Workshop Announcement: Concentrated Power and Rural Democracy
Workshop Date: April 24, 2026 (Lincoln, Nebraska)
Abstracts and Expressions of Interest Due: January 15, 2026
The Rural Reconciliation Project at the University of Nebraska College of Law is pleased to announce a new interdisciplinary workshop and research roundtable to be hosted in person in Lincoln, Nebraska, this spring, by Project co-creator and director, Jessica A. Shoemaker. This workshop will convene interdisciplinary scholars to address complex issues of concentrated economic power and impacts on rural democracy.
Recent scholarship has traced the consolidation of rural economic life through vertically integrated agribusiness, declining labor competition, and financialized land and other markets. These developments alter not only the distribution of economic rewards but also the foundations of civic participation and local governance. This workshop will probe the causes and consequences of these transformations, asking how legal and institutional design might respond to growing forms of rural alienation and political polarization—or, alternatively, cultivate new capacities for self-determination and democratic renewal.
The central question is how concentrated economic power shapes the possibilities and limits of democratic engagement in rural America. How does economic concentration structure who gets to decide what in the countryside?
Although this workshop is directed principally toward the U.S. countryside, we also invite comparative and theoretical work on concentration, democracy, and law in other rural contexts. We particularly welcome contributions that connect empirical and historical accounts of economic restructuring to normative and institutional questions about democracy, law, and social provisioning.
Confirmed contributors reflect our commitment to facilitating direct conversation among scholars across disciplinary borders. We look forward to welcoming the diverse perspectives and methodologies of Loka Ashwood (Professor of Community and Environmental Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison); Hiba Hafiz (Associate Professor and McHale Faculty Research Scholar, Boston College Law ); Mary K. Hendrickson (Professor and Director, College of Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources, University of Missouri); Brian Highsmith (Assistant Professor, UCLA School of Law); K-Sue Park (Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law); Margot J. Pollans (Gilbert and Sarah Kerlin Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law, Pace University School of Law); and James Fallows Tierney (Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Chicago-Kent College of Law).
We invite additional expressions of interest with a limited Call for Papers open and available on the full workshop page. Please follow this page for most up-to-date information.
