Troubled Fields: Men, Emotions, and the Crisis in American Farming
In Oklahoma in the 1980s and 1990s, suicide—not accident as previously assumed—was the leading cause of agricultural fatalities among farmers. Men were five times more likely to die by suicide than by accident. What was causing these men—but not women—to want to kill themselves? Ramírez-Ferrero suggests that the root causes lie not in purely economic or personal factors but rather in the processes of modernization. He shows how cultural and social changes have a dramatic effect on men's identities as providers, stewards, and community members. Using emotions and gender as modes of analysis, he locates these men's stories in the wider context of American history, agricultural economics and politics, capitalism, and Christianity.
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Troubled Fields: Men, Emotions, and the Crisis in American Farming
In Oklahoma in the 1980s and 1990s, suicide—not accident as previously assumed—was the leading cause of agricultural fatalities among farmers. Men were five times more likely to die by suicide than by accident. What was causing these men—but not women—to want to kill themselves? Ramírez-Ferrero suggests that the root causes lie not in purely economic or personal factors but rather in the processes of modernization. He shows how cultural and social changes have a dramatic effect on men's identities as providers, stewards, and community members. Using emotions and gender as modes of analysis, he locates these men's stories in the wider context of American history, agricultural economics and politics, capitalism, and Christianity.
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Troubled Fields: Men, Emotions, and the Crisis in American Farming

Troubled Fields: Men, Emotions, and the Crisis in American Farming

by Eric Ramirez-Ferrero
Troubled Fields: Men, Emotions, and the Crisis in American Farming
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Troubled Fields: Men, Emotions, and the Crisis in American Farming

Troubled Fields: Men, Emotions, and the Crisis in American Farming

by Eric Ramirez-Ferrero

Overview

In Oklahoma in the 1980s and 1990s, suicide—not accident as previously assumed—was the leading cause of agricultural fatalities among farmers. Men were five times more likely to die by suicide than by accident. What was causing these men—but not women—to want to kill themselves? Ramírez-Ferrero suggests that the root causes lie not in purely economic or personal factors but rather in the processes of modernization. He shows how cultural and social changes have a dramatic effect on men's identities as providers, stewards, and community members. Using emotions and gender as modes of analysis, he locates these men's stories in the wider context of American history, agricultural economics and politics, capitalism, and Christianity.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780231503631
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Publication date: 01/19/2005
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 240
File size: 3 MB

About the Author

Eric Ramirez-Ferrero is currently a University of Michigan Population Fellow and senior program officer with HealthScope Tanzania in Dar es Salaam.

Table of Contents

Introduction. Homework
1. The Invitation to Die
2. The Nelsons
3. Creating Oklahoma: Positioning Farm Men for Crisis
4. The Good Farmer: Gender and Occupational Role Evaluation
5. The American Agriculture Movement and the Call to Farm
Conclusion. Modernity, Emotions, and Social Change

What People are Saying About This

Dr. Jane Adams

This is an important book, a real contribution to understanding what is occurring in rural America. Sensitively embedded in northwestern Oklahoma, with its unique history and culture, the processes Ramírez-Ferrero writes about have reworked the entire American heartland. This book captures farmers' emotional and moral commitments that shape their understanding of and responses to the larger changes. Troubled Fields is gracefully-written and engaging, laced with the human reality of living in enduring crisis. It brings us important new insights into that crisis.

— Dr. Jane Adams, associate professor in the department of anthropology and the department of history at Southern Illinois University

Doctor - Jane Adams

This is an important book, a real contribution to understanding what is occurring in rural America. Sensitively embedded in northwestern Oklahoma, with its unique history and culture, the processes Ramírez-Ferrero writes about have reworked the entire American heartland. This book captures farmers' emotional and moral commitments that shape their understanding of and responses to the larger changes. Troubled Fields is gracefully-written and engaging, laced with the human reality of living in enduring crisis. It brings us important new insights into that crisis.

Marilyn Ivy

Ramirez-Ferrero's descriptions of the land and people of northwestern Oklahoma convey real evocative force. There is no doubt that the agricultural crisis he details is of the utmost significance for contemporary American culture and politics. I applaud his efforts to reveal the ethnographic realities of this economic devastation.

— Marilyn Ivy, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University

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