Participation Type
Paper
Presentation #1 Title
Resurrecting the Colonial Model of Appalachia: Interventionist Politics and the Formation and Maintenance of Unequal Ties
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
This paper tells the story of missionaries, educators and their work in the mountains of southwest Virginia establishing and operating the Konnarock Training School (KTS) for girls. Drawing from postcolonial studies in international relations, especially the role of colonial knowledge in rendering some people increasingly available for political intervention, this paper locates the KTS in the context of global networks of inequality. At the same time, the paper traces out the concrete formation and maintenance of unequal relationships between missionaries and educators on one hand and, on the other, the children who were deemed insufficient and in need of intervention. The age of empire at the turn of the 20th century, as Eric Hobsbawm depicted it, includes the extension (outward) and intensification (inward) of political, economic and cultural uniformity. The KTS was one particular site that reflected and in many ways reproduced those same unequal ties that were visible in other locations around the world, like China, India, Porto Rico, California and North Dakota.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Jacob L. Stump is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Shepherd University.
Resurrecting the Colonial Model of Appalachia: Interventionist Politics and the Formation and Maintenance of Unequal Ties
This paper tells the story of missionaries, educators and their work in the mountains of southwest Virginia establishing and operating the Konnarock Training School (KTS) for girls. Drawing from postcolonial studies in international relations, especially the role of colonial knowledge in rendering some people increasingly available for political intervention, this paper locates the KTS in the context of global networks of inequality. At the same time, the paper traces out the concrete formation and maintenance of unequal relationships between missionaries and educators on one hand and, on the other, the children who were deemed insufficient and in need of intervention. The age of empire at the turn of the 20th century, as Eric Hobsbawm depicted it, includes the extension (outward) and intensification (inward) of political, economic and cultural uniformity. The KTS was one particular site that reflected and in many ways reproduced those same unequal ties that were visible in other locations around the world, like China, India, Porto Rico, California and North Dakota.
