Doctoral Dissertation Research: Community Responses to Local Resource Extraction

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University of Kentucky doctoral student Julie Shepherd-Powell, with the guidance of Dr. Mary Anglin, will conduct ethnographic research on variability in community responses to local natural resource extraction. The primary research questions are: (1) In this context, how do residents conceptualize and understand the meaning of "environment;" (2) How do residents articulate and respond to environmental concerns? Preliminary research suggests that many residents position themselves somewhere between the two sides of the debate, a situation whose causes and consequences are not well understood. Findings from this research will have broad application that will extend beyond the particular case to be studied.The research will be conducted in the central Appalachian region of the United States. This is a good site to study response diversity because for many people living in this region, coal extraction falls into a grey area. Mountaintop removal creates local pollution and other environmental challenges, but it also provides some of the only living-wage jobs in an economically depressed area. The researcher will conduct 12 months of fieldwork in a community in southwest Virginia. The community is the site of both mountaintop removal mining and underground coal mining, so comparative data can be collection. The researcher will collect data by focusing on responses to a grassroots campaign to reduce resource extraction pollution. She will employ a range of social science research methods including semi-structured interviews with community residents and organizers, participant observation at community events, and archival research at state environmental and mining regulatory agencies. Findings from this research will advance scientific understanding of complex socio-environmental issues and elucidate some of the economic, social, and cultural contexts that can produce diverse responses and make environmental problems hard to resolve. A particular contribution of this project will be to learn more about the space of public discussion and understanding that may develop between straight opposition and support of environmental issues. Funding this research also supports the education of a social scientist.