The Rural Review
An online journal produced in conjunction with the Rural Reconciliation Project.
The Rural Review publishes digests of important academic contributions, program information, blog-style commentary, and periodic roundups of rural items from across academic disciplines and scholarly media.
Contributions from interested authors are welcome. Find our author guidelines here.
Explore Curated Content
Click each box below to direct you to the different content types on this page. The most recent content is listed here, but please click “more” to see the full archive of materials - or other directions listed here.
Featured Content or Highlights of Recent Work
These could be the 3 -5 most recent additions?
In Natural Resource Policy and Collaborative Processes, Crystal M. Callahan and Katherine M. Himes (both Public Policy Research, University of Idaho) advocate for introducing collaborative governance to the natural resource policy process. The authors explore several successful Idaho case studies in which collective governance was utilized to address “wicked problems” plaguing Idaho’s natural resource policy.
In Rural Politics in the United States, authors Trevor E. Brown and Suzanne Mettler (both Government, Cornell University) survey recent literature on rural politics and recommend a broader lens to better understand the impact of place on voters. They discuss the current state of rural politics literature, how to measure place and rurality, the role of public opinion, and recommend a comparative approach for future rural studies.
Summary of Mark Haggarty, Kathryn Bills Walsh, and Kelly Pohl’s evaluation of New Mexico’s Land Grant Public Fund which supports the state's schools, infrastructure, and other services.
Explore the Database
Blurb about the catalog or database, with user interface directions
Most Recent Digests
Digests are very short objective summaries of recent academic or other scholarly contribution related to rural pasts, presents, or futures.
In Catching Nutrients in a Net: Collective Action, Institutional Impediments, and the Mississippi River Watershed, Jonathan Rosenbloom (Albany Law School) investigates the role of local governments in the regulation of pollution in the Mississippi River Watershed. In his analysis, Rosenbloom goes beyond the traditional “tragedy of the commons” explanation for local government action and instead looks to the dynamics of federal and state regulations that preempt local governments.
In Know Your Rights! A Field Experiment on Legal Knowledge, Property Rights, and Investment in Kenya, Adam Aberra and Matthieu Chemin (both Economics, McGill University, Montreal) illustrate the impact of legal trainings regarding property rights on landowners in Kenya and emphasize that this low-cost intervention increases security in property rights and promotes economic development.
In Legal Deserts and Spatial Injustice: A Study of Criminal Legal Systems in Rural Washington, authors Lisa R. Pruitt (University of California Davis Law), Jennifer Sherman, and Jennifer Schwartz (both Sociology, Washington State) delve into the criminal legal systems across several rural counties in eastern Washington to understand the problems these communities face and how those problems impact legal representation for indigent defendants.
Most Recent Commentary
Commentary posts are guest opinions, essays, and other posts from a range of voices (both academic and non-academic) in a short blog-style piece on a topic of interest to our Project; these commentary posts should be informative and advance the wider Rural Reconciliation Project conversation.
Designed to support the work of law professors, scholars, and students working on issues of law and rurality in the US, this guide organizes otherwise disparate rural materials by source type and offers a comprehensive starting point for research. It may also serve as a helpful classroom resource.
Many people have studied eviction, and rightly so: Eviction in America is at a crisis level, with an estimated 2.7 million households facing eviction filings each year. Eviction has an impact on people and communities, with research linking it to job loss, poor physical and mental health outcomes, and all-cause mortality. Eviction can disrupt every aspect of a person’s life.
If you pay attention to public discourse about rural populations, you might have noticed something missing in the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election: think-pieces on rural voters. These think-pieces—musing on rural voters’ motivations, their seemingly disproportionate susceptibility to Donald Trump’s appeal, and their role in deciding the most recent election—were everywhere after the 2016 presidential election that led to Trump’s first term. Even in 2020, after Joe Biden’s victory and evidence of more complexity in rural voting patterns, analysts and pundits seemed eager to assess the role of the rural vote. Yet, rural voters just don’t seem to be top of mind for this round of post-election analysis. Why might that be?
The electricity industry in the United States is undergoing a period of massive and turbulent transition. One recurring question is whether public regulation or public ownership can best serve public interest goals. Nearly every state has an agency with intensive regulatory powers to direct or influence the activities of electric utilities. However, even with state regulatory oversight, private utilities have faced persistent criticism, and public ownership of utilities is often touted as a potentially desirable alternative. In this debate about public ownership versus public control, Nebraska offers an interesting and underexamined case-study.
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) made headlines in early 2024 as many major American museums closed exhibits and entire wings in order to comply with new regulations governing the possession and display of Native American cultural artifacts and funerary objects. But the recent regulatory changes have the potential to affect more than museum displays—they may give reservation residents a stronger say in what the government does on their land.
Most Recent Events
Call for Papers - Concentrated Economic Power and Rural Democracy - Interdisciplinary Workshop Hosted by Jessica Shoemaker and the Rural Reconciliation Project in Lincoln, Nebraska, in spring 2026.
The Rural Reconciliation Project and Professor Hannah Haksgaard of the University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law co-hosted an online Law and Rurality Workshop in Fall 2025.
The Rural Reconciliation Project hosted Professor Hannah Haksgaard of the University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law to discuss her new book on rural attorneys in South Dakota.
The Rural Lawyer: How to Incentivize Rural Law Practice and Help Small Communities Thrive is the culmination of a series of interviews Professor Haksgaard conducted with South Dakota’s Rural Attorney Recruitment Program participants. These interviews highlight the experiences of participating attorneys, reveal the program's impact, and deepen understandings about what practice in rural communities looks like.
Book Talk Event - The Rural Lawyer - Prsented by Professor Hannah Haksgaard - October 9, 2025 at Nebraska College of Law
Call for Papers - Law & Rurality Workshop - Hosted Virtually Fall 2025
Most Recent Roundups
A periodic collection of recent research, analysis, and other notable rural items.
A periodic collection of recent research, analysis, and other notable rural items.
A periodic collection of recent research, analysis, and other notable rural items.
A periodic collection of recent research, analysis, and other notable rural items.
A periodic collection of recent research, analysis, and other notable rural items.
Most Recent Reading Lists
Reviews are thoughtful reflections on the contribution of a recent item of rural-related scholarship; these posts are best when they celebrate what is interesting and important about the new work while also situating it within a larger academic or social/political/economic context.
A reading list of rural-related literature curated by the Rural Reconciliation Project. This collection explores how national mythmaking extracts and appropriates rural narratives for its own purposes.
A reading list of rural-related literature curated by the Rural Reconciliation Project. This collection focuses on rural violence and notions of justice in rural communities.
A reading list of rural-related literature curated by the Rural Reconciliation Project. This collection focuses on rural violence and notions of justice in rural communities.
A reading list of rural-related creative nonfiction curated by the Rural Reconciliation Project. This collection focuses on rural homecomings and the revisiting of rural homeplaces.
The Rural Review publishes digests of important academic contributions, program information, blog-style commentary, and periodic roundups of rural items from across academic disciplines and scholarly media.
Contributions from interested authors are welcome. Find our author guidelines here.