Another Man's Treasure: The Junkyard as a contested space in rural Maine
In 2005, I made a film with Matt Tyler that addressed the conflict between newcomers to rural Maine and the junk culture that exists there. We interviewed several junkmen from my hometown of Vassalboro, Maine, as well as recent migrants who took issue with their neighbors' junk. We also spoke with the local code enforcement officers that mediated between the two factions. The film premiered at the Maine International Film Festival in 2005. A year later, I wrote my Senior Anthropology Thesis about the conflict, addressing theories of land use and resistance to the colonization of a culture, such as the junk culture of rural Maine.
For several decades, Maine has witnessed migrations of populations from cities and suburbs to rural villages, where residents can enjoy the luxury of inexpensive real estate and pleasant rural lifestyle while commuting to blue collar jobs in nearby towns. The establishment of these “bedroom communities” has integrated comparatively urban expectations
of land use with the independent
attitudes of those individuals who
use their land for purposes beyond
simple residence.
Whereas many native Mainers organize their identity and livelihood by their personal claim to land and the rights associated with it, newcomers who bed down in rural communities are determined to find and identify with the character of the modern model for country living while maintaining their former occupation. The proximity of these polar attitudes is a major source of conflict as newcomers attempt to suburbanize their
communities by realizing their ideals of how
a rural village should look, feel, and function.