Social Change in Natural Resource-Based Rural Communities: The Evolution of Sociological Research and Knowledge As Influenced by the Contributions of William R. FreudenburgSome Historical BackgroundEnter Freudenburg: Major Contributions Addressing the Social Consequences of Resource-Based Growth and DevelopmentRaising Consciousness and Addressing Problems of “Inattention”Slide 5Providing Methodological Guidance and LeadershipSlide 7Promoting Analytic Rigor and DepthSlide 9Conceptual and Theoretical GuidanceSlide 11Slide 12Laying Foundations for Future ResearchSlide 14Slide 15Social Change in Natural Resource-Social Change in Natural Resource-Based Rural Communities:Based Rural Communities: The Evolution of Sociological Research andThe Evolution of Sociological Research andKnowledge As Influenced by theKnowledge As Influenced by theContributions of William R. FreudenburgContributions of William R. FreudenburgRichard S. Krannich, PhDRichard S. Krannich, PhDDepartment of Sociology, Social Work & AnthropologyDepartment of Sociology, Social Work & AnthropologyUtah State UniversityUtah State UniversitySome Historical BackgroundSome Historical Background•The 1973 Arab oil embargo, and resulting shortfalls in U.S. energy supplies•“Project Independence” launched by Nixon to stimulate domestic energy exploration and production•Combined with resource price increases, this contributed to a surge of resource development activity, especially in the northern Great Plains and Rocky Mountain regions•Location of most developments in spatially remote, sparsely populated areas with limited local labor availability. Led to massive in-migration of workers and dependents, and “boomtown” growth conditions in many settings•Overwhelming of local infrastructure and service capacities observed, and early signs of adverse effects on human quality of life and “social disruption” consequencesEnter Freudenburg:Enter Freudenburg: Major Contributions Addressing the Social Consequences Major Contributions Addressing the Social Consequences of Resource-Based Growth and Developmentof Resource-Based Growth and DevelopmentFive Key Areas of Contribution:•Raising consciousness and addressing problems of “inattention”•Providing methodological guidance and leadership•Promoting analytic rigor and depth•Providing conceptual and theoretical guidance•Laying foundations for future researchRaising Consciousness and Addressing Raising Consciousness and Addressing Problems of “Inattention”Problems of “Inattention”•1976 ASA paper, “The social impact of energy development on rural communities; a review of literatures and predictions.”•1978 AAAS paper, “Toward ending the inattention: A report on the social consequences of energy boomtown developments.”•Key shortfalls and limitations identified, including:–Limited extent and accessibility of what was at the time a largely “fugitive” literature–Limited evidence of extrapolation from analogous impact experiences–Tendency for “socioeconomic” analyses to exclude the social and focus on fiscal and employment issues–“Social” analyses either absent or focused solely on impacts of population growth on service and infrastructure demand–Reports of boomtown impacts often impressionistic, without clear evidence of data adequacy or documentation•A call for assessments addressing “genuinely social” consequences of development such as community cohesion, social integration, and subjective quality-of-life dimensions•Emphasis on the need to avoid fallacies of misplaced aggregation, by attending to the importance of “distributive impacts” that are differentially distributed across social groups and sub-populations•In general, a call for attention to the importance of carefully structured and more self-consciously sociological investigations of boomtown growth and its impacts, AND for serious attention to such impacts on the part of policy makersProviding MethodologicalProviding MethodologicalGuidance and LeadershipGuidance and Leadership•Early sociological debates over whether “social disruption” was really occurring in boomtown settings, or whether such assertions were at least in part a product of innuendo, undocumented assertions, limited data, and poor research designs (Thompson 1979; Wilkinson et al. 1982)•Bill’s early works summarizing the state of SIA and boomtown research highlighted multiple strategies for improvement:–More careful articulation of theoretically-guided research questions–Implementation of comparative, multi-community research designs–Implementation of longitudinal research to effectively track social change patterns–Analytic strategies to sift out differential impact distributionsLeading by example: Bill’s boomtown research in western Colorado:•Eschewed single-community case study approach for a comparative design involving one major boomtown case and three comparison or “control” communities•An ambitious mixed-methods research strategy: –Extended and in-depth ethnographic research (initially 16 months in the field)–Random probability sample surveys of adult residents in four study communities–Random probability sample surveys of adolescents in four study communities–Collection and analysis of varied existing data (crime reports, mental health center case records, etc.)–Capacity for longitudinal assessment through extension of ethnographic inquiry (at least 10 years) and analyses of secondary data covering extended time frames•Overall, a methodological benchmark against which other boomtown analyses should be comparedPromoting Analytic Rigor and DepthPromoting Analytic Rigor and Depth“Women and men in an energy boomtown: Adjustment, alienation and adaptation” (Rural Sociology, 1981)•Focus on survey-based measures of subjective quality of life, social integration, and personal alienation•Complex series of analyses disaggregating response patterns by sex, across boomtown and non-boom settings, and by newcomer/old-timer status•Generated fine-grained and nuanced insights regarding differential response and distributive nature of impacts… “old-timer” men in the boomtown exhibited higher levels of alienation; “newcomer housewives” exhibited lower social integration than women engaged in the workforce“Boomtown’s youth: The differential impacts of rapid community growth on adolescents and adults” (American