“Groundwork” Episode 3: A Conversation with Kathleen McLaughlin on Class Inequality & Cultural Extraction in a Changing Montana

Megan Torgerson has some big life news to share and is working with collaborators on the creative direction of the fourth season!

In this final installment of Season 3 “Groundwork,” Reframing Rural founder, host and producer, Megan Torgerson speaks with the podcast’s audio engineer, Aaron Spieldenner and story editor, Mary Auld about the inspiration behind the season and all the work that goes into producing the show’s long-form narrative episodes.

Grace Olmstead is the West’s preeminent author on place. In her book "Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We've Left Behind” and in this interview, she speaks to rural outmigration, connection to place, the history of how agriculture was industrialized and the future of agriculture in the West amid suburban sprawl and a call to build more just and resilient regional food systems.

At 21 John Wicks was faced with the decision to stay in college or come home and save his family's farm. Today he is a leader in Montana's organic and regenerative farming movement and an advocate for family farms across the state, serving as the associate director of Montana Farmers Union. Together with his friends Peyton Cole and Paul Neubauer, John is helping further the understanding that the health of our agricultural lands impacts the health of our communities.

Dr. Alison Brennan, MSU Extension's designated mental health specialist, Courtney Brown Kibblewhite with Northern Ag Network and Beyond the Weather, and wellness coach and rancher Lisa Williams discuss mental health resources and stigma around mental health in Montana's rural and agricultural communities. This episode spans data on farm stress, free counseling services for Montana producers and actionable tips for restoring balance and wellbeing to our lives.

In Winnett, the only town in the least populated county in Montana, out-of-state absentee land ownership poses a threat to the future of ranching and the preservation of the region’s intact prairie ecosystem. To keep people on the land and build a vibrant future for Winnett’s main street, the rancher-led nonprofit Winnett ACES is furthering economic and environmental sustainability for Petroleum Co. through local grassroots organizing.

This bonus episode features a webinar recorded for the Women’s Foundation of Montana, June 2022. “Developing Leaders for Montana’s Future” was a virtual conversation about the landscape of women’s leadership in the state featuring leaders who’ve advanced opportunities for young rural women, Montana women business owners and students privileged to experience the perspective-shifting adventure of an international exchange. This panel featured Deena Mansour, the executive director of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center at the University of Montana, Suzi Berget White, the former business development director of Prospera Business Network and Shannon Stober, the lead facilitator of the Red Ants Pants Foundation’s Girls Leadership Program. 

The convergence of mountain and prairie ecosystems along the Rocky Mountain Front is the awe-inspiring backdrop of the Blackfeet Nation, home of the Amskapi Piikani, or Blackfeet, for time immemorial. Latrice Tatsey, a rancher and cultural land ecologist with Piikani Lodge Health Institute, and Danielle Antelope, a teacher of wild plant medicines and the executive director of FAST Blackfeet, have long braided their lives into the cycles of this wild and tender land. This episode explores their respective food sovereignty initiatives, how they’re helping people regain comfortability on the land, thrive in the face of climate change and restore balance to the plant, animal, land and human communities on the Blackfeet Nation. 

In this bonus episode from Working Wild U, a podcast by Montana State University Extension and Western Landowners Alliance, hosts Jared Beaver and Alex Few explore how people’s values impact how they think about wolves and land use in the West.

The small North Idaho town of Dover has seen the extraction of timber, cheap labor and the natural amenities that draw tourists and second home owners with high-incomes and high-expectations for the luxuries they’re accustomed to. What happens to the natural environment and community cohesion when developers build with higher-income-earners and with profits in mind? What happens to locals when they are priced out or culturally displaced? In this immersive episode, host Megan Torgerson brings listeners to the shores of the Pend Oreille River, the center of Kalispel’s homeland for 10,000 years, where she interviews longtime residents, local historians and Dr. Ryanne Pilgeram whose book “Pushed Out: Contested Development and Rural Gentrification in the US West” uses Dover as a case study for how corporations cause destruction in order to profit from spaces with abundant natural beauty.