On the outskirts of larger cities like Grand Rapids and Big Rapid in Mecosa County, Michigan, Cindy Hull introduces us to Chippewa Lake, a small agriculturally-based town with a rich European (Germany, England, and Sweden) settler history. Though farming was once the primary means of financial support in this community, it has now become defunct. Today Chippewa Lake has become part of a must-see series of tourist destination stops and commuting subdevelopments for wage-laborers from larger cities. In this book Hull explores the social and economic changes of Chippewa Lake as these delineate a new “conceptualization of community” (4). Like A. Gunder Frank, Hull rejects the modernist model of “traditional subsistence-based economic structures” in which rural communities become dependent on larger controlling entities (9). As in her fieldwork in Mexico, Hull uses the World Systems Theory in which money flows to a core urban area and never cycles back to the rural system, leaving people despondent and places underdeveloped, to explain the phenomenon occurring in Chippewa Lake. Secondary theories include Sherry Ortner’s “practice theory,” which creates actors rather than victims, and “social embeddedness,” which focuses on the survival of families through reciprocity and exchange. Likewise, the author cites Janet Fitchen who shows that the “idealized” rural community, which appears to be threatened by the inclusion of “outsiders,” is actually developed in the minds of its inhabitants (xv, 12). As this idealized community dwindles it takes with it the traditions and community mores that were valued and developed by the original settlers, therefore altering the existence of the previous Chippewa Lake identity.
This book is divided into three sections: Section One (chapters 1-3) presents us with a brief history of Chippewa Lake; Section Two (chapters 3-6) shows us how Chippewa Lake has transformed from a rural community into a tourist-based economy; and Section Three (chapters 7-10) describes how the people of Chippewa Lake are creating a new contested identity that does not necessarily fit the concept of an ideal community. This is followed by “Marijuana Mama,” an epilogue about the Taylor family.
Section One discusses the Ottawa tribal nation, which lived a nomadic, hunting lifestyle, and is considered to be the original inhabitants of the area. The Iroquois Wars (1640-1649), the French and Indian Wars (1754-1763), and the American Revolution (1775-1783) decimated the Ottawa population. This resulted in the signing of the Washington Treaty of 1836 and the Treaty of Detroit in 1855, which led to the transfer of land deeds from the Ottawa to the European settlers. We then move on to the personal recollections of the descendants of the European settlers; for example, Elder Brigham notes that most settlers still spoke Gaelic and some of their ancestors came to America via the Mayflower. In another account, we are offered an ethnographic description of maple-syrup making by the Nellis family, which gives us personal insight into the difficulties of an agriculture-based economy, while Debra Carmichael Zielinski offers a “romanticized version” of settler life in which she recalls that her great-grandmother entered the township on foot carrying her infant daughter (Debra’s grandmother, Catherine McCallum) in her hands (31).
In Section Two, we learn that the township is not a conglomeration of NASCAR-watching “rednecks” but features small business owners, town events based on “competitive individualism” as in tractor pulls, and mutual help during times of stress (52, 54). As mentioned by Fitchen, “the deeper meaning of community, which is locally-connected, is of the mind,” though Chippewa Lake is slowly losing this mindful meaning of community when newcomers do not recognize the values of the original community (82). Likewise, the community has changed from a mainly working-class one that was affordable for local families, to one that caters to middle and upper-middle class “outsiders.” Hull poignantly notes that outsiders bring their own ideas of the “nostalgic past” into places like Chippewa Lake, disturbing community values and rural lifestyles that they, at one point, hoped to develop as their own.
In the last section, we see how social and economic differences have contributed to a contested identity in which the newcomers make attempts to become enmeshed in community activities while townspeople simultaneously make an effort to include them. Despite this, there is still a palpable divide that does not necessarily result in traditions or activities being passed on. For example, the author recounts her first deer hunting trip, or “rite of passage,” with her husband’s family in which they would share stories, cook food together, and go hunting (142). Currently, the author and her children have no interest in hunting or in continuing the tradition. Since people define themselves as locals and others as newcomers or outsiders, they develop a relationship with the space or the township rather than connecting to each other (167). The answer to this burgeoning conflict is that both sides must establish a new Chippewa Lake identity with a shared sense of belonging, which can then offset the flux of change experienced over the years (175). The author ends the book with an epilogue titled “Marijuana Mama” detailing the struggles of the Taylor family and the subsequent drug charges that placed more than half of them in jail. This story shows that the townspeople, by helping this family after a fire, still cling to a sense of sharing and community values that distinguishes it from other communities.
This assessment of Chippewa Lake is deeply profound and personal. This book delivers an overview of economic and social change within farming communities that can be used to analyze similar occurrences world-wide. By using a mixture of participant-observation and first-hand oral historical accounts the author provides the reader with a well-rounded perspective on social embeddedness and identity-formation. Hull credits her Chippewa Lake-descendant husband, who “brought me kicking and screaming” to the township. This move to live amongst the residents helped her gain perspective on the inner workings of this community. As I am a fan of well-written ethnographies in the mode of E. Evans Pritchard and Clifford Geertz, I see outstanding personal stories like that of Wynne Nellis, the Taylor family, Tom and Esther Hahn, and Judy Miller as essential in showing readers how important maintaining a sense of an ideal community is to this town. My only criticism is that it would have been helpful to include interviews from some of the newcomers so that one could get an understanding of cultural and social disparities from another perspective. However, Hull’s astute writing offers us a glimpse into the lives of Chippewa Lake townspeople and its emerging identity. As some of the authors’ interviewees passed on before the writing of this book, Chippewa Lake: A Community in Search of an Identity serves as homage to them and to their ancestors’ farming community.
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[Review length: 1124 words • Review posted on April 17, 2013]