ARH/ERHFA Video Essay No. 3

Neighbourhood is assumed to be at the heart of rural life, yet we have little understanding of how it worked. It was the most immediate set of relationships beyond the family, smaller in size than community, and considered to be so ordinary as to be un-noteworthy. This video enters the heart of neighbourhood through the study of cooperative work and is based on farm diaries accessible at the Rural Diary Archive. Canadian farm families relied on their neighbours’ help to clear land, raise barns, and harvest crops, and returned the favour when asked. This was known as “neighbouring” and the event was called a “Bee,” as they worked like bees in a hive, distributing energy, equipment, and skill around the neighbourhood and reinforcing bonds. Such arrangements have come to symbolize the good old days of neighbourliness, but they were neither natural nor simple. To ensure the satisfactory operation of neighbouring, households engaged in complicated labour exchanges governed by an unwritten code of behaviour. On occasion, they used gossip, storytelling, ostracism, even brute force, demonstrating that a cohesive, functioning neighbourhood involved negotiation, flexibility, surveillance, confrontation, and reconciliation. As a result, neighbourhood emerged as a powerful force in their lives.