Professor Pruitt Comments on Rural Poverty for In These Times
Professor Lisa R. Pruitt commented for In These Times on the economic roots of rural poverty. In an article focusing on poverty in Appalachia and the region’s support for president-elect Donald Trump, Professor Pruitt cited the lack of economic diversity as a key problem.
“The lack of economic diversification is a common theme with rural economies,” said Pruitt. “In Appalachia, that lack of economic diversification is wrapped up with the dominance of coal, and so whenever anything threatens the coal industry, then that threatens further economic collapse.”
Lisa R. Pruitt, Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor at UC Davis School of Law, is a scholar whose recent work explores the legal relevance of rural spatiality, including how it inflects dimensions of gender, race, and ethnicity. Pruitt's work also considers rural-urban difference in transnational and international contexts.