Black sheep: Gossip and more-than-human racialization in French néo-ruralité

Abstract

This article brings together French-language ethnological literature on néo-ruralité with interdisciplinary debates about more-than-human intersectional marginalization, to contribute to the existing scholarship on the anthropology of gossip. Using a rich ethnographic case study widely known as the “black ram-gate” in the Cotentin region, I argue that néo-ruraux (urbanites who relocate to a rural community as part of a life project) can be shown to use the gossip allegedly spread about them by ruraux de souche (individuals identified by néoruraux or by their own account as “born and raised in the area”) to discredit the latter’s suitability for modern rural life. Here, as outsiders, néo-ruraux are able to construct gossip as an outdated activity, synonymous to rural conservatism, xenophobia and social paralysis. However, a focus on animal breeding narratives reveals that, far from elevating themselves above gossip altogether, néo-ruraux use similar scandalizing devices to racialize ruraux de souche in their turn.