, and they were apparently motivated to do so because of women’s critical role in food production. What ultimately became Article 14 was sponsored by Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, Thailand, and—interestingly—the United States.

Perhaps the fact that an international human rights instrument such as CEDAW expressly acknowledges rurality and rural difference should not be a great surprise to us. The United Nations attends to rural people and places in many contexts. Some examples are here, here, here, and (implicitly) here. This UN attention seems highly appropriate given that about half of the world’s population is still rural. (Compare that to just under a fifth of the population of the United States, where rural interests get systematic government attention only within the U.S. Department of Agriculture). After all, “rural” is to some degree synonymous with undeveloped and primitive, just as “urban” connotes civilization and development. Plus, a great deal of the content of international human rights law arguably targets developing nations, compelling them to adopt the norms of the developed world. In a similar vein, CEDAW’s Article 14 seeks to secure for rural women the same rights urban women get, e.g., healthcare and education, while also recognizing rural-specific needs.

A very recent UN recognition of the significance of rural women came with the United Nations’ observance of the first International Day of Rural Women, on October 15, 2008. According to the UN declaration, the day’s designation recognizes “the critical role and contribution of rural women, including indigenous women, in enhancing agricultural and rural development, improving food security and eradicating rural poverty.” (See this post). In the developing world, rural and agricultural are much more nearly synonymous than in the developed world. Indeed, the focus of my new publication is the Article 14 guarantees that are linked closely to women’s roles as the so-called architects of food security. These rights include land ownership, inclusion in development planning and implementation “at all levels,” and access to credit, marketing facilities and agricultural technology and extension services. To better understand the potential of CEDAW to enhance rural women’s livelihoods, I examine the most recent country reports of four Member States: China, Ghana, India, and South Africa. All have significant rural and urban populations; in a sense, all are simultaneously developed and developing.

My discussion of CEDAW’s Article 14 is situated in the context of massive rural-to-urban migration worldwide. In fact, its publication comes shortly after demographers report that, on a global scale, urban dwellers began to outnumber those living in rural areas (read more here). As globalization creates conditions that induce migration, causing the populations of cities to burgeon and their territories to sprawl, those same forces shape rural places, too. Although that which is rural is often thought of as quintessentially local, rural livelihoods around the world are buffeted by economic restructuring, migration, and climate change. I thus consider CEDAW in relation to migration’s consequences for the women who are left behind: enormous challenges, but also opportunities for empowerment.

Among other observations, I laud the priorities and framework of CEDAW’s Article 14 in terms of the ways in which they seek to foster women’s agency and material well-being. Many of the enumerated rights are of the socioeconomic variety rather than of the civil and political type. It is thus not surprising that Member States’ responses to Article 14 tend to be more often programmatic than in the nature of law reform.

I also discuss the potential for CEDAW’s Article 14 to accommodate legal pluralism, which can be particularly relevant in rural places, where custom and local sources of authority tend to be more entrenched and influential than in urban locales. I further suggest that the population churn associated with migration represents an opening for the renegotiation of gender roles and other cultural practices in rural places. I argue that migration enhances the prospect of raising the collective consciousness of rural communities regarding national and international legal norms, while also facilitating enforcement of rural women’s rights by fostering their access to formal legal actors and institutions at higher scales, usually in urban places. Finally, throughout the Article, I consider parallels between developing and developed nations with regard to rural-urban difference, population trends, the industrialization of agriculture, and the social and economic consequences of these phenomena.

Migration, Development and the Promise of CEDAW for Rural Women is hardly the last word on CEDAW’s Article 14. My analysis of the intersection of development, migration and human rights law for rural women raises many more questions than it answers. Among these questions is the impact of rural spatiality—including a relative absence of formal legal institutions and actors—on the ability of rural women to realize the promise of international instruments such as CEDAW and the domestic laws and programs that respond to its mandate. Another is the extent to which development efforts entail or encourage urbanization and how CEDAW’s vision for empowering rural women might influence the trajectory of development. A third is the wisdom of development strategies that fuel migration’s urban juggernaut by promoting the industrialization of agriculture. Such strategies—which I argue reflect an urban bias—seem wrong headed at a time when the developed world’s food production priorities are shifting to value and emphasize sustainable agriculture. I hope other scholars who are interested in gender, how we feed ourselves, and maybe even rurality, will join me in exploring these and other issues related to Article 14 of CEDAW.

Cross-posted at IntLawGrrls.

Spending stimulus dollars in rural Tennessee

Michael Cooper reports in today's New York Times on how stimulus funds are putting folks back to work quickly, New Deal-style, in nonmetropolitan Perry County, Tennessee, population 7,631. Here's an excerpt:

The state decided to spend some of its money to try to reduce unemployment by up to 40 percent here in Perry County, a small, rural county 90 miles southwest of Nashville where the unemployment rate had risen to above 25 percent after its biggest plant, the auto parts factory, closed.

Rather than waiting for big projects to be planned and awarded to construction companies, or for tax cuts to trickle through the economy, state officials hit upon a New Deal model of trying to put people directly to work as quickly as possible.

They are using welfare money from the stimulus package to subsidize 300 new jobs across Perry County, with employers ranging from the state Transportation Department to the milkshake place near the high school.

The grass-roots, fast-action sound of the program is certainly appealing, and Cooper reports that the June unemployment rate for the county fell to just over 22%. Still, folks in Perry County know they need a long-term solution to local economic woes, like the auto parts factory that closed and put so many in such dire straits so quickly.

Rural as "mom"? as sanctuary?

A story in the New York Times today tells of a federal program to tear down and re-build homes contaminated by uranium, mostly in the Navajo Nation. The dateline is Teec Nos Pos, Arizona, population 799, in the four corners area. Teec Nos Pos is in Apache County, population 69,423, and with a population density of about six persons per square mile. In other words, its pretty rural. The story features the Slowman family who lived in Farmington, New Mexico, population 37,844, and "miles away" from their Apache County home, while it was being re-built. This quote is from Mr. Slowman, following his explanation that a traditional Navajo medicine man would bless their new house before they moved in.

“In our traditional way, a house is like your mom,” he said. “It’s where you eat, sleep, where you’re taken care of. And when you come back from the city, you come back to your mom. It makes you feel real good.”

To me, the use of the city as foil, suggested that the rural setting was as much the "mom" or sanctuary as the home itself. It's a nice metaphor.

Law and Order in the Ozarks (Part XXXII): "Adjudcated circuit court criminal cases reviewed"

The July 16, 2009 issue of the Newton County Times features that headline, the only front-page story of a law and order nature.

The cases adjudicated range from traffic violations, to residential burglaries (televisions and a gun) and a Class C theft of property (a horse), to domestic battery, terroristic threatening, and carrying a weapon following a domestic disturbance. In one burglary, the defendant was sentenced to 120 days in jail, 60 months probation, and was ordered to pay $500 in court costs and $100 in restitution. In the other, the defendnat was sentenced to two days in jail, 60 months of probation, and 100 hours of community service. He was ordered to pay a $250 fine and more than $1,250 in restitution. The defendant who stole the horse pleaded guilty and was placed on 36 months probation. He was also fined $250 plus court costs and ordered to pay restitution of more than $1,307. In the final case, arising from domestic violence, the charges were dismissed at the request of the victim, the defendant's wife.

Carrying the rural flag in the context of health care reform

A story in today's NYT, "Concerns on Plan Show Clashing Goals," discusses the current proposal to remake the health care system. The authors note the concerns of several law makers, and this part of the story, which attends to the rural, caught my eye:

Representative Mike Ross, Democrat of Arkansas, wants to reduce or eliminate the disparities in what Medicare pays for health services in rural areas versus urban centers, a gap that he says has forced hospitals to close and doctors to move away.

* * *

... Mr. Ross said that addressing long-term costs was just one area of concern for the Blue Dogs. They also want to reduce or eliminate the disparity in Medicare payments that result in lower rates for health providers in rural areas.

Mr. Ross said his hometown, Prescott [population 3,686], now has three doctors — down from six — and that private insurers in Arkansas pay 30 percent more than Medicare, making doctors reluctant to accept new Medicare patients.

India is paying attention to the need for rural broadband

I just saw this abstract on ssrn.com for a paper titled "Planning for Rural Broadband Coverage: The Ultimate Bridge Across the Indian Rural-Urban Digital Divide."

This article highlights the fact that broadband connectivity holds the promise to transform the lives of rural Indians. Universal access to broadband would not only bridge the digital divide but also help to overcome the infrastructural constraints such as lack of roads, market access, health and education facilities that commonly plague rural areas. Further, broadband connectivity can bring convenient access to specialized knowledge and government services to rural folk. All this would go a long way towards mainstreaming rural India and reducing its chronic deprivation and isolation. While substantiating the above conviction with examples and negating the doubts of naysayers, the author describes various government schemes to bring about ICT connectivity and benefits of broadband to rural populations. Universal Service Obligation Fund of India (USOF) and the Department of IT are in the implementing schemes in this direction. The author goes on to analyse USOF’s past efforts and draw lessons from the same for the envisaged rural broadband scheme, apart from touching upon the possibility of learning from other countries experiences and adapting the same into a scheme for the fibre-based ICT connectivity for rural India.

Of course, the need for rural broadband is getting some attention in the U.S., too. Read posts here and here. The attention is not always positive, the positions taken not always supportive of digital infrastructure for rural folks; see here.

Duh

One of the big takeaways from my recent scholarship is the stuff of Timothy Egan's latest column. Now that he is saying it, perhaps it will garner a bit more attention.

Egan's column is Methland v. Mythland. Egan writes of the brief media furor over the book Methland (see my post here) and then continues:

And then it all passed, as these things do, the damage done, leaving the impression of rural America as a broken land, scary. In the interim, the more traditional narrative, of country people somehow more authentic than city folk — “the best of America in these small towns” — came roaring back in the form of Sarah Palin.

In truth, neither of these images does justice to the complexities of small-town life. And neither version does anything to advance the cause of an honest rural policy, something that might help some of the worst casualties of global economic tumult.

Egan goes on to describe what all rural scholars know and what all law- and policy-makers should know: rural residents are more likely to be poor, to be without health insurance, and to lack access to sorts of health and human services city dwellers take for granted. Many rural communities are suffering population loss. As Egan expresses it, "[i]n the invisible margins off the interstate, the story about decline takes place in slow motion, rarely attracting a headline."

Egan's right, but he fails to mention several recent headlines that have been quite hostile to rural communities and interests, such as this one.

Some rural consequences of the pared down California budget

I am happy to see Jennifer Steinhauer's report on the just-agreed California budget also mention its consequences for rural places. Here's the excerpt from her story, "In Budget Deal, California Dream Meets Grim Reality."

The fallout is already evident. ... In Eureka, near the Oregon border, the Old Town Dental Center is about to close. Its patient base is 90 percent Medicaid, and the state’s program will no longer pay for anything beyond tooth extractions.

“There are a lot of people that are just not showing up,” said Nicole Eleck, the receptionist there. “Half our patients are saying, ‘If something bothers me, I will wait until it needs to get pulled.’ ”

Herrmann Spetzler, the chief executive of Open Door Community Health Centers, which operates 10 clinics in rural northern California, said clinics that are the only providers for miles around might close.

“If you sit in our waiting room, you will see the faces of everyone who lives in our region,” he said. “There is the local judge, the policeman, the mom with kids and the homeless person. In my health centers, we’ve had $5 million in cut since July, and we don’t know what the future will bring.”

Ouch! An extremely uncharitable characterization of rural America

See Frank Rich's column last week, which I didn't read when it first appeared because it was seemingly all about Sarah Palin, and I was suffering a bit of Sarah fatigue. The column is titled "She Broke the G.O.P and Now She Owns It," and I noticed its popularity in the NYTimes most emailed list last week. Seeing this comment about the column in the Daily Yonder caused me to take a look.

It seems that rural America just keeps taking it on the chin due to its association with Sarah Palin. I am generally a fan of Frank Rich's, but here he is just needlessly "piling on" about the link between Sarah and country folks. That association was created, of course, by Palin herself, but also by the pundits. I've previously written about it here, here, and here.

Here is the most problematic part of Rich's column, as I see it:

Most important, she stands for a genuine movement: a dwindling white nonurban America that is aflame with grievances and awash in self-pity as the country hurtles into the 21st century and leaves it behind. Palin gives this movement a major party brand and political plausibility that its open-throated media auxiliary ... cannot. (emphasis added).

Are rural Americans (who else might Rich mean by nonurban? I doubt he means suburban, or even exurban?) awash in self-pity? aflame in grievances? The reader comments to this article support the latter assertion, as did callers to last Friday's Talk of the Nation on NPR. But grievances are sometimes justified ...

Later in the column, Rich actually uses the word "rural." Here's that excerpt:

Even now, the so-called mainstream media can grade Palin on a curve: at MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” last week, Palin’s self-proclaimed representation of the “real America” was accepted as a given, as if white rural America actually still was the nation’s baseline.

The people who think "white rural America" is the nation's baseline are clearly rare these days. After all, the United States ceased to be a majority rural nation almost 100 years ago, with the 1920 Census. So why does Rich find it necessary to be so harsh? Can you imagine if a respected columnist like Rich (or anyone with such a national platform) took aim in such a harsh way at a racial or ethnic minority? Why are poor white people (especially rural ones, these days) fair game?

Of course, these are just two slices of the column (which generally does focus more on Palin and the G.O.P., as billed), but both are gratuitous rural bashing, truly unnecessary and destructive rhetorical hyperbole.

Pretty clearly, "white rural America" is no longer the nation's baseline, but does that mean they don't matter at all?

Some of Obama's pre-Presidential reflections on rural America

I have been reading President Barack Obama's Dreams from my Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, first published in 1995 not long after Obama finished Harvard Law School. It is a stunning, marvelous book in several regards, and I have especially enjoyed his reflections on his childhood and youth, his early grappling with race and his family's roots. Among other passages, I was taken with his descriptions of the Kansas towns from which his maternal grandparents came. Here it is:

They had grown up less than twenty miles away from each other--my grandmother in Augusta, my grandfather in El Dorado, towns too small to warrant boldface on a road map--and the childhoods they liked to recall for my benefit portrayed small-town, Depression-era America in all its innocent glory; Fourth of July parades and the pictures shows on the side of a barn; fireflies in a jar and the taste of vine-ripe tomatoes, sweet as apples; dust storms and hail storms and classrooms filled with farm boys who got sewn into their woolen underwear at the beginning of winter and stank like pigs as the months wore on.

Even the trauma of bank failures and farm foreclosures seemed romantic when spun through the loom of my grandparents' memories, a time when hardship, the great leveler that had brought people closer together, was shared by all. So you had to listen carefully to recognize the subtle hierarchies and unspoken codes that had policed their early lives, the distinctions of people who don't have a lot and live in the middle of nowhere. It had to do with something called respectability--there were respectable people and not-so-respectable people--and although you didn't have to be rich to be respectable, you sure had to work harder at it if you weren't.

This respectable/not-so-respectable dichotomy resonates with me in relation to my own upbringing in rural Arkansas. In a persistent poverty county where no one had very much in terms of material goods, this distinction was the stuff on which social hierarchies rested, though I suppose I reflect on it more as a continuum than a dichotomy.

Also interesting to me is Obama's awareness that he is "seeing" these places through the lens of his grandparents' memories and presentation to him. But this is no different than the self-awareness and maturity that Obama exhibits through the entire book, which I have found remarkable given that he wrote this book in his early 30s.

For the record, Augusta, Kansas, had a 2000 population of 8,423, and El Dorado, Kansas (the county seat of Butler County), had a 2000 population of 12,057. Both towns are located in micropolitan Butler County. I'll have to do some digging around to find out what their populations were when Obama's grandparents were growing up there.

As I wrote earlier, Obama's maternal great-great-great-great-great grandmother was once a resident of my home county, Newton County, Arkansas, which is just about as rural as it gets.

European farm subsidies used for broader rural development

This story in today's New York Times explains that farm subsidies in the European Union support enterprises that are not strictly agricultural, much to the dismay of some farmers and politicians there. As in the U.S., European farm subsidies also flow to many wealthy persons who happen to own rural and/or agricultural land, even if it is not farmed. Here's the story's lede:

Arids Roma is a gritty Catalan construction company in the northeast of Spain that paves highways and churns out dusty gray mountains of gravel from several sprawling factories.

It is also a beneficiary of €1.59 million in farm subsidies from the European Union, which last year doled out more than €50 billion, $71 billion, from the largest agricultural aid program in the world, one that provides financing to a wide variety of recipients beyond the farmers who plow the soil — German gummy bear manufacturers, luxury cruise ship caterers and wealthy landowners ranging from Queen Elizabeth II of England to Prince Albert II of Monaco.

Arids spreads gravel instead of seeds, but it received a farm subsidy for contributing to rural development — money well spent, according to the Catalan regional government, which requested the payment and then distributed it to the company.

As a spokeswoman for the Catalan government explains, “Paved roads connecting the villages aid the mobility of tractors.”

Elsewhere in the article, the theme of rural development is echoed in the comments of an EU spokesman who explains: “Rural development is not just about farms, it is also about environmental projects and boosting the rural economy ... So it is perfectly O.K. that nonagricultural businesses get money for a project that generates jobs and prosperity in rural areas.” I suspect that many rural residents in Europe disagree--not with the mission of rural development, but that the best way to achieve it is to channel monies through agri-business interests and the pockets of European monarchs.

I wonder what grass roots rural development efforts are underway in Europe. Here's a link to one rural community development program in the U.S. The USDA makes many grants available for community development purposes.