Author Talk to tackle rural gentrification

By Lyndsie Kiebert-Carey
Reader Staff

Just over a year since the release of her book, Pushed Out: Contested development and rural gentrification in the U.S. West, Montana-born, North Idaho-raised author and University of Idaho sociologist Ryanne Pilgeram is still in awe of the enthusiastic response her work has received.

“I just can’t believe it,” she said. “I pinch myself.”

Sharing that work has proven to be an ongoing and exciting process, which continues this weekend as Pilgeram gives an author talk at the Sandpoint Library (1407 Cedar St.) on Saturday, Sept. 10 from 11 a.m. to noon. She will give a presentation on rural gentrification — that is, “commodification of space and displacement of residents” in rural areas, according to Rina Ghose, one of the scholars cited in Pushed Out — followed by a Q-and-A session.

The book uses Dover as a case study for what happens when a community’s traditional economic base collapses. Pilgeram’s work explores the question: “When new money comes in, who gets left behind?”

“The timing of this project could not have been more perfect,” Pilgeram said, noting that the housing market woes that many Western communities are currently facing — largely due to pandemic-prompted in-migration — has contributed to the eagerness to understand rural gentrification.

Pilgeram said she has been fortunate to see Pushed Out prompt conversations in communities where this phenomenon is an increasing threat as high-dollar development seems to be guiding the future.

“When you’re writing, you’re all alone, and you’re not sure if all this work is going to amount to anything,” she said. “Then, when I give presentations, people say, ‘You are bearing witness to my experience and that makes me feel less alone in the world.’

“When things are resonating, that’s when people find each other, and that’s how we start to envision different futures,” she added. “There’s a spark in those moments of working together.”