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In No Dancin' in Anson Ricardo Ainslie focuses on a seemingly idiosyncratic event in the life of a small West Texas town. Through this event he explores the complex psychology of many of the ethnic, racial, and economic tensions creasing the face of America. His method is a blend of anthropological field study techniques and contemporary psychoanalytic thought combined with an engaging narrative literary style.
Ainslie is director of the Counseling Psychology Training Program at the University of Texas at Austin and is on the faculty of the Houston-Galveston Psychoanalytic Institute. In 1987 he rolled into the farming and ranching community of Anson, Texas, to begin a small study of rural social change. He unexpectedly found the town in turmoil over the attempts of the Footloose Club, a small group of parents, to legalize dancing. Public dancing in Anson had been outlawed since the 1930s, and these parents wanted their children to be able to have a high school prom, just like millions of other teenagers. Ainslie eventually made nine trips to Anson over five and a half years. He interviewed over 60 people for this warm and insightful look into the lives of those at different edges of the conflict.
The author views the Anson dance fight as a symptom of underlying conflicts erupting in a community that had not come to terms with the dramatic social and economic changes of the