Olivia Paschal

His powerful critiques of industrial agriculture have shaped generations of thinking about the South. But how useful is Wendell Berry’s agrarianism in a new age?

In retrospect, the week of Donald Trump’s inauguration was an inopportune time for Walmart to hold the grand opening of its new corporate campus.

Historian Olivia Paschal explores how Walmart, Tyson, and J.B. Hunt shaped capitalism in Northwest Arkansas, and how their growth continues to influence housing, labor, immigration, and the deeper question of who gets to belong in our region.

“What makes the Ozarks unique is that the richest family in the world lives in what is historically one of the poorest regions in the country.”

When the Tug River flooded in the spring of 1977, it swept away thousands of homes in the rural Tug Fork Valley, across parts of Kentucky, West Virginia,

Revisiting the Agrarian-Distributists and their fabrication of an American past.

Alice Driver talks about her new book "The Life and Death of the American Worker," an accounting of the lives and working conditions faced by poultry and meatpacking workers in Arkansas, where Tyson Foods is headquartered.

Editor’s Note: This interview first appeared in Path Finders, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder. Each week, Path Finders features a Q&A

Despite having to move the clinic out of Texas, the founder of Whole Woman's Health continues to fight for abortion access in the new "border states."

The former Southern Exposure editor and Institute for Southern Studies staffer reflects on his work on the Southern Exposure digital archives project over the last two years and his career at the Institute.

On a panel at the Southern Exposure 50th anniversary event this spring, Sue Thrasher, Leah Wise, and Bob Hall talked about launching the Institute for Southern Studies and Southern Exposure magazine in the 1970s. Listen to the panel on SLSA’s Working History podcast and read the transcript.

The story of Bentonville, Arkansas, Walmart, and how Sam Walton leveraged his knowledge of rural areas and federal government projects to build a retail empire. A film by Ethan Payne for the 2023 Southern Foodways Symposium. SFA FILM MISSION SFA…

Southerners are used to heat. We’re not used to this.

Workers at a Tyson Foods chicken processing plant in Van Buren, Arkansas, walked out for several days this month, saying the company is putting their health and safety at risk — and is now shoving them out the door after hailing their loyalty through a deadly pandemic.

Michael Simmons has been a longtime Black organizer working across regions and movements, from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Arkansas to SNCC’s Atlanta Project and workers' organizations in Seattle and the South. As Ajamu Dillahunt writes in a review of "Stayed on Freedom," Dan Berger's new book about Michael's and his ex-wife Zoharah Simmons' involvement in freedom struggles, the Simmonses' lifetime of work "demonstrates determination and considerable discipline."

The newly digitized Southern Exposure archive holds meaning for the past — but also for our present.

Night temperatures are rising fast, and that’s a problem for rice and other critical crops, which have fewer defenses at night

Fortune 100 giants Tyson Foods and Walmart have heavy influence over two cities within 20 miles of one another, tucked into the northwest corner of the state.

On the failed dreams and forgotten ruins of William Hope Harvey.

A report by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis found there were three times as many COVID-19 cases and deaths among workers at the five largest meatpacking companies in the pandemic's first year as previously known. But at a recent hearing on the report, most Republican lawmakers spent their time calling for an investigation into the pandemic's origins.