Resistance

Austin, Kelly, and Brett Clark. "Tearing Down Mountains: Using Spatial and Metabolic
Analysis to Investigate the Socio-Ecological Contradictions of Coal Extraction in
Appalachia." ​Critical Sociology ​38, no. 3 (2012): 437-57. doi:10.1177/0896920511409260.

Published Abstract​: Mountaintop removal is the most profitable and efficient way to extract the
low-sulfur, bituminous coal found in Appalachia. This form of mining involves the blasting and
leveling of entire mountain ranges, which dismantles integrated ecosystems and communities.
We employ a political-economy perspective in order to assess the uneven capitalist development
and socio-ecological contradictions of mountaintop removal. In particular, we use theorization
on spatial inequalities to employ and extend a metabolic analysis to coal extraction. This
approach reveals how metabolic rifts are created in the nutrient, carbon, and water cycles,
producing a myriad of social and ecological problems in the Appalachian region. Mountaintop
removal embodies the unsustainable characteristics of an economic system predicated on the
constant accumulation of capital.

Their Keywords:
political economy, mountaintop removal, spatial analysis, metabolic rift analysis, economic
development, climate change, environment, sustainability

Our Notes:
Clark and Austin uses the Marxist theory of metabolic analysis to draw a direct correlation
between large commercial coal extraction in the region (specifically through the means of
mountaintop removal) and poverty. Patterns of absentee land ownership and the transfer of
natural resources to distant sites of production contribute to the uneven development of
capitalism, as capital is depleted from the region. The authors discuss the region as an
“environmental sacrifice zone” in that the resources taken from the region are used to primarily
benefit consumers outside the region in spite of the environmental consequences and effects on
the region, such as nutrients being washed away from soil. “Profits and electricity flow out of the
region while poverty and ecological destruction are concentrated in the extracted area.” (452)
This is one of the strongest articles in correlating the environmental issues of the region with a
direct effect on poverty. The article however makes no mention of conservation efforts and only
focuses on the commercial effects on the environment and poverty.

Our Keywords:
environmental sacrifice zone, call to action, environmental justice, Absentee Land Ownership,
resistance

Smith, Barbara Ellen. "Another Place is Possible? Labor Geography, Spatial

Dispossession, and Gendered Resistance in Central Appalachia." Annals of the Association
of American Geographers 105, no. 3 (2015): 567-582.
Published Abstract:
The demise of Fordism and inauguration of neoliberal policy regimes may be conceptualized as
historical processes of spatial dispossession that diminish and sometimes destroy the collective
spaces of working-class life. In central Appalachia, where miners’ militant, unionized
brotherhood once influenced the geography of the bituminous coal industry and enabled the
growth of active, working-class communities, spatial dispossession is especially stark. Here,
neoliberalization of space involves not only the familiar dismantling of public institutions but
also corporate enclosures of lands once treated as commons, withdrawal of residents from
polluted local ecologies, intentional destruction of union solidarity, and erosion of miners’ heroic
masculinity. Historical analysis reveals this dismantling of labor's gendered geography and
degradation of working-class environments as mutually interrelated processes. Spatial
dispossession is also evoking opposition, however, from reactionary, industry-orchestrated
mobilizations to valorize coal in the name of masculinist nationalism, to fragmentary efforts,
often led by women, seeking alternative economic and political possibilities. These
conflict-ridden dynamics of spatial influence, dispossession, and (re)creation lay bare interrelated
coproductions of gender and class, political economy and cultural practice, “nature” and society
and thereby point toward a labor geography capable of engaging the contradictory forces that
animate working-class life.

Their Keywords:

Our Notes:
This article is an intersection of a number of issues Appalachia is facing stemming from the
dispossession of capital from local populations leading to a concentration of wealth external to
the region. Like Austin and Clark, Smith uses the theory of spatial analysis or spatial
dispossession to articulate this broader concept of dispossession that is “not only economic but
also spatial, cultural, and social.” (Smith 568) This neoliberal concept of spatial dispossession is
credited to Harvey and applied to the Appalachian region, especially but not exclusively
Southern West Virginia. For the purpose of our research it narrates how land use, and the large
concentrations of land is so intricately tied to the region’s long standing poverty and inequitable
power relations. Smith uses a broad range of resources such as research regarding the decline of
school and post offices, to literature in order to express how the regional lived experience is
affected by the land use. Smith uses gender as a distinct lens depicting how the work of coal
mining and its relationship to the region’s masculinity has shaped both labor and resistance roles
that shape the social conditions of the region.

Our Keywords:
Resistance, Environmental Justice, Stewardship, Call To Action, Distribution of Benefits
Rice, Jennifer L., Brian J. Burke, and Nik Heynen. "Knowing climate change, embodying
climate praxis: experiential knowledge in Southern Appalachia." Annals of the Association
of American Geographers 105, no. 2 (2015): 253-262.

Published Abstract:
Whether used to support or impede action, scientific knowledge is now, more than ever, the
primary framework for political discourse on climate change. As a consequence, science has
become a hegemonic way of knowing climate change by mainstream climate politics, which not
only limits the actors and actions deemed legitimate in climate politics but also silences
vulnerable communities and reinforces historical patterns of cultural and political
marginalization. To combat this “post-political” condition, we seek to democratize climate
knowledge and imagine the possibilities of climate praxis through an engagement with
Gramscian political ecology and feminist science studies. This framework emphasizes how
anti-hierarchical and experiential forms of knowledge can work to destabilize technocratic
modes of governing. We illustrate the potential of our approach through ethnographic research
with people in southern Appalachia whose knowledge of climate change is based in the
perceptible effects of weather, landscape change due to ex-urbanization, and the potential
impacts of new migrants they call “climate refugees.” Valuing this knowledge builds more
diverse communities of action, resists the extraction of climate change from its complex
society–nature entanglements, and reveals the intimate connections between climate justice and
distinct cultural lifeways. We argue that only by opening up these new forms of climate praxis,
which allow people to take action using the knowledge they already have, can more just
socio-ecological transformations be brought into being.
Their Keywords:

Our Notes:
This article attempts to shift the conversation regarding climate change away from the
hegemonic framework of scientific discussion in order to be more inclusive to the experience of
climate change and offer a more democratic approach to climate change. The authors conducted
ethnographic research with people in southern Appalachia regarding their experiences with
notable weather changes and anxieties towards an influx of population that could be considered
“climate refugees.” This article directly discusses Western North Carolina, and the anxiety
towards climate refugees hint at a more focused anxiety in Western Carolina that the coastal
communities will move inwards towards the mountains should the sea levels change. The
argument in the article urges for more climate literacy and to consider additional angles to
climate change other than science such as “moral and ethical considerations” (Smith 260) when
developing climate change policy.

Our Keywords:
Stewardship, Environmental Justice, Call To Action, Amenity Migration

Taylor, Betsy. "“Place” as Prepolitical Grounds of Democracy: An Appalachian Case

Study in Class Conflict, Forest Politics, and Civic Networks." ​American Behavioral Scientist
52, no. 6 (2009): 826-845.

Published Abstract​:
This article argues for democratization as the crafting of democratic public space. Through
ethnography of grassroots contestation in Appalachia, the article examines the social substrate of
collective mobilization on environmental issues. It proposes shared stewardship of “place” as
important grounds for democratization—helping to overcome divisions of class, culture, and
ideology and to encourage integrative deliberation and knowledge. Collective labors to steward
particular places create understandings of a shared world arising from civic and environmental
commons. Place-stewardship can engender integrative forms of knowledge—multicausal,
multiscalar, multitemporal—as people deliberate about complex ecological and social
phenomena over time. However, citizens typically face an environmental policy system that
displaces integrated, community-centered perspectives into specialized government mandates
and scholarly expertise. Against this fragmenting political terrain, civil society develops “counter
expertise” based on multiscalar and multi-issue.

Their Keywords:

Our Notes:
The concept of this article comes down to looking towards common ground in which
communities can realize they are in the same boat as a foundation for democracy. The author
discusses the concept very broadly but uses a case study “of environmental contestation that
occurred in western North Carolina in the late 1990s” (Taylor 827) which is notable for its
location. Civil Society Organizations and Grassroot Networks were ideologically on different
pages in their activism which made it more difficult for collective action. A new organization
formed called Citizens for Sensible Forestry which broke barriers including class barriers and
originally succeed in bringing unlikely constitutes together. This unity however did not last long,
and divisions along class lines again divided the group.
Our Keywords:
Philanthropic Organizations, Call To Action, Stewardship
Feldman, David Lewis, and Lyndsay Moseley. "Faith-based environmental initiatives in
Appalachia: Connecting faith, environmental concern and reform." ​Worldviews: Global
Religions, Culture, and Ecology​ 7, no. 3 (2003): 227-252.

Published Abstract:
Christian faith-based environmental reform efforts in Appalachia advance a framework for
policy change based on the view that the roots of the contemporary environmental crisis are
moral and spiritual in nature. We examine how this framework is advanced among twenty
faith-based organizations in Appalachia—a region with a legacy of serious environmental
problems and a strong Christian tradition. We argue that these groups call for a new paradigm for
assessing the causes of environmental problems—and for alleviating them. Unlike the traditional
paradigm for change, which emphasizes political alterations, faith-based initiatives in Appalachia
seek to advance environmental reform by promoting a transformation of personal values,
attitudes, and conduct in support of an environmental ethic of care. Furthermore, these
initiatives’ strategies focus on educational and other strategies that can bring about this personal
transformation—and, eventually, societal change. The major assumptions promoted by the
traditional paradigm are seen by these Appalachian initiatives as key reasons for continued
environmental degradation, while the underlying values of the new paradigm constitute a vision
for an earth-keeping community having individual and global dimensions.

Their Keywords:

Our Notes:
This article addresses conservation efforts in Appalachia specifically as their presented through
Christian organizations. The authors address Appalachia as an uniquely religious region and that
Christian organization are often at the forefront of community leadership. Conservation efforts
through these organizations focus on changing the habits of the individual and the community, as
opposed to more secular advocacy efforts that focus on governmental level policy change. The
term “stewardship” is common in Appalachia Christian conservation efforts as the term already
has meaning within a Christian framework that translates well to environmental conservation.
The article addresses Christian conservation organizations efforts in North Carolina.

Our Keywords:
Stewardship, Call to Action, Individual Approach, Resistance