Directing groundbreaking attention to the role of rural and urban places in identity construction, this book is written to redress the longstanding neglect and denigration of the rural and the cultural dominance of the city.

Knowing Your Place directs groundbreaking attention to the role of rural and urban places in identity construction. Written to redress the longstanding neglect and denigration of the rural, this book argues that the cultural dominance of the city has been reinforced by postmodern theory's near fixation on the urban and the sophisticated. The essays explore rural identity in a number of cultures and situations, and look at issues of contemporary interest. Topics covered include the uses of popular and high culture, the explosion of high technology, the social and economic impact of ecological policy, the role of labor in the global marketplace, museum curatorship, and post-colonial politics. Throughout, the essays address the many ways in which place identity alters and influences the experience of race, class, gender and ethnicity.

"The "Introduction" by editors Barbara Ching and Gerald Creed is worth the price of the book. Ching and Creed argue that there is a "culturally valuable rusticity" that must be identified and explored by scholars because of its great shaping power in human behavior and experience." -- H-Rural Book Review