Mode of Program Participation
Academic Scholarship
Participation Type
Paper
Presentation #1 Title
Measuring Collective Identity and Prosociality for Asset-Based Community Economic Development: A Case Study and Field Experiment from Morehead, Kentucky
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Many tools of conventional economic development (e.g., infrastructure investment and industrial recruitment) imply that development in economically distressed areas hinges on external change agents. Put differently, non-local assets are the key to improving struggling communities. While this logic has a long history in Appalachia, entities at all scales of governance—from the Appalachian Regional Commission to municipalities and community-based foundations—are moving to models of development that identify and activate internal assets in the production of higher aggregate community well-being. Guiding theory suggests that extreme norms of collective identity and prosociality that purportedly exist throughout Appalachia can underlie collaborative, asset-based planning processes that articulate communities’ collective visions and challenge those communities to share in the responsibilities of achieving their visions. This paper sets out to measure/document such collective identity and prosociality in the study area of Morehead, Kentucky. Three main data sources are interrogated: (1) an open-ended Census Bureau question in which some respondents self-identify as “Appalachian”; (2) place-based business names, which are rough indicators of place-based collective identity; and (3) a field experiment in which stamped, addressed envelopes were “lost” across Morehead by the principal investigator. Regarding the latter, social scientists argue that the fraction of envelopes that makes it to the final destination may contain proxy information on local prosociality, insofar as passersby presumably pick up lost letters and voluntarily place them into mailboxes for delivery. The findings have important implications for community-based planning in Morehead specifically, and for measuring collective identity and prosociality in Appalachia more generally.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Chris Holtkamp is a third year PhD student in Geography at Texas State University. His research interests include the economic and community vitality of rural towns, with a specific focus on Appalachia. Before returning to school to pursue his PhD, Chris spent 15 years as an urban planner providing community and economic development services primarily in rural communities.
Measuring Collective Identity and Prosociality for Asset-Based Community Economic Development: A Case Study and Field Experiment from Morehead, Kentucky
Many tools of conventional economic development (e.g., infrastructure investment and industrial recruitment) imply that development in economically distressed areas hinges on external change agents. Put differently, non-local assets are the key to improving struggling communities. While this logic has a long history in Appalachia, entities at all scales of governance—from the Appalachian Regional Commission to municipalities and community-based foundations—are moving to models of development that identify and activate internal assets in the production of higher aggregate community well-being. Guiding theory suggests that extreme norms of collective identity and prosociality that purportedly exist throughout Appalachia can underlie collaborative, asset-based planning processes that articulate communities’ collective visions and challenge those communities to share in the responsibilities of achieving their visions. This paper sets out to measure/document such collective identity and prosociality in the study area of Morehead, Kentucky. Three main data sources are interrogated: (1) an open-ended Census Bureau question in which some respondents self-identify as “Appalachian”; (2) place-based business names, which are rough indicators of place-based collective identity; and (3) a field experiment in which stamped, addressed envelopes were “lost” across Morehead by the principal investigator. Regarding the latter, social scientists argue that the fraction of envelopes that makes it to the final destination may contain proxy information on local prosociality, insofar as passersby presumably pick up lost letters and voluntarily place them into mailboxes for delivery. The findings have important implications for community-based planning in Morehead specifically, and for measuring collective identity and prosociality in Appalachia more generally.
