Participation Type
Paper
Presentation #1 Title
Appalachia Reconstructed: Law, the Environment, and Systemic Regional Reform
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Appalachia Reconstructed explores how the liberal environmental law paradigm has failed Appalachia ecologically, economically, and socially. Such devastation has primarily been wrought by the coal extraction industry’s century-long hegemony in Appalachia; environmental law (e.g., the Clean Water Act and Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act) has proven an overwhelmingly ineffective bulwark against such Appalachian destruction—and indeed against ecological catastrophe worldwide. Consequently, Appalachia Reconstructed posits that radical socio-legal change is required to achieve an Appalachian future that is both ecologically viable and critically just. To achieve such change, we must transcend the existing environmental law paradigm—i.e., as undergirded by liberalism—and instead cultivate critically informed modes of “systemic re-formations.” In Appalachia Reconstructed, such modes of systemic re-formations are largely explored through certain strains of ecofeminism, which focus on the following: radical degrowth; local economic systems; local-global connections; strong ecological sustainability, and; critical intersectionality along lines of the environment, class, race, gender, indigenous status, etc. Through such ecofeminist-steeped systemic re-formations, the Appalachian region can emerge as more just and as better positioned to face the profound perils of our new ecological age.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Nicholas F. Stump is a Faculty Member with the George R. Farmer Jr. Library at the WVU College of Law. His current work is informed by critical environmental law, Appalachian studies, and law and social movements studies. His upcoming monograph with the WVU Press is entitled Appalachia Reconstructed: Law, The Environment, and Systemic Regional Reform. He teaches in the legal research curriculum with an emphasis on administrative law and energy and environmental law.
Appalachia Reconstructed: Law, the Environment, and Systemic Regional Reform
Appalachia Reconstructed explores how the liberal environmental law paradigm has failed Appalachia ecologically, economically, and socially. Such devastation has primarily been wrought by the coal extraction industry’s century-long hegemony in Appalachia; environmental law (e.g., the Clean Water Act and Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act) has proven an overwhelmingly ineffective bulwark against such Appalachian destruction—and indeed against ecological catastrophe worldwide. Consequently, Appalachia Reconstructed posits that radical socio-legal change is required to achieve an Appalachian future that is both ecologically viable and critically just. To achieve such change, we must transcend the existing environmental law paradigm—i.e., as undergirded by liberalism—and instead cultivate critically informed modes of “systemic re-formations.” In Appalachia Reconstructed, such modes of systemic re-formations are largely explored through certain strains of ecofeminism, which focus on the following: radical degrowth; local economic systems; local-global connections; strong ecological sustainability, and; critical intersectionality along lines of the environment, class, race, gender, indigenous status, etc. Through such ecofeminist-steeped systemic re-formations, the Appalachian region can emerge as more just and as better positioned to face the profound perils of our new ecological age.
