Mode of Program Participation
Academic Scholarship
Participation Type
Paper
Presentation #1 Title
Mapping the Risks of Mountaintop Removal by Placing Human Actions in Digital Space
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Through its harsh practices of extraction, the contentious economic issues it provokes, and its unforgiving impacts on people and places, mountaintop removal (MTR) stands as one of the most pressing examples of the extent of the challenges facing Appalachia. Yet the demands presented by MTR have been met with an equally ruthless capacity on the part of grassroots advocates and various regional organizations. And central to the efforts of these groups has been the use of inventive advocacy efforts and innovative uses of contemporary communication technologies. In this paper, I discuss one specific instance, the digital mapping project “Communities at Risk” by I Love Mountains, to explore the challenges and potential such technology affords to confronting the extreme situations presented by MTR. The value of the project and the use of digital technology for advocates rests in approaching such mapping technology not as a form of mimetic and spatial representation but rather, drawing from Bruno Latour, as a navigational space. As Latour and November express when comparing mimetic and navigational mapping: “Once mountains, valleys, capes and rivers have been laid out . . . it is very cumbersome to fit in human industry, economics, and so on since they don’t reside in Euclidean space” (p 594). Yet through the various layers afforded by the technology, human symbolic and subjective activities that contribute to the extreme nature of MTR that otherwise may not easily map can emerge and become visible, instilling a greater understanding of the risks generated by MTR.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Tom Bowers is an associate professor in the Department of English at Northern Kentucky University. His research focuses on environmental rhetoric, reclamation, and space.
Mapping the Risks of Mountaintop Removal by Placing Human Actions in Digital Space
Through its harsh practices of extraction, the contentious economic issues it provokes, and its unforgiving impacts on people and places, mountaintop removal (MTR) stands as one of the most pressing examples of the extent of the challenges facing Appalachia. Yet the demands presented by MTR have been met with an equally ruthless capacity on the part of grassroots advocates and various regional organizations. And central to the efforts of these groups has been the use of inventive advocacy efforts and innovative uses of contemporary communication technologies. In this paper, I discuss one specific instance, the digital mapping project “Communities at Risk” by I Love Mountains, to explore the challenges and potential such technology affords to confronting the extreme situations presented by MTR. The value of the project and the use of digital technology for advocates rests in approaching such mapping technology not as a form of mimetic and spatial representation but rather, drawing from Bruno Latour, as a navigational space. As Latour and November express when comparing mimetic and navigational mapping: “Once mountains, valleys, capes and rivers have been laid out . . . it is very cumbersome to fit in human industry, economics, and so on since they don’t reside in Euclidean space” (p 594). Yet through the various layers afforded by the technology, human symbolic and subjective activities that contribute to the extreme nature of MTR that otherwise may not easily map can emerge and become visible, instilling a greater understanding of the risks generated by MTR.
