Anthropology Lecturer, Thalia Gigerenzer, recently completed an audio ethnography of Galax, Virginia, a small town of roughly 7,000 people located in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The piece follows residents of the town through the Covid-19 pandemic, when this tightly-knit town suddenly became divided. Galax has a long tradition of old-time music, and much of the town's social life revolves around music. But when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, the town's music life suddenly came to a halt. And as the virus swept through the town, neighbors who disagreed about social distancing measures stopped speaking to each other. The documentary follows faith and community leaders as they scrambled to re-create a sense of community. A portrait of a community that doesn’t quite fit the labels of “red” or “blue,” rural or urban, where national conversations about freedom, responsibility and faith played out in a very unexpected way. 

Click here to listen to the audio, “Galax: A Portrait of a Town.”

This project was funded by the Princeton Humanities Council.