Roundup: July 24, 2026
A regular feature of the Rural Review, these roundup posts collect notable recent research, analysis, and related rural news and commentary. Feel free to email us your suggestions for future roundups and visit the Rural Review contributor guidelines for other ways to get involved.
Also! A quick reminder that abstracts for our next Law and Rurality Workshop, to be hosted this fall at the University of South Dakota, are due July 27, 2026.
Recent Publications
Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space published Seeing Like a Renewable Energy Company: Solar Prospecting Through Surface Vision by Emilia Groupp (Anthropology, Stanford University). The article draws on ethnographic research with companies in the UK to explore how “surface vision” allows patterns of resource extraction to extend into the renewable energy sector.
Theory & Practice in Rural Education published The Invisible Aches of Being a Black Rural Principal in a Predominantly White School by Jamon Flowers (Educational Administration and Policy, University of Georgia). The autoethnographic study addresses the experiences of Black principals, particularly those in rural settings, and uses W.E.B. DuBois’s concept of double consciousness to consider the intersection of race, place, and leadership.
Erik Logar (Anton Melik Geographical Institute, Slovenian Academy of the Sciences and Arts) published Place Branding as an Approach to the Development of Rural Areas: A Systematic Analysis of Web of Science ‘Geography’ Literature in GeoJournal. The article examines the role of place branding—a strategy of enhancing an area’s reputation by highlighting its uniqueness to create a competitive advantage—in rural development.
News & Commentary
The Daily Yonder found that while enrollment in the Affordable Care Act Marketplace dropped nationwide, rural residents are losing health insurance coverage at higher rates than their urban and suburban counterparts.
An article in the University of Illinois’s farmdoc daily shares results of a recent Gardner Food and Agricultural Policy Survey which found that rural residents are more concerned about the potential impacts of data centers than urban and suburban residents, particularly regarding electricity costs and effects on agricultural land use.
Successful Farming reported on the successful opposition to a proposed 1.4-gigawatt power plant project on farmland in southeast Michigan. Local residents of Lima Township protested the project due to concerns about potential health hazards.
An article in Reuters considered healthcare as a key issue in the upcoming midterm elections, noting that Democrats see an opportunity to sway rural voters worried about Republican Medicaid cuts and their potential impact on access to healthcare in rural communities.
Events & Recordings
The Environmental Law Center at Vermont Law and Graduate School is hosting a free livestream lecture series, Hot Topics in Environmental Law. Emma Scott, director of VLGS’s clinical programs and the Food and Agriculture Clinic, will present Occupational Hazards in a Warming Climate: Preventing Heat Illness in Agricultural Settings on July 28, 2026. Sessions will feature live Q&A with the audience.
The University of Minnesota Extension re-released a favorite podcast episode of Side by Side, Camden Blatchly, Center on Rural Innovation data analyst, explains the complex story behind rural and urban classifications and why place isn't so easily defined. The episode considers how, though often presented as a binary, rural and urban areas are a complex, diverse, interconnected continuum of geographies, people, and economic conditions.
