Participation Type
Panel
Session Title
Session 8.17 Environmental Ecology
Presentation #1 Title
Shannon Bell's "Our Roots Run Deep as Ironweed": Author meets Critics
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
In this session, Dr. Shannon Elizabeth Bell (a sociologist at the University of Kentucky) will discuss her new book, Our Roots Run Deep as Ironweed: Appalachian Women and the Fight for Environmental Justice (University of Illinois Press, October 2013) with three readers: Vivian Stockman, Barbara Ellen Smith, and Heather Lukacs. Motivated by a deeply rooted sense of place and community, Appalachian women have long fought against the damaging effects of industrialization. In this collection of interviews, sociologist Shannon Elizabeth Bell presents the voices of twelve Central Appalachian women, environmental justice activists fighting against mountaintop removal mining and its devastating effects on public health, regional ecology, and community well-being. Each woman narrates her own personal story of injustice and tells how that experience led her to activism. The interviews -- a number of them illustrated by the women's "photostories" -- describe obstacles, lawsuits, and tragedies. But they also tell of new communities and personal transformations catalyzed through activism. Ultimately, Bell argues that these women draw upon a broader "protector identity" that both encompasses and extends the identity of motherhood that has often been associated with grassroots women's activism. As protectors, these women challenge dominant Appalachian gender expectations and guard not only their families, but also their homeplaces, their communities, their heritage, and the endangered mountains that surround them.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Shannon Bell is an assistant professor of sociology at University of Kentucky
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Vivian Stockman is project coordinator for media outreach and communications for OHVEC.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #3
Barbara Ellen Smith is professor of sociology and gender and women's studies at Virginia Tech.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #4
Heather Lukacs is a doctoral candidate at Stanford University.
Shannon Bell's "Our Roots Run Deep as Ironweed": Author meets Critics
Corbly Hall 464
In this session, Dr. Shannon Elizabeth Bell (a sociologist at the University of Kentucky) will discuss her new book, Our Roots Run Deep as Ironweed: Appalachian Women and the Fight for Environmental Justice (University of Illinois Press, October 2013) with three readers: Vivian Stockman, Barbara Ellen Smith, and Heather Lukacs. Motivated by a deeply rooted sense of place and community, Appalachian women have long fought against the damaging effects of industrialization. In this collection of interviews, sociologist Shannon Elizabeth Bell presents the voices of twelve Central Appalachian women, environmental justice activists fighting against mountaintop removal mining and its devastating effects on public health, regional ecology, and community well-being. Each woman narrates her own personal story of injustice and tells how that experience led her to activism. The interviews -- a number of them illustrated by the women's "photostories" -- describe obstacles, lawsuits, and tragedies. But they also tell of new communities and personal transformations catalyzed through activism. Ultimately, Bell argues that these women draw upon a broader "protector identity" that both encompasses and extends the identity of motherhood that has often been associated with grassroots women's activism. As protectors, these women challenge dominant Appalachian gender expectations and guard not only their families, but also their homeplaces, their communities, their heritage, and the endangered mountains that surround them.
