We Are the Horses: Identity Work in the Southeastern Missouri Ozarks
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We Are the Horses: Identity Work in the Southeastern Missouri Ozarks By Kelly Fish-Greenlee Submitted to the Department of Anthropology and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _____________________________ Chairperson Committee members* _____________________________ _____________________________ _____________________________ _____________________________ Date Defended: _______________ The Dissertation Committee for Kelly Fish-Greenlee certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: We Are the Horses: Identity Work in the Southeastern Missouri Ozarks Committee: _____________________________ Chairperson _____________________________ _____________________________ _____________________________ _____________________________ Date Approved: _______________ ii ABSTRACT Kelly Fish-Greenlee, Ph. D Department of Anthropology, May 2009 In the face of extreme conditions such as a natural disaster, social upheaval and forced relocation, how do populations maintain cultural continuity with identity and tradition? This dissertation considers a specific community’s response at the end of the 20 th and early 21 st centuries to government appropriation of traditional territory and forced relocation. The residents of Carter and Shannon Counties in Missouri, forced to abandon and change their long- time relationship to the land, were faced with the task of maintaining their identity after the 1964 establishment of the Ozark National Scenic Riverways (ONSR), a National Park Service (NPS) project in the Missouri Ozarks. The primary research question posed here is: what factors inform and influence the identity work of Ozarkers in the face of extreme insults to their community, most importantly the loss of ownership and community control of traditional territory? I argue that an historic pattern of domination by external entities (who have often vilified residents), including the establishment of the ONSR and the forced removal of a community subset, have given rise to an interpretive oppositional identity framework of symbols produced by affected residents in Shannon and Carter Counties. This framework functions to protect, assert, refine and maintain identity constructions by guiding identity work that includes resistance. iii This document is dedicated to my Granny Beulah from whom I first learned to understand hillbillies, and to my Mother and Father who transmitted to me a love for education and a penchant for fairness. iv Acknowledgements Many people deserve thanks for the support and patience they have provided me during the years that I have worked to complete this document. First, I thank Jane Gibson for providing me with the opportunity to do fieldwork in the Ozarks, for chairing my committee, and for guiding me in the writing process. In addition, thanks go to Akira Yamamoto and Alan Hanson for their significant contribution of ideas and continued encouragement over the years and for serving on my committee. Thanks also to Karen Ohnesorge and Chris Brown for serving on my committee, and to Karen and Barbara Dinneen for their editorial contributions. I also thank my dearest friends Frank and Diane who struggled with me through the emotional trauma and intellectual challenges of writing a dissertation. To my family, to my friends and colleagues, and to Ottawa University, I extend my gratitude for the long-term support they have given me in this process. v Table of Contents Chapter One Background and Introduction ............................................................ 8 Growing Global Displacement .................................................................................. 9 Site Selection and Background .................................................................................. 12 Place and Poverty in Carter and Shannon Counties: Geography, Population, Education and the ONSR ............................................................................... 15 Methods and Limitations of the Research ................................................................. 20 Organization of the Dissertation ................................................................................ 24 Chapter Two Outsider Interventions and Historic Marginalization ...................... 27 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 27 Settlement Patterns, Core Values and Attachment to Place ...................................... 28 Settler Subsistence Patterns ................................................................................. 30 The Civil War ............................................................................................................ 31 Origins of the Hillbilly Stereotype ............................................................................. 35 Forest Depletion, Cultural Deficit and Renewed Government Intervention 1880-1940 ............................................................................................................ 37 The Creation of the Ozark National Scenic Riverways ............................................. 42 Summary .................................................................................................................... 52 Chapter Three The Past in the Present: History, Landscape and Contemporary Processes of Identity Construction .......................................................................................... 54 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 54 Theory on Identity Work ........................................................................................... 54 “Who We Are” ........................................................................................................... 57 To Be “Local” ...................................................................................................... 58 Ancestral Values .................................................................................................. 59 Attachment to Landscape ..................................................................................... 66 Constructing the “Other”: Identity and Relative Deprivation ................................... 69 The “Other” and Relative Material Deprivation: Economics and Artifacts ....... 71 The “Other” and Relative Deprivation of Authority and Stewardship: Land Management and Trust in Government ......................................................... 77 The “Other” and Land Use Deprivation: Access, Fishing, Tourism, and Recreation ...................................................................................................... 81 Insider Constructions and “Who We Are Not”.................................................... 86 Summary .................................................................................................................... 92 Chapter Four Resistance as Identity Work ............................................................... 94 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 94 Background: Resistance and Identity .................................................................. 95 Forms of Resistance: Backtalk as Everyday, Micro-Political Resistance .......... 98 vi Cultural Memory: A Template for Whom, Why and How to Resist ........................ 101 The Civil War ...................................................................................................... 102 The Imposition of Conservation Laws ................................................................. 105 The Creation of the ONSR ................................................................................... 106 Every Day Forms of Micro-Political Resistance: Defending “Who We Are” in Opposition to ONSR Policy ................................................................................. 112 Resistance to Boating Restrictions....................................................................... 113 Resistance to Hunting Restrictions ...................................................................... 115 Resistance to Fishing Restrictions ....................................................................... 118 Resistance to Restricted Access ........................................................................... 119 Organizing and Macro-Political Politics: The Case of the Wild Horses .................. 122 Summary .................................................................................................................... 130 Chapter Five Analysis.................................................................................................. 132 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 132 Symbolic Anthropology and the Formulation of Key Symbols in Oppositional Identity Work ....................................................................................................... 132 Symbol Content and Historic Reformulation ...................................................... 134 A Typology of Symbols ....................................................................................... 136 Identity Work and Key Symbols: “The Ozarks,” “Government,” and “Wild Horses” ................................................................................................................