Cheryl Morse: Rural Refuge? Environmental Displacement in COVID Times

Cheryl Morse reports on findings from a study titled “Who are the New Vermonters?” The research emerged from conversations with rural geographers across the Global North who began to see new in-migration streams to the countryside at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. This moment of new in-migration to Vermont, and other rural places, provides us an opportunity to learn what newcomers expect of rural places, and therefore to anticipate their impacts on social, cultural, and physical landscapes. Initial findings suggest Vermont may be experiencing a first wave of migration motivated by multiple forms of environmental displacement, and lessons we are learning now could inform efforts to prepare for future newcomers.

Cheryl Morse is Associate Professor of Geography, co-director of the Environmental Program, a Gund Institute affiliate, and a Food Systems Graduate Faculty member at the University of Vermont. She is a rural geographer who researches human-environment interactions. Broadly, her work is concerned with how people perceive, co-produce and experience rural places. Away from UVM, she spends as much time as possible outside at home in Underhill, Vermont, serves on the board of the Vermont Land Trust, and is involved with youth lacrosse. Read Morse’s full bio: https://www.uvm.edu/cas/geography/profiles/cheryl-morse

Morse spoke at UVM’s Farrell Hall on October 15th, 2021.

Learn more about the Gund Institute: https://www.uvm.edu/gund
Explore Gund events: https://www.uvm.edu/gund/events ​​​​