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The Politics of Marginality in Wallowa County, Oregon: Contesting the Production of Landscapes of Consumption

ScholarsArchive at Oregon State University

Field Value
Title The Politics of Marginality in Wallowa County, Oregon: Contesting the Production of Landscapes of Consumption
Names Abrams, Jesse B. (creator)
Gosnell, Hannah (creator)
Date Issued 2012-01 (iso8601)
Note This is the author's peer-reviewed final manuscript, as accepted by the publisher. The published article is copyrighted by Elsevier and can be found at: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-rural-studies/.
Abstract The state of Oregon’s (USA) land use planning framework has long been characterized by tensions between state and local authority, between traditionally-defined “urban” and “rural” concerns, and between the competing interests of various landowners. An examination of Wallowa County, Oregon’s implementation of House Bill 3326, a 2001 law giving counties the power to define certain agricultural lands as “marginal,” and therefore exempt from restrictions on subdivision and development, illustrates the ways in which these tensions become magnified as rural communities attempt to govern private land use in the context of rural restructuring. Implementation of HB3326 highlighted the tensions between landowners interested in capitalizing on development opportunities afforded by HB3326, neighboring producers concerned about interference from future amenity migrants, and existing amenity migrants with interests in protecting their rural idyll. Contestations over nonfarm development took place in the
context of a strong agricultural community identity, concerns about the effects of economic restructuring on producers, and local resistance to the rural gentrification process. The process of defining marginality came to encompass not only technical issues of land productivity, but also broader community contestations over the continuation of traditional land uses and the legitimacy of various actors to govern private land.
Genre Article
Topic governance
Identifier Abrams, J., & Gosnell, H. (2012). The politics of marginality in wallowa county, oregon: Contesting the production of landscapes of consumption. JOURNAL OF RURAL STUDIES, 28(1), 30-37. doi: 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2011.09.004

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