Confronting Ecological Crisis in Appalachia and the South

Throughout Appalachia corporations control local economies and absentee ownership of land makes it difficult for communities to protect their waterways, mountains, and forests. Yet among all this uncertainty are committed citizens who have organized themselves to confront both external power holders and often their own local, state, and federal agents. Determined to make their voice heard and to improve their living conditions, newfound partnerships between community activists and faculty and students at community colleges and universities have formed to challenge powerful bureaucratic infrastructures and to protect local ecosystems and communities.Confronting Ecological Crisis: University and Community Partnerships in Appalachia and the South addresses a wide range of cases that have presented challenges to local environments, public health, and social justice faced by the people of this region. Editors Stephanie McSpirit, Lynne Faltraco, and Conner Bailey, along with community leaders and their university partners, describe stories of unlikely unions between faculty, students, and Appalachian communities in which both sides learn from one another and, most importantly, form a unique alliance in the fight against corporate control. Confronting Ecological Crisis is a comprehensive look at the citizens and organizations that have emerged to fight the continued destruction of Appalachia.

Autorentext

Stephanie McSpirit is Professor of Sociology at Eastern Kentucky University. She is the author of several articles that have been published in journals such as the Journal of Appalachian Studies, Southern Rural Sociology, and the International Journal of Society and Natural Resources. Lynne Faltraco is the program coordinator for The Concerned Citizens of Rutherford County in North Carolina and the recipient of a Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship. She has written and been featured in numerous articles, editorials, and regulatory publications such as the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Environmental Protection Agency Region IV's Performance Partnership Agreement Conner Bailey is professor of rural sociology at Auburn University and has published in various journals such as Rural Sociology, Society & Natural Resources, Marine Policy, the Journal of Development Studies, and World Development.

Inhalt

Confessions of the Parasitic Researcher to the Man in the Cowboy Hat
What Difference Did it Make?: The Appalachian Land Ownership Study after 25 Years
Participatory Action Research: Combating the Poisoning of Harlan County's Dayoit
The Martin County Project: A Student, Faculty, and Citizen Effort at Researching the Effects of a Technological Disaster
Unsuitable: The Fight to Save Black Mountain, 1998-1999
Building Partnerships to Challenge Chip Mills: Citizen Activists Find Academic Allies
Environmental Justice from the Roots: Tillery, North Carolina
The Incineration of Chemical Weapons in Anniston, Alabama: The March for Environmental Justice
Expertise and Alliances: How Kentuckians Transformed the U.S. Chemical Weapons Disposal Program
Headwaters: A Student/Faculty Participatory Research Project in an Eastern Kentucky Community
Social Theory, Appalachian Studies and the Challenge of Global Regions: The UK-Rockefeller Fellowship Project, 2000-2004