Their education and their way of being: discourses of place, protest, and hope in the Mississippi delta

In March 2010, parents and community activists in rural Sunflower County, Mississippi, organized and enacted a boycott of the local public schools, which led to a comprehensive accreditation audit by the Mississippi Department of Education and the subsequent takeover of the local education agency. This study examines the boycott's connections to local discourses of protest in the Black community, to local histories and contemporary quality of life, and to the circulations of power evident in the grassroots activism and in the state intervention. This work is situated in an interdisciplinary theoretical framework which draws on place studies, rhizome theory, Levinasian ethics, and Critical Discourse Analysis. Using ethnographic methods of data collection and Critical Discourse Analysis of data, I position the boycott in context and examine its rhizomatic roots and offshoots in discourse.