The de/re-territorialization of struggle in Appalachia: The legacy of "coal and class" and the cultural politics of community.

Abstract

Appalachia is a region that continues to represent a paradoxical place in the geographical imagination of its residents, scholars and popular writers. There is a long and well documented history of the often violent exploitation of its land and people, and a marginalized tradition of protest. The geography of economic, social and political development in the central core region is highly uneven, the product of tensions between raw material extraction such as coal, by capital, political control through an elite-state class, and variously organized social struggles. Studies of social movements within a cultural political framework provided a powerful mechanism of analysing and writing about struggles over social and environmental injustice. Edited volumes by Fisher and Gaventa explore a range of militant particularisms, highly localized, intense actions based on community politics. What are the changing spatial strategies of these movements and what is the role of scale in understanding militant particularism? A geography of struggle in Appalachia locates the importance of tradition, especially the role of memory, the production of free spaces, and how place constructs and is constructed through social struggle. Finally, why is community the focus of these actions, what are the problems associated with social movements who do not question the exclusions of community politics and can an understanding of scale redefine the limits of militant particularisms?

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