Participation Type
Paper
Presentation #1 Title
What Does it Mean to Be “Young” in the Mountains? Intergenerational Perspectives on Youth in Appalachia
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
How do you define the word “young”? What youth generation do you identify with? What was it like to be a young person where and when you grew up? There are practical and philosophical ways to define who is young, what youth means, and what is possible for young people to imagine and enact. There are also political economic implications for categorizing youth generations, equating “youth” with the “future,” and determining to what extent and which young people are included in regional development. Drawing from ethnographic and oral history interviews with present-day young people and “formerly young” people in Central Appalachia, this paper will discuss what it means to be “young” in particular places and time periods. Voices include people from a range of chronological and cultural generations who have been involved in different youth-led, youth-focused, and intergenerational organizations and movements in the Appalachian region and beyond. By reflecting on what it means to be young and sharing stories about their own experiences, these research collaborators challenge notions of youth as a static population or identity. They also offer insights about time, technology, education, community development, and social activism. This paper incorporates research from a larger dissertation project, which is supported in part by a Kentucky Oral History Commission Project Grant.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Tammy Clemons is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Kentucky. Her dissertation research focuses on the cultural productions of young visual media makers in Central Appalachia and how they envision, construct, and act upon possibilities for young people in the region. She is also a media artist/teacher with a critical interest in digital humanities and archives.
What Does it Mean to Be “Young” in the Mountains? Intergenerational Perspectives on Youth in Appalachia
How do you define the word “young”? What youth generation do you identify with? What was it like to be a young person where and when you grew up? There are practical and philosophical ways to define who is young, what youth means, and what is possible for young people to imagine and enact. There are also political economic implications for categorizing youth generations, equating “youth” with the “future,” and determining to what extent and which young people are included in regional development. Drawing from ethnographic and oral history interviews with present-day young people and “formerly young” people in Central Appalachia, this paper will discuss what it means to be “young” in particular places and time periods. Voices include people from a range of chronological and cultural generations who have been involved in different youth-led, youth-focused, and intergenerational organizations and movements in the Appalachian region and beyond. By reflecting on what it means to be young and sharing stories about their own experiences, these research collaborators challenge notions of youth as a static population or identity. They also offer insights about time, technology, education, community development, and social activism. This paper incorporates research from a larger dissertation project, which is supported in part by a Kentucky Oral History Commission Project Grant.
