Visual Encounters in the Study of Rural Childhoods

APRIL MANDRONA is an assistant professor at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Canada. She is the editor of Canadian Art Teacher.  CLAUDIA MITCHELL is a James McGill Professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. She is the editor-in-chief of Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and the author or coeditor of numerous books.

"Visual Encounters in the Study of Rural Childhoods is a welcome addition on many fronts. It tackles rural childhood in many locations around the world, both Global North and Global South, and it does so by means of studying the visual. Instead of taking images of carefree rural childhoods at face value, the authors delve into their hidden meanings. What are we really seeing in these visions and versions of childhood? This is recommended reading for scholars in many fields: childhood studies, rural history, history of gender and sexuality, and so many others."— Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, author of Childhood on the Farm: Work, Play, and Coming of Age in the Midwest"Chronicle of Higher Education weekly book list," by Nina C. Ayoub— Chronicle of Higher Education"This is a book of intersections that takes the seemingly temporal idea of childhood and connects it to the apparently spatial idea of rurality. This is very stimulating reading that employs the visual turn to illustrate some of the many ways childhood is experienced and represented in rural geographies. This work offers a timely challenge to established stereotypes about both childhood and rural life."— Michael Corbett, coauthor of Rural Literacies: Transnational Perspectives

• ContentsPrefaceForward 1.    Introduction: BeginningsPart IImages and Imaginings in the Study of Rural Childhoods2.    Pastoral Visions of Childhood: Selling Suburbia as Home in the American CountrysideHolley Wlodarczyk3.    Educating for the World Beyond: Challenging Idyllic Images of the Rural SchoolJonathan Kresmer4.    Nature Lovers as Nation Lovers in Canadian TV's The Forest Rangers (1963–1965)Jennifer VanderBurgh5.    Video Game Depictions of Rural Childhoods in the Global South: Get Water! and Ayiti: The Cost of Life Renee Jackson & April Mandrona6.    Patriot Boys and Pioneer Girls: Christian Homeschool Texts, Gender, and the American Rural IdyllElizabeth Shively7.    Rural Girlhoods in Picturebooks: Visual Constructions of Social Practices  Karen EppleyPart IIActs of Memory and Imagination8.    The Place of Girls? Collective Memory Work in the Study of Portrayals of Rural Girlhood in Swedish Child and Youth LiteratureEva Söderberg, Sara Nyhlén, Katja Gillander Gådin, & Katarina Giritli Nygren9.    I Am a Child of Back-to-the-LandersSheilah Wilson10.    Pekupatikut Innuat Akunikana / "Pictures Woke the People Up": Revisiting Inuit Childhoods through FacebookWendy Ewald & Eric GottesmanPart IIIHow We See It: Children's Participation in Studying Rural Childhoods11.    A Tale of Two Kindergartens: Visual Representations of Slovenian Children's Daily Lives in a Rural and an Urban Setting Barbara Turk Niskač12.    The Story of Peter Both-in-One: Using Visual Storytelling Methods to Understand Resilience among Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Young Children in Rural New EnglandSally Campbell Galman13.    Growing up Rural in South Africa: On Using Cellphilms to Engage Children's Ideas of Social Spaces Naydene de Lange14.    Image-Based Research: What Does Childhood Look Like in a Small Village? Irina Kosterina15.    Reimagining Rural Childhoods through Participatory Video and Global Education  Kelly Royds16.    The Perfect Computer? Children's Experiences with ICT in Rural Colombia Diana Carolina Garcia Gomez and Helle Strandgaard JensenIndexAcknowledgementsNotes on Contributors