Economic changes and the machinations of the treadmill of production have dramatically reduced the number of jobs provided by extractive industries, such as mining and timber, in the United States and other affluent nations in the post-World War II era. As the importance of these industries to national, regional, and local economies wanes, community resistance to ecologically and socially destructive industry practices threatens the political power of corporations engaged in natural-resource extraction. Here we argue that to maintain their power (and profits) as their contribution to employment declines, extractive industries have increased their efforts to maintain and amplify the extent to which the "economic identity" of communities is connected with the industry that was historically an important source of employment. We fit this argument within the neo-Marxian theoretical tradition, which emphasizes the roles ideology and legitimation play in maintaining elite rule. We illustrate this theorized process by analyzing the efforts of the West Virginia coal industry, which, through its (faux) "grassroots" front group "Friends of Coal," attempts to construct the image that West Virginia's economy and cultural identity are centered on coal production. Our analysis relies on content analysis of various sources and on experience gained from field research. We find that key strategies of the Friends of Coal include efforts to become pervasively visible in the social landscape and the appropriation of cultural icons that exploit the hegemonic masculinity of the region. These findings have implications for how industries around the country, and the world, work to maintain their power through ideological manipulation.
Women generally initiate, lead, and constitute the rank and file of environmental justice activism. However, there is little research on why there are comparatively so few men involved in these movements. Using the environmental justice movement in the Central Appalachian coalfields as a case study, we examine the ways that environmental justice activism is gendered, with a focus on how women’s and men’s identities both shape and constrain their involvement in gendered ways. The analysis relies on 20 interviews with women and men grassroots activists working for environmental justice in the coalfields of Appalachia. We find that women draw on their identities as “mothers” and “Appalachians” to justify their activism, while the hegemonic masculinity of the region, which is tied to the coal industry, has the opposite effect on men, deterring their movement involvement. We explore the implications of these findings for understanding the relationship of gender to environmental justice activism.
There is a paucity of research focusing on the circumstances that cause or contribute to a decline in social capital within communities. Furthermore, relatively few researchers employ qualitative methods in their studies of social capital, despite the multidimensional and many-layered nature of this concept, characteristics that make social capital well suited for qualitative analysis. To address these two gaps in social capital research, I explore the mechanisms that have led to a depletion of social capital in the southern coal-producing region of West Virginia. I examine whether the coal industry, which has caused bitter conflicts among residents over environmental degradation and union loyalties, has also undermined social capital in the region. My principal data include 40 semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with randomly selected individuals in a coal-mining town and a demographically similar non-coal-mining town in West Virginia. I analyze the experiences of residents in each town, assessing the qualitative differences in community and personal life associated with social capital. I find that the loss of social capital in the coal-mining community has arisen through a combination of depopulation and the community-wide conflict that arose when an anti-union coal company bought out the union coal mine at which many in the community worked, challenging the union identity so engrained in this region. , who helped me at some stage in this project's development, analysis, and revision. Thank you also to the anonymous reviewers for your insightful comments. I am grateful to the many people who made this project possible: my parents Tom and Susan Bell, Jocelyn Smith-Gaujot and Ryan Gaujot, the Coal River Mountain Watch, my friends in Cabin Creek, and the University of Oregon Sociology Department, which granted me a Student Research Award. Finally, I thank the wonderful individuals I interviewed.Thank you for welcoming me into your homes, trusting me with your stories, and treating me with all the hospitality for which Appalachia is known.
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