Rural Gentrification as Permanent Tourism: The Creation of the ‘New’ West Archipelago as Postindustrial Cultural Space

Abstract

In this paper I describe rural gentrification—ie the in-migration of relatively young, ex-urban members of the postindustrial middle class (PIMC)—in the northern Rocky Mountains as a form of ‘permanent tourism’. The colonization of previously industrial landscapes—ie those created according to a regime that prioritizes the production/consumption of commodities—by the PIMC has led to the expansion of postindustrial class – cultural space and the creation of the ‘New’ American West. This shift in what constitutes the ‘highest and best’ use of these lands resonates with the character of late-Modern tourism in that this emerging regime emphasizes the production/consumption of ‘experiences' to a greater degree than does the extant regime. Thus, rural gentrifiers are enacting cultural projects that are akin to those of tourists but doing so with the intention of permanently writing them into the social and physical landscape. Drawing on ethnographic examples from my fieldwork in south – central Montana, I demonstrate how members of the PIMC mobilize their increasing local strength through citizens' environmental groups and political institutions and thereby forward their ideals of proper land-use policy and practice.