Gender Struggle, Scale, and the Production of Place in the Appalachian Coalfields

Abstract

IntroductionEvelyn is a woman in her forties who has lived her entire life in the Appalachian coalfield community of McKee County, Kentucky. (This is a pseudonym as are all the names in the paper.) Like many women in the region, she married a miner in her teens and was a mother and wife for almost twenty years. She did not work outside the home during those years. Today, however, she is divorced, is working toward an Associate's Degree in business; and is the owner of a small antique store. When asked about the changes she has experienced in the last several decades, she shakes her head and replies,`A ll at once there just were all these things for women. Before, few women worked outside of the home. If your husband mined, you took care of the children, the house, the man ... . But it's changing all around me.'' Evelyn's life and the lives of her neighbors have been profoundly changed in recent decades. The change is intertwined with processes of economic restructuring that have produced both sharp reductions in levels of unionized, secure mining jobs and the expansion of service industries in the coalfields.The changes in Evelyn's life have been intertwined with a restructuring of the place in which she lives. Her life and those of her neighbors are shaped by politicalê conomic change occurring at higher geographical scales. Nonetheless, individuals and communities are not passive objects of restructuring processes. Rather, decisions about how to cope with change and to maintain and support certain characteristics of

Whose Heartland?

“…2. Tensions between city and country, local and global, as well as past and future are evident in respondents' definition of the 'Heartland' not just as a policy or a locale, but also as a place to live, work, and play (Miewald and McCann, 2004). Each group struggled to write its own definition of 'the Heartland' onto the study area.…”

“…Despite difference in terms, both refer to place as a location in which daily activity occurs. Finally, place is a complex interaction of ''attachment to social memory, identity, and sense of place'' (Miewald andMcCann, 2004, p. 1047). This third aspect of place is process-related and has to do with how individuals and groups become attached to particular perceptions of what 'should' or 'ought' to occur somewhere.…”

“…Second, place is a physical location or a setting for daily lives. While some call this the 'setting' of our activities (Miewald and McCann, 2004), others refer to it as the 'locale' (Agnew and Duncan, 1989). Despite difference in terms, both refer to place as a location in which daily activity occurs.…”

“…Over time, three important aspects of place have been invoked in social research (Agnew and Duncan, 1989;Kruger and Jakes, 2003;Miewald and McCann, 2004). First, place is a location within social networks.…”

“I’m Lucky” . . . To Have Found Child Care: Evoking Luck While Managing Child Care Needs in a Changing Economy

“…Heather, Skillen, Young, and Vladicka (2005) focusing on the social reproduction of patriarchal subjectivities in rural communities mapped women's triple responsibility for the survival of farm, family, and community, accentuated by agricultural and health care restructuring in Alberta. Similarly, American research by Miewald and McCann (2004) documented the impact of the declining male-dominated mining industry in the Appalachian coalfields, and the increase in femaledominated service jobs, which produced a series of struggles between men and women over appropriate gender roles relating to waged work and household work, in turn, negatively influencing social relations. Leach's (2009) research in Ontario's North Wellington County showed that despite first holding and then losing similar jobs in manufacturing, men and women had different experiences and outcomes following the rural economic restructuring.…”