Since the shift from a majority rural to a majority urban population in the United States in the 1920s, there has been little investment in and preservation of rural communities in comparison to urban spaces (Lichter & Ziliak, 2017). Despite this marginalization, rural communities and people are resilient, persevering and even demonstrating their importance in 2016 presidential election. One mechanism rural communities can use to persevere is long-standing community events. Rural community events such as annual festivals, American Indian powwows, and arts festivals provide organized spaces in what Habermas (1989) terms the public sphere, for community members to engage in ways that can lead to solving social problems unique to their rural place. However, not everyone has access to this public sphere, especially those with disabilities. According to Bourdieu’s (1993) theories on cultural production and reproduction, people with disabilities develop habitus that keep them participating (often by not participating) in the promotion of a dominate culture that creates their oppression.
In the spirit of critical event studies (Spracklen & Lamond, 2016), this project illuminates contextual factors that contribute to the inclusion or exclusion of people with disabilities in rural community events. When compared to people in urban places, people in rural places tend to be older (Glasgow & Berry, 2013), poorer (USDA ERS, 2016), whiter (Housing Assistance Council, 2012), and more likely to have a disability (von Reichert, Greiman, Myers, & Institute, 2014). Utilizing a modified version of the methods describe by Quinn and Wilks (2013), we conducted 63 “in the moment” interviews at six rural community festivals across the western region of the frontier state of Montana during the summer of 2017. In the United States, Montana is among the least populated and most rural states, covering 147,040 square miles with a population of about a million people (U. S. Census Bureau, 2016).
Interviews lasted 8.5 minutes on average and organizers/volunteers, vendors, and attendees were asked a series of questions about what they get out of participating in the event, accommodations for people with disabilities and their own experiences with disability or the experiences of someone they know who has a disability. Almost two-thirds of those interviewed were women and 43% reported having a disability. We find there are important benefits to having access to these rural events in terms of participating in building and maintaining community, connecting and reconnecting with family and friends, and engaging in self-development through leadership, skill-building, and networking. We find that in general, people who do not have a disability or know someone close to them with a disability tend to judge the events as fairly accessible or even argue that making accommodations (e.g. building ramps on old buildings) would threaten the preservation of the rugged frontier culture and heritage. Beliefs about accessibility and accommodation were more mixed among those with personal disability experiences, acknowledging many events are not accessible, but still defending their community pride and modifying their own needs and activities to fit the expectations of the event.
