Iron in the Pines: The Story of New Jersey's Ghost Towns and Bog Iron

Stuart Bruchey; Arthur D. Pierce

doi:10.2307/1943502

In-migration as a new process in demographic problem areas of the Alps. Ghost towns vs. amenity settlements in the alpine border area between Italy and Slovenia

Erdkunde ◽

10.3112/erdkunde.2012.04.04 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 66 (4) ◽

pp. 329-344 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Ernst Steinicke ◽

Peter Čede ◽

Roland Löffler

Keyword(s):

Border Area ◽

New Process ◽

Ghost Towns ◽

The Alps

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Community Studies as Formative Evaluations for Citizens

Practicing Anthropology ◽

10.17730/praa.11.2.k4271p5t4472m2w4 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 14-16

Author(s):

Marion Dobbert

Keyword(s):

Rural Community ◽

Rural Areas ◽

Theory And Practice ◽

Community Studies ◽

Evaluation Theory ◽

Road Signs ◽

Ghost Towns ◽

General Store ◽

Rural Depopulation

Evaluation has been defined by Blaine Worthen and J. R. Sanders (1973, Educational Evaluation: Theory and Practice. Worthington, Ohio: C.A. Jones Publishing Company, p. 19) as making a "determination of the worth of a thing." The thought of evaluating a community is one that, at first hearing, is likely to give any anthropologist a cold chill. But actually, communities are evaluated all the time; the evolutionary socioeconomic processes of a region continually, although impersonally, evaluate communities. In the process, some are selected to live and others to die and become ghost towns (or future archaeological discoveries). My region, Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Dakotas, is filled with towns that have been evaluated by this process. While they are not ghost towns, they have been reduced to two road signs announcing their names, a tavern, and a deserted general store. This type of evaluation is occurring through the rural areas of the world. It results in rural depopulation and the demise of rural community forms which have been highly valued historically. We might call this process a summative evaluation of a community—a very final one with little chance of successful appeal.

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Ghost Homes

Question Essays and Art from the Humanities ◽

10.52715/blgq8370 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Eluned Gramich

Keyword(s):

Back Pain ◽

Short Story ◽

Sense Of Community ◽

Code Switching ◽

Middle Aged ◽

Elderly Individuals ◽

Second Homes ◽

Ghost Towns ◽

Cultural Tensions ◽

Rural Places

‘Ghost Homes’ explores the evolving sense of community in a village in rural West Wales, deeply affected by the pandemic. It looks critically at the linguistic and cultural tensions between English holidaymakers and Welsh inhabitants. Using Welsh-English code-switching, it tells the story of a mother and son on the outskirts of Cardigan, navigating illness alongside the isolating pressures of lockdown, highlighting the limitations as well as support of ‘community’. Welsh-speaking Judy is alone at the height of the pandemic, suffering from debilitating back pain. She relies on her middle-aged son, Will, with whom she has a strained relationship. The short story shows the fragile nature of ‘community’ in rural places, especially in West Wales where seaside villages have been bought up as second homes for wealthy English families and, during the pandemic, became ghost towns for the few (often elderly) individuals who continued to live there.

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