Welcome to the Rural Women’s Studies Association (RWSA) for its 14th triennial conference.
The theme, “Kitchen Table Talk to Global Forum,” emphasizes how conversations, relationships, and food shape rural communities. This theme allows for the consideration of the ways that gendered, sexual, ethnic, and racial identities affect personal power, class consciousness, individual choice, and community development. These subjects lend themselves to the exploration of rural activism, social justice, innovation, politics, business development, cultural expression, self-governance, and collective experiences — both historical and contemporary — locally and globally.
The RWSA is an international association founded in 1997 to promote and advance farm and rural women’s/gender studies in an historical perspective by encouraging research, promoting scholarship, and establishing and maintaining links with organizations that share these goals. The RWSA welcomes public historians and archivists, graduate students, and representatives of rural organizations and communities as conference participants and members, in addition to academic scholars from diverse fields, including sociology, anthropology, literature and languages, Indigenous Studies, and history.
The University of Guelph is proud to host the conference. The University of Guelph is “Canada’s Food University” and is internationally recognized for its impact on agricultural sciences and rural life. It has been at the forefront of research in this area for over 150 years. It has a rich history in agriculture that extends back to 1874 when it opened as an Agricultural College. In 1903 MacDonald Institute was established and by the 1950s it was the premier Home Economics school in North America. In 1922 the Ontario Veterinary College moved to Guelph, the oldest veterinary college in Canada. These three colleges were amalgamated in 1964 to form the University of Guelph, which is now a fully comprehensive university. This is the first time that the University has brought together practitioners, advocates, and scholars from different disciplines to study rural women in historical perspective.
We acknowledge that our campuses reside on the treaty lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit and lands that the Anishinnabe, Hodinohso:ni, Lūnaapéewak, and Wendat peoples have inhabited for centuries. These lands continue to be home to diverse communities of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples. Acknowledging the land reminds us of our commitment to reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and lands.
Local Arrangements Committee: From the University of Guelph: Chair & RWSA Co-Chair Catharine Wilson, Sara Epp, Rebecca Beausaert, Maggie McCormick, Casandra Bryant, Stephanie Craig, Brandon Mendonca, Maddie Hendricks; and Andrea Gal from Wilton Consulting Group.
Program Committee: Co-Chairs Katherine Jellison, Ohio University and Jenny Barker Devine, Illinois College; Margaret Thomas-Evans, Indiana University East; Jodey Nurse, McMaster University; Tracey Hanshew, Washington State TC; Amy McKinney, Northwest College; and
Catharine Wilson, RWSA Co-Chair, University of Guelph.
Schedule at-a-Glance (All times are Eastern Daylight Time or UTC -4)
Tuesday, May 11
8:30-9:00am – Explore the Conference Platform on your own
9:00-9:45am – Welcome Session
BREAK – 10:00-10:30am
10:30am-12:00pm – Concurrent Sessions
1: Gender Structures in Livestock Breeding and Farm Management
2: Educating Mother: Political and Economic Education for Rural Women
12:00-2:00pm – SPECIAL EVENT – Launch of the RWSA Cookbook 2:00-3:00pm – Concurrent Sessions
3: Situated Solidarities: “Feeding the World” Mythology and Transnational Feminist Praxis, a roundtable discussion
4: Women and Cattle Production: From Midwestern Convents to the High Plains BREAK – 3:30-4:00pm – Break Time: Meet Other Grad Students
4:00-5:00pm – Concurrent Sessions
5: Confronting Crisis in the Countryside: Gender, Race, Class, and Sexuality in Rural Environments 6: Can She Cook?
Wednesday, May 12
8:30-10:00am – Concurrent Sessions
7: Rural Women and 21st-century: Liminality, Exception, and Empowerment 8: Girlhood and Sisterhood from Rural to Global
BREAK – 10:00-10:30am – Break Time: Next Berkshire Conference
10:30am-12:00pm – Concurrent Sessions 9: Domestic Spaces: Preserving Rural Life
10: Cookbooks and Food Experts: A Taste of Backstories: The Kitchen Table Talk Cookbook BREAK – 12:00-12:30pm
12:30-2:00pm – SPECIAL EVENT – Keynote Speaker: Kim Anderson
2:00-3:30pm – Concurrent Sessions
11: Dairying as an Occupational Identity for Women: From Farm to Factory in the Netherlands and Sweden 12: Tales & Tables: Foodways of Eastern Montana
13: Rural Women and Political Action in the 1970s and 1980s BREAK – 3:30-4:00pm
4:00-5:00pm – Concurrent Sessions
14: Women, Foodways, and Power in Arkansas 15: Regional Foodways in the 19th Century
7:00-8:00pm – Session
16: Family Farms/Family Decisions
Thursday, May 13
8:30-10:00am – Concurrent Sessions 17: Nigerian Women and Mental Health 18: Recipes, Memory, and Identity
BREAK – 10:00-10:30am
10:30am-12:00pm – Concurrent Sessions
19: Rural Women Making and Breaking the Mold 20: Rural Women as Home Healers
21: The Food We Eat, the Stories We Tell: Kitchen Table Talk from Appalachia
12:00-2:00pm – SPECIAL EVENT- RWSA BUSINESS MEETING
12:30-2:00pm – Launch of “What Canada Ate” exhibit & website, a Tribute to Anita Stewart
2:00-3:30pm – Concurrent Sessions 22: Politics Begin in the Kitchen
23: From Rural Hearth to Cookstove
24: Selling Produce, Navigating Markets
BREAK – 3:30-4:00pm – Break Time: Share Ideas about Publishing
Friday, May 14
8:30-10:00am – Concurrent Sessions
25: Rural Women’s Mental and Physical Health 26: Rural Women: Recipes and Remembering
BREAK – 10:00-10:30am – Break Time: Share Experiences with Online Teaching
10:30am-12:00pm – Concurrent Sessions 27: Food on the Rural Canadian Homefront 28: Food, Family, and Poverty in the US 29: A Daughter
12:00-2:00pm – SPECIAL EVENT – Collecting COVID Stories, a Roundtable
2:00-3:30pm – Concurrent Sessions
30: Passionate and Personal: ‘non-feminist” Rural Labour’s Broader Implications
31: Reading Between the Lines: Women, Literature, & the Kitchen Table in 20th-Century Rural and Prairie Canada
3:00-5:00pm – SPECIAL EVENT – Musical Performance by Mary Parkinson Saturday, May 15
8:30-10:00am – Concurrent Sessions 32: What’s on the Table
33: Social Action and Identity Building
BREAK – 10:00-10:30am – Break Time: Grad Student Get-together
10:30am-12:00am – SPECIAL EVENT: Mentorship & Development Networks for Rural Women & Researchers
12:00-2:00pm – SPECIAL EVENT – Farm Show
2:00-3:30pm – Concurrent Sessions
34: Leaders in Extension Service and Agricultural Journalism
35: Fellowship in the Digital Age: Rural Women, Community, and Social Media
BREAK – 3:30-4:00pm – Break Time: Sharing Ideas about the Next RWSA Conference
4:00-5:00pm – Social Hour
Rural Women’s Studies Triennial Conference May 11-15, 2021
All times are Eastern Daylight Time or UTC -4 (Updated April 20, 2021)
All events below are hosted in Sessions in Hopin unless they are designated Main Stage or Expo Hall.
Welcome Everyone. Throughout the conference we invite you to explore the conference platform including the Expo Hall. If you have any technical difficulties or questions, visit the Technical Support booth in the Expo Hall.
Many opportunities exist to visit with friends and network. Click on People to find a particular person and say hi or arrange a video call. Or click on the Event Chat and say, “Hello from Barcelona!” which sends a message to all participants. You can also click on Networking and be randomly matched up with another delegate. Or you can arrange to meet in the “Lounge” in Sessions to visit with a few friends or meet new ones.
HAPPY CONFERENCING
TUESDAY, MAY 11
8:30-9:00am – Explore the Conference Platform on Your Own
Find the Welcome Session and other sessions you would like to attend today. If you have any technical difficulties or questions, visit the Technical Support booth in the Expo Hall.
9:00-9:45am – Welcome session
BREAK – 10:00-10:30am
Take this time to familiarize yourself with Hopin or network. Visit the Expo Hall, try some of the physical activities in our “Take a Break” booths, and pick up your Scavenger Hunt clipboard in the Reception area.
10:30am-12:00pm – CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Session 1 Gender Structures in Livestock Breeding and Farm Management
Jodey Nurse, McMaster University, Chair
Margaret Derry, University of Guelph, “Chickens and Dairy Cows: Changing Attitudes to the Animals and Their Breeding with the Masculinisation of the North American Poultry and Dairy Industries.”
Alejandra de Arce, National University of Quilmes, “Unequal Contracts: Dairy Producers and Gender Structures in Buenos Aires since the 1960s”
Session 2 Educating Mother: Political and Economic Education for Rural Women
Tracey Hanshew, Washington State University Tri-Cities, Chair
Minoa Uffelman, Austin Peay State University, “‘Educated Motherhood,’ the ‘Grandest Monument to the South’: The UDC and Lost Cause Education in Rural Tennessee”
Marie Ruiz, Université de Picardie Jules Verne, “From City Life to Country Life: Colonial Training for British Gentlewoman Emigrants at Swanley Horticultural College, England, and McDonald Institute, Guelph, Canada”
Huesseina Dinani, University of Toronto-Scarborough, “Rural Women and the Gendered Politics of Adult Education and Women’s Income Generating Programs in Post-Independence Tanzania, 1960s-1970s”
Ginny Kilander, University of Wyoming, “‘Beef. Real Food for Real People’: American National CattleWomen’s History and Educational Campaigns”
12:00-2:00pm – Launch of the RWSA Cookbook – Sampling Rural Cooking: A Taste of Backstories: The Kitchen Table Talk Cookbook
Maureen Thompson, Florida International University, Chair
Kathryn Harvey, University of Guelph, “The Country Housewife and Black Whales: Centuries of Rural and Community Cookbooks in the University of Guelph’s Archival and Special Collections”
Stephanie Noell, University of Texas at San Antonio, “Tamales in the UTSA Mexican Cookbook Collection”
Mary Murphy, Montana State University, “Hospitality Unbound: Cooking, Community, and Competition”
Rachel Snell, Independent Scholar, “Sweet Dainties and Hearty Staples: Favorite Recipes of Early Twentieth-Century Downeast Maine”
Tracey Hanshew, Washington State University Tri-Cities, “At Mammaw’s Table” Sara Morris, University of Kansas, “Cooking with Delmarva Farm women”
Cynthia Prescott, University of North Dakota, “Girl Meets Farm Meets Olive Garden Lady”
2:00-3:00pm – CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Session 3 Situated Solidarities: “Feeding the World” Mythology and Transnational Feminist Praxis, a roundtable discussion
Angie Carter, Michigan Tech University Carrie Chennault, Colorado State University Abby Dubisar, Iowa State University
Ahna Kruzic, Pesticide Action Network North America Maritza Pierre, Ohio State University
Gabrielle Roesch-McNally, American Farmland Trust
Session 4 Women and Cattle Production: From Midwestern Convents to the High Plains
Tracey Hanshew, Washington State University Tri-Cities, Chair
Elyssa Ford, Northwest Missouri State University, “‘Fine Herds of Cattle’: Rural Nuns and Food Production”
Kaitlyn Weldon, Independent Scholar, “Cattle Queens: Female Ranchers in the American West, 1870- 1920”
BREAK – 3:30-4:00pm – “Break Time: Meet Other Grad Students”
Enjoy some quiet time or join others in “Break Time: Meet Other Grad Students” in the Session area of Hopin.
4:00-5:00pm – CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Session 5 Confronting Crisis in the Countryside: Gender, Race, Class, and Sexuality in Rural Environments
Katherine Jellison, Ohio University, Chair
Nicola Verdon, Sheffield Hallam University, “The Operation of the Women’s War Agricultural Committees in England, 1915-1920”
Beatrice Adams, Rutgers University, “Soul City and the Gendering of a Rural Freedom Dream”
Session 6 Can She Cook?
Amy McKinney, Northwest College, Chair
Pamela Sweetser, Independent Scholar, “‘Can She Cook?’ The Measure of a Woman: Avis ‘Ma’ Dudley, 1896-1983, Aroostook County, Maine”
Rebecca Beausaert, University of Guelph, “From Kitchen to Kiln: Women and Tobacco Farming in Mid- Twentieth Century Southwestern Ontario”
WEDNESDAY, MAY 12
8:30-10:00am – CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Session 7 Rural Women and 21st-century: Liminality, Exception, and Empowerment
Sharada Srinivasan, University of Guelph, Chair
Inamul Haq, Central University of Gujarat, “Liminality of Women in 21st Century: Narratives of Half- Widows of Kashmir Valley”
Priya Chandrasekaran, Hamilton College, “Champa Dreams of Not Saving the World”
Oluwaseun Boye, Gbemisola Akanbi, and Abolanle Ogunlami, Ogun State Government, Showing and discussion of 15-minute documentary
Session 8 Girlhood and Sisterhood from Rural to Global
Sharon E. Wood, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Chair
Victoria Cosby, Queens University, “The Emotional Bond of the Dobbs Sisters from Upper Canada to India”
Meighan Mantei, Carleton University, “Head, Heart, Health and Hands: A Study of Rural Girlhood in Saskatchewan”
Anwesha Mohanty and Lavanya Suresh, Birla Institute of Technology and Science-Pilani, “When I Looked, There She Stood”
BREAK – 10:00-10:30am – “Break Time: Share Ideas about the Next Berkshire Conference”
Enjoy some early morning exploring or join others in “Break Time: Share Ideas about the Next Berkshire Conference” in the Session area of Hopin.
10:30am-12:00pm – CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Session 9 Domestic Spaces: Preserving Rural Life
Mary Larson, Oklahoma State University, Chair
Sarah Carter, University of Alberta, and Linda Mahood, University of Guelph, “Household Notes and Pretty Pictures: Women’s Homescapes in Rural Fifeshire”
Shauna McCabe, Art Gallery of Guelph, and Sally Hickson and Linda Mahood, University of Guelph, “House Museums and the Performance of Rural Domesticity: Reconstructing Lucy Maud Montgomery’s ‘Ontario Years’”
Session 10 Cookbooks and Food Experts: A Taste of Backstories: The Kitchen Table Talk Cookbook
Cynthia Prescott, University of North Dakota, Chair
Erna van Duren and Alison Crerar, University of Guelph, “Cookbooks–Exploring Economics Themes”
Sara Egge, Centre College, “Recipes as Politics: How Domestic Science and Wartime Food Shortages Shaped a Suffrage Cake”
Jenny Barker-Devine, Illinois College, “3,000 Tons to Lose: The Iowa Cooperative Extension Service, Farm Women, and Weight Control, 1948-1961”
BREAK 12:00-12:30pm
12:30-2:00pm – Special Event – Keynote Speaker: Kim Anderson, “Making Relational Space: Nokom’s House and Kitchen Table Methodologies”
2:00-3:30pm – CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Session 11 Dairying as an Occupational Identity for Women: From Farm to Factory in the Netherlands and Sweden
Lena Sommestad, Independent Scholar, Chair and Commentator
Margreet van der Burg, Wageningen University, and Liskje Flapper, NHL Stenden, “Portraits of Women Building Their Identity on ‘Modern’ Dairy Processing in The Netherlands, 1850s-1910s”
Grey Osterud, Independent Scholar, “Recollections and Photographs of Dairymaids in Interwar Sweden”
Session 12 Tales & Tables: Foodways of Eastern Montana
Jan Zauha, Montana State University, Chair
Mary Murphy, Montana State University, and Molly Kruckenberg, Montana Historical Society, “Rich Treats: Exploring Montana Foodways in a Digital Community Project”
Amy McKinney, Northwest College, “Eastern Montana Women and Food: Labor, Love, and Community”
Session 13 Rural Women and Political Action in the 1970s and 1980s
Jenny Barker-Devine, Illinois College, Chair
Kelly McMichael, American Public University, “Rural Women and County Political Offices: Feminism and Elections at the Local Level”
Jodey Nurse, McMaster University, “Dianne Harkin and Women for the Survival of Agriculture, 1975 to 1990”
Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, Iowa State University, “Crying for Help from the Kitchen Table: A Letter from the Farm Crisis of the 1980s”
BREAK – 3:30-4:00pm
Visit our Expo Hall. Relax with Some Yoga or Shake it Up with some African Dance or Line Dancing. Find those missing bits in the Scavenger Hunt.
4:00-5:00pm – CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Session 14 Women, Foodways, and Power in Arkansas
Jeannie Whayne, University of Arkansas, Chair
Kelly Houston Jones, Arkansas Tech University, “Terror at the Table: Enslaved Women, Violence, and Food”
Robyn Spears, University of Arkansas, “Arkansas Aprons: Women’s History and Food History in the Nineteenth Century”
Session 15 Regional Foodways in the 19th Century
Rebecca Beausaert, University of Guelph, Chair
Holly Kent, University of Illinois-Springfield, “‘Distinguishing Bad Eatables from Good Ones’: Food Culture and Regional, Class, and Gender Identity in the Antebellum Cookbooks of Eliza Leslie”
Theresa Mackay, University of Victoria, “We Drank Tea: Foodways at Home and Inns in Scotland’s Nineteenth-Century Rural North”
7:00-8:00pm – SESSION
Session 16 Family Farms/Family Decisions
Steven Reschly, Truman State University, Chair
Justus Hillebrand, University of Maine, “Big Ideas at the Kitchen Table: Negotiating Agricultural Innovation with Farm Families in Late Nineteenth-Century Westphalia and Maine”
Marlyn McInnerney, University of Southern Queensland, “Resilience for Women on the Land: How Rural Discourses Enable or Constrain Their Well-Being, Empowerment and Resilience”
THURSDAY, MAY 13
8:30-10:00am – CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Session 17 Nigerian Women and Mental Health
Showing and discussion of film about empowering rural women by Oluwaseun Boye, Gbemisola Akanbi, and Abolanle Ogunlami, Ogun State Government
Session 18 Recipes, Memory, and Identity
J. Sanford Rikoon, University of Missouri, Chair
Galia Hasharoni, University of Haifa, “Memories and Gefilte Fish, Longing and Lokshen: Older Women, Food, and Pioneering in Mandatory Palestine”
Madison Filzer, Sarah Lawrence College, “All Spice? Jewish Women’s Oral History as the Recipe for Brisket”
BREAK – 10:00-10:30am
Enjoy some networking with friends, old and new.
10:30am-12:00pm – CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Session 19 Rural Women Making and Breaking the Mold
Sara Morris, University of Kansas, Chair
Morgan Wilson, University of Notre Dame, “Threshing the Grain: Revealing the Lived Experience of a Late Nineteenth-Century Hoosier Farm Woman to an Early Twenty-First-Century Audience”
Jessica Spiess, Public Historian, “Brisant Le Moule: The Story of a Woman Who Broke the Mold”
Sarah Carter, University of Alberta, and Joan Heggie, Teesside University, “The Famous ‘Bachelor Girl’: Miss Jack May, Lady Farmer in England and Canada”
Session 20 Rural Women as Home Healers
Ashimolowo Olubunmi, Federal University of Agriculture-Abeokuta, Chair
Brooke Kathleen Brassard, McMaster University, “Living Rooms and Kitchen Medicines: Latter- Day Saints in Southern Alberta, Domestic Spaces, and Rituals of Healing, 1887-1947”
Bose Adebanjo, Nigerian Government, “Women Choose Life, Stay Aware: A presentation about breast cancer awareness”
Session 21 The Food We Eat, the Stories We Tell: Kitchen Table Talk from Appalachia
Kathryn Engle, University of Kentucky, Chair
Crystal Wilkinson, University of Kentucky, Annette Clapsaddle, Swain County High School
Elizabeth Engelhardt, University of North Carolina, Lora Smith, Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky, Emily Hilliard, West Virginia Humanities Council,
12:00-2:00pm – SPECIAL EVENT- RWSA BUSINESS MEETING
Newcomers are welcome to attend.
12:30-2:00pm – Launch of “What Canada Ate” exhibit and website in Expo Hall, a tribute to Anita Stewart, founder of Cuisine Canada and Food Day Canada
2:00-3:30pm – CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Session 22 Politics Begin in the Kitchen
Kelly Houston Jones, Arkansas Tech University, Chair
Lynne Benson, University of Massachusetts-Boston, “‘Victory is in the Kitchen’: How Women Triumphed from the Suffrage Movement to World War II”
Jennifer Helton, Ohlone College, “Suffrage at the Kitchen Table”
Elizabeth Almlie, South Dakota State Historical Society, “Food History and the Suffrage Movement in South Dakota”
Pearl Young, Kennesaw State University, “Reputation and Pride: Advocating Secession from the Kitchen Table”
Session 23 From Rural Hearth to Cookstove, Sponsored by the Culinary Historians of Canada
Julia Armstrong, Culinary Historians of Canada, Chair
Chantal Vechambre, Culinary Historians of Canada, “How Did French Women Cook in Atlantic Canada in the Early Decades of Settlement?”
Gary Gillman, Culinary Historians of Canada, “Margaret Simpson: Pioneer Publican-Brewer of Upper Canada”
Fiona Lucas, Culinary Historians of Canada, “Catharine Parr Traill’s Nine Kitchens” John Ota, Culinary Historians of Canada, “Maud’s Kitchen”
Session 24 Selling Produce, Navigating Markets
Margaret Thomas Evans, Indiana University East, Chair
Debra Reid, The Henry Ford Museum, “Farm Women in Urban Public Markets”
Kathryn Beasley, Independent Scholar, “The Unexpected Cash Lifeline of Curb Markets and Clay County Baskets: Rural Alabama Women, Home Demonstration, and Creating Income, 1914-1929”
Maureen Thompson, Florida International University, “Navigating Gender Norms: Late Nineteenth- Century Pioneering Commercial Seedswomen”
BREAK – 3:30-4:00pm – “Break Time: Share Ideas about Publishing”
Have some time to relax or join others in the “Break Time: Share Ideas about Publishing” in the Session area of Hopin.
FRIDAY, MAY 14
8:30-10:00am – CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Session 25 Rural Women’s Mental and Physical Health
Katherine Jellison, Ohio University, Chair
Sarah Holland, University of Nottingham, “Women and Mental Health in Farming and Rural Society, England in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century”
Karol Weaver, Susquehanna University, “‘Mental and Physical Health Sufficient to Meet the Demands’: Psychiatric Nursing Education in Rural Pennsylvania”
Olubunmi Ashimolowo, Olatunbosun Soetan, and Oluwatoyin Abati, Federal University of Agriculture- Abeokuta, “Assessment of Use of Contraceptives among Female Agriculture Undergraduates in Federal University of Agriculture-Abeokuta”
Session 26 Rural Women: Recipes and Remembering, Sponsored by the Culinary Historians of Canada
Julia Armstrong, Culinary Historians of Canada, Chair
Carolyn Crawford, Culinary Historians of Canada, “Picking ‘Berrys’: Out of Five Old Chinguacousy Kitchens”
Suzanne Evans, Culinary Historians of Canada, “Biography of THE FIVE ROSES COOK BOOK (1932), Aid to POW Ethel Mulvany”
Nathalie Cooke, McGill University, “Sharing Food and Fun, But Not All the Recipe Ingredients” BREAK – 10:00-10:30am – “Break Time: Share Experiences with Online Teaching”
Time to search for those missing last few pieces in your Scavenger Hunt or join in the “Break Time:
Share Experiences with Online Teaching,” in the Session area of Hopin.
10:30am-12:00pm – CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Session 27 Food on the Rural Canadian Homefront, Sponsored by the Culinary Historians of Canada
Julia Armstrong, Culinary Historians of Canada, Chair
Samantha George, Parkwood National Historic Site, “Jam for Britain 1940-1945 Campaign: Grassroots Initiative to National Campaign”
Bonnie Sitter and Shirleyan English, Culinary Historians of Canada, “Onion Skins and Peach Fuzz: Memories of Ontario Farmerettes”
Session 28 Food, Family, and Poverty in the US
April Bullock, California State University, Fullerton, Chair
Megan Birk, University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley, “Stock the Larder for Institutional-Scale Cooking at Poor Farms and Almshouses in the United States”
Mary Larson, Oklahoma State University, “Comfort and Bond: Food and Relationship During the Dust Bowl”
Yvette R. Blair-Lavallais, Memphis Theological Seminary, “Scrimpin’ and Scrapin’: Examining Women and Food Insecurity in Rural Texas”
Session 29 A Daughter
A live reading of A Daughter, a one-act play by Kim Blackwell. Directed by Lindy Finlan. Featuring Linda Kash and Peyton LeBarr.
12:00-2:00pm – SPECIAL EVENT – Collecting COVID Stories, a Roundtable
Cynthia Prescott, University of North Dakota, Chair
Samantha Benn-Duke, Northeastern State University, “Experiences in the Time of COVID-19: Rural Indian Education Leadership in Oklahoma”
Virginia Scharff, University of New Mexico, “Doing the Heavy Lifting: Gender Roles and Consumption in the Age of COVID-19”
Rebecca Stoil, Clemson University, “Clay, Covid and Matzah Balls: An [Im]Perfect Passover in a New Home”
Krista Lynn Minnotte, University of North Dakota, and Samantha K. Ammons, University of Nebraska- Omaha, “‘I Recorded Lectures in my Closet’: Working from Home Gender Dynamics among Faculty Women during COVID-19”
2:00-3:30pm – CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Session 30 Passionate and Personal: “non-feminist” Rural Labour’s Broader Implications
Sarah Carter, University of Alberta, Chair
Tracey Hanshew, Washington State University Tri-Cities, “‘CowBelles A Callin’: From the Kitchen to Congress.”
Shelby Blair Martens, University of New Brunswick, “‘They’ll have to get a boyfriend who is a farmer’: Labour, Gender and Religion on Southern Alberta Family Farms”
Diane McKenzie, University of Lethbridge, “‘What’s Love Got to Do With It?: Women’s Participation in the Intergenerational Transfer of Family Farms”
Session 31 Reading Between the Lines: Women, Literature, and the Kitchen Table in Twentieth Century Rural and Prairie Canada
Elyssa Ford, Northwest Missouri State University, Chair
Kesia Kvill, University of Guelph, “Making a Clean and Modern Kitchen: Rural Kitchens and Technology in the Early Twentieth Century”
Emily Kaliel, University of Guelph, “‘Steam, Don’t Boil’: Reworking Cooking Practices and Nutritional Standards in the Women’s Pages of the Western Producer, 1925-1939”
Cheryl Troupe, University of Saskatchewan, “Metis Women Speak Up: Reading for Women’s Political Activist Voices in New Breed Magazine in the 1970s”
3:00-5:00pm – Musical Performance by Mary Parkinson – Main Stage
Join musician and music therapist, Mary Parkinson, for some beautiful music.
SATURDAY, MAY 15
8:30-10:00am – CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Session 32 What’s on the Table
Abolanle Ogunlami, Oluwaseun Boye, and Gbemisola Akanbi, Ogun State Government, A demonstration of how to prepare Nigerian cereal referred to in Yoruba as “OGI”
Session 33 Social Action and Identity Building
Sara Epp, University of Guelph, Chair
Katje Armentrout, Purdue University, “The Future of Farming is Female”
Casandra Bryant, University of Guelph, “A Conceptual Framework for Rural Women Social Entrepreneurs”
Tanya Watson, National University of Ireland, “Women of the Farm: Property Ownership and Gender on Family Farms in Ireland”
BREAK – 10:00-10:30am – “Break Time: Grad Student Get-together”
Hand in your Scavenger Hunt clipboard to he******@uo******.ca or join others in the “Break Time: Grad Student Get-together,” in the Session area of Hopin.
10:30am-12:00am – SPECIAL EVENT: Mentorship and Development Networks for Rural Women and Researchers
Casandra Bryant, University of Guelph, Chair Joan Craig, Ag Women’s Network
Andrea Gal, Wilton Consulting Group
Debra Reid, The Henry Ford Museum
Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, Iowa State University Ashleigh Weeden, University of Guelph
12:00-2:00pm – SPECIAL EVENT – Farm Show – Main Stage 2:00-3:30pm – CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Session 34 Leaders in Extension Service and Agricultural Journalism
Cherisse Jones-Branch, Arkansas State University, Chair
Kymara Sneed, Mississippi State University, “Toeing the Line: An Analysis of Sadye Wier’s Work Within Mississippi’s Cooperative Extension Service”
Sara Morris, University of Kansas, “Putting Food on the Kitchen Table: Evelyn Harris’ Side Hustle”
Heather Mitchell, University of Guelph, “The Past, Present, and Future of Canadian Women’s Food Preservation Skills”
Session 35 Fellowship in the Digital Age: Rural Women, Community, and Social Media
Holly Kent, University of Illinois-Springfield, Chair
Margaret Thomas Evans, Indiana University East, “Out of the Box: Recipes Shared Across Media by Members of the Women’s Institute in Great Britain”
Alejandra de Arce, National University of Quilmes, and Marina Poggi, National University of Quimes, “Argentine Rural Women on Instagram: Virtual Sociability and Identities in Tension”
BREAK – 3:30-4:00pm – “Break Time: Sharing Ideas about the Next RWSA Conference”
We welcome your ideas about the next RWSA conference so join us in “Break Time: Sharing Ideas about the Next RWSA Conference,” in the Session area of Hopin.
4:00-5:00pm – Social Hour in the “Lounge” in Sessions
Have on hand your favourite drink, tea, coffee, or something stronger!
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This conference would not be possible without the generous support of our sponsors:
Farms.Com
Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation College of Arts, University of Guelph Arrell Food Institute, University of Guelph
McLaughlin Library, Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph Ontario Agricultural College, University of Guelph
Department of History, University of Guelph
School of Environmental Design and Rural Development, Ontario Agricultural College, University of Guelph
The Agricultural History Society
Regional and Rural Broadband (R2B2), School of Environmental Design and Rural Development, University of Guelph
School of English and Theatre Studies, College of Arts, University of Guelph McGill-Queen’s University Press
Federated Women’s Institutes of Canada (FWIC/WI)
The Association of Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums (ALHFAM) Guelph Museums
Roothams Gourmet
The Francis and Ruth Redelmeier Professorship in Rural History