The Definition of Rural and How It Effects Our Culture

Hannah Ruth Moseley

Definition Essay

Introduction to Rural Studies

Defining Rural in an Urban world

        Depending on who you ask, rural can have many definitions.  If you ask a farmer it might mean their livelihood.  To someone who’s lived in the city their entire lives, it could mean the boonies, where there is no cell signal, indoor plumbing, or if you were to find an opossum on the side of the road you would have dinner for that night.  However, it is true that no matter who you ask you will get an answer that in some way states that rural means somewhere out in the country with few if any signs of civilized life.  In this definition essay, we will look to see how dictionaries, websites, and scholars define the word “rural,” and how it pertains to those of us that live there.  

        In Dictionary.com, the definition of rural goes as follows: “of, relating to, or characteristic of the country, country life, or country people; rustic”.  To understand what this definition meant and to get a better understanding of the way it was constructed, I decided to research the definition of rustic.   Dictionary.com said that rustic was “relating to the countryside; rural.”  These definitions are used to describe each other but they are very circular in their thinking.  

As an example of rural Dictionary.com say that rural life is simple and tranquil.  It is true that people in the rural areas of America tend to live a little calmer life, but that does not always mean tranquil.  People in the cities will never know the struggles of having to drive thirty minutes just for their groceries, or having to drive an hour to see the closest doctor when their child is sick.  In this aspect, rural life is not always as tranquil as Little House on the Prairie would have you believe.  People tend to romanticize the idea of living in the country and as much as we wish that were true that is simply not the case.

        In the Webster’s dictionary the definition for rural is “of or relating to the country, country people or life, or agriculture.”  This definition goes into almost the same wording as the first, but it brings into play a very important aspect of rurality that the first definition does not name, agriculture.  Agriculture is one of the most important aspects that can be brought up in the discussion of rural living.  With the agricultural industry providing over 413,500 jobs in the United States, according to a study done by the University of Wisconsin-Extension service, it cannot be overlooked as one of the most important parts of living in a rural world.

 Google defines agriculture as “the science or practice of farming, including cultivation of the soil for the growing of crops and the rearing of animals to provide food, wool, and other products.”  With this definition of agriculture, farming is the main stay of rural living, but this word might have negative connotations associated with it.  When you have agriculture in a town you must have lots of land for animals and crops.  

When you have lots of open spaces for these things there is less land for people.  Therefore, the less people, the more land, and the more space for agriculture.  However, with more agriculture you have less space for people and the cycle starts over again.  This cycle isn’t bad, but it does drive people into the cities and away from towns with agriculture therefore, stopping rural towns from expanding. This makes the cities more popular areas to live.  So, areas with lots of agriculture are slowly dying, because they don’t have new people coming in to pick up where other farmers have left off.  

This is one example of how definitions are dangerous.  If you are looking for somewhere to move and you see that there is lots of agriculture your mind automatically goes to cow fields and uneducated people who have no quality of life.  If you have a family, you won’t want to move them somewhere where you think that everyone is stupid and married to their sister.  You will look for areas that have lots of people, good school systems, and other advantages that might not be available in a rural setting, at least not in an urban inhabitant’s mind.

        The third non-scholarly definition comes from the Oxford Dictionary and says “In, relating to, or characteristic of the countryside rather than the town.”  Although agriculture is an import part of living in a rural area, rurality does not necessarily mean that there is no civilization for miles.  There are other means with which to live besides agriculture.  In our small towns, we need people to work in our stores, teach our children, and take care of our sick.  One thing that people tend to believe about living in the country is that you cannot live in a rural area and live in a city at the same time.  This is a common misconception when you take places like Tifton for example.  Tifton has a college and hospital inside of the city limits. However, some of the people who live in Tifton consider it to be small and rural. For example, right in front of lakeside dorms at ABAC we have cow fields and a deer pasture, something that is not usually linked with urban areas.    

        These definitions above are the common definitions that are used in everyday life. However, we need to get a feel for how scholarly information defines agriculture.  

For example, the U.S. Census Bureau’s definition of rural is “what is not urban.”  This definition has many implications that should be considered when reading this phrase.  Is the only definition that we need for rural areas only that it is not urban?  Is our world today so wrapped up in the big cities of America that when something isn’t one of the cities, we degraded it by saying that the only definition that we need for this type of area is that it is not urban?

 This thought process is one that many people have about rural areas and might even be part of the reason that rural areas all over America are slowly vanishing, our views on rurality are reflected in definitions like this.  Definitions like this have large consequences as they solidify in our minds the working model we have of the world.  It is for this reason that we can see that our definitions have consequences, not because they themselves have power, but because we have thoughts in our mind that can be either positive or negative in their meaning and it is from these thoughts that our definitions stem.