Culture, Environment, and Conservation in the Appalachian South

Culture, Environment, and Conservation in the Appalachian South PDF Author: Benita J. Howell
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252070228
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
Focusing on the mountainous area from northern Alabama to West Virginia, this important volume explores the historic and contemporary interrelations between culture and environment in a region that has been plagued by land misuse and damaging stereotypes of its people. Committed to taking account of humankind's place in the environment, this collection is a timely contribution to debates over land use and conservation. Debunking the nature/culture dichotomy, contributors examine how physical space is transformed into culturally constituted "place" by a variety of factors, both tangible (architecture, landmarks, artifacts) and intangible (a sense of place, long-term family habitation of land, tradition, "a way of life worth fighting for"). Archaeologists, cultural geographers, and ethnographers examine how the land was used by its earliest inhabitants and trace the effects of agricultural decline, industrial development, and tourism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Powerful case studies recount past displacement of local populations in the name of progress or conservation and track threatened communities' struggles to maintain their claims to place in the face of extralocal counterclaims that would appropriate space and resources for other purposes, such as mountaintop removal of coal or a power company's plans to export electricity from Appalachia to distant urban centers. Contributors also record successful community planning ventures that have achieved creative solutions to seemingly intransigent conflicts between demands for economic wealth and environmental health.

Culture, Environment, and Conservation in the Appalachian South

Culture, Environment, and Conservation in the Appalachian South PDF Author: Benita J. Howell
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252070228
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 220

Get Book

Book Description
Focusing on the mountainous area from northern Alabama to West Virginia, this important volume explores the historic and contemporary interrelations between culture and environment in a region that has been plagued by land misuse and damaging stereotypes of its people. Committed to taking account of humankind's place in the environment, this collection is a timely contribution to debates over land use and conservation. Debunking the nature/culture dichotomy, contributors examine how physical space is transformed into culturally constituted "place" by a variety of factors, both tangible (architecture, landmarks, artifacts) and intangible (a sense of place, long-term family habitation of land, tradition, "a way of life worth fighting for"). Archaeologists, cultural geographers, and ethnographers examine how the land was used by its earliest inhabitants and trace the effects of agricultural decline, industrial development, and tourism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Powerful case studies recount past displacement of local populations in the name of progress or conservation and track threatened communities' struggles to maintain their claims to place in the face of extralocal counterclaims that would appropriate space and resources for other purposes, such as mountaintop removal of coal or a power company's plans to export electricity from Appalachia to distant urban centers. Contributors also record successful community planning ventures that have achieved creative solutions to seemingly intransigent conflicts between demands for economic wealth and environmental health.

The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture

The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture PDF Author: Martin V. Melosi
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469616602
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
From semitropical coastal areas to high mountain terrain, from swampy lowlands to modern cities, the environment holds a fundamental importance in shaping the character of the American South. This volume of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture surveys the dynamic environmental forces that have shaped human culture in the region--and the ways humans have shaped their environment. Articles examine how the South's ecology, physiography, and climate have influenced southerners--not only as a daily fact of life but also as a metaphor for understanding culture and identity. This volume includes ninety-eight essays that explore--both broadly and specifically--elements of the southern environment. Thematic overviews address subjects such as plants, animals, energy use and development, and natural disasters. Shorter topical entries feature familiar species such as the alligator, the ivory-billed woodpecker, kudzu, and the mockingbird. Also covered are important individuals in southern environmental history and prominent places in the landscape, such as the South's national parks and seashores. New articles cover contemporary issues in land use and conservation, environmental protection, and the current status of the flora and fauna widely associated with the South.

Environmental Anthropology Today

Environmental Anthropology Today PDF Author: Helen Kopnina
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136658564
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
This collection offers a wide ranging consideration of the field which illustrates how environmental anthropology can increase our understanding and help find solutions to environmental problems.

Culture and Conservation

Culture and Conservation PDF Author: Eleanor Shoreman-Ouimet
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317937295
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Today, there is growing interest in conservation and anthropologists have an important role to play in helping conservation succeed for the sake of humanity and for the sake of other species. Equally important, however, is the fact that we, as the species that causes extinctions, have a moral responsibility to those whose evolutionary unfolding and very future we threaten. This volume is an examination of the relationship between conservation and the social sciences, particularly anthropology. It calls for increased collaboration between anthropologists, conservationists and environmental scientists, and advocates for a shift towards an environmentally focused perspective that embraces not only cultural values and human rights, but also the intrinsic value and rights to life of nonhuman species. This book demonstrates that cultural and biological diversity are intimately interlinked, and equally threatened by the industrialism that endangers the planet's life-giving processes. The consideration of ecological data, as well as an expansion of ethics that embraces more than one species, is essential to a well-rounded understanding of the connections between human behavior and environmental wellbeing. This book gives students and researchers in anthropology, conservation, environmental ethics and across the social sciences an invaluable insight into how innovative and intensive new interdisciplinary approaches, questions, ethics and subject pools can close the gap between culture and conservation.

Participatory Development in Appalachia

Participatory Development in Appalachia PDF Author: Susan Emley Keefe
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 1572336579
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
Often thought of as impoverished, backward, and victimized, the people of the southern mountains have long been prime candidates for development projects conceptualized and controlled from outside the region. This book, breaking with old stereotypes and the strategies they spawned, proposes an alternative paradigm for development projects in Appalachian communities-one that is far more inclusive and democratic than previous models. Emerging from a critical analysis of the modern development process, the participatory development approach advocated in this book assumes that local culture has value, that local communities have assets, and that local people have the capacity to envision and provide leadership for their own social change. It thus promotes better decision making in Appalachian communities through public participation and civic engagement. Filling a void in current research by detailing useful, hands-on tools and methods employed in a variety of contexts and settings, the book combines relevant case studies of successful participatory projects with practical recommendations from seasoned professionals. Editor Susan E. Keefe has included the perspectives of anthropologists, sociologists, and others who have been engaged, sometimes for decades, in Appalachian communities. These contributors offer hopeful new strategies for dealing with Appalachia's most enduring problems-strategies that will also aid activists and researchers working in other distressed or underserved communities. Susan E. Keefe is professor of anthropology at Appalachian State University. She is the editor of Appalachian Mental Health and Appalachian Cultural Competency: A Guide for Medical, Mental Health, and Social Service Professionals.

The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture

The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture PDF Author: Celeste Ray
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469616580
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Transcending familiar categories of "black" and "white," this volume of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture complicates and enriches our understanding of "southernness" by identifying the array of cultures that combined to shape the South. This exploration of southern ethnicities examines the ways people perform and maintain cultural identities through folklore, religious faith, dress, music, speech, cooking, and transgenerational tradition. Accessibly written and informed by the most recent research that recovers the ethnic diversity of the early South and documents the more recent arrival of new cultural groups, this volume greatly expands upon the modest Ethnic Life section of the original Encyclopedia. Contributors describe 88 ethnic groups that have lived in the South from the Mississippian Period (1000-1600) to the present. They include 34 American Indian groups, as well as the many communities with European, African, and Asian cultural ties that came to the region after 1600. Southerners from all backgrounds are likely to find themselves represented here.

Power and Place

Power and Place PDF Author: Melinda Bollar Wagner
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813197740
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Rural life and culture hold a practical and symbolic importance in American society. A central tenet of the survival of our cherished values—and of ourselves as a species—is the stewardship of cultural diversity and the places that foster it, like rural America. These may be the places that teach us to use land to make a living and to make a life, to forge and carry on our identities, and to feel history. They may yield a harvest of policies for managing an environmental balancing act that will preserve essential resources for America's children's children. Power and Place: Preservation, Progress, and the Culture War over Land examines the ongoing culture wars that pit conservation against economic progress. For author Melinda Bollar Wagner, what began as a study of Appalachia's long-standing and continuing status as an energy sacrifice zone evolved into a twenty-four-year research project that sheds new light on the physical and emotional parameters of cultural attachment to land. Drawing on interviews with more than 220 residents from ten communities in five Appalachian counties, Power and Place gives voice to rural citizens whose place at the table is far from assured with regard to critical energy, environmental, and infrastructure decisions.

Appalachian Cultural Competency

Appalachian Cultural Competency PDF Author: Susan Emley Keefe
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 9781572333338
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Health and human service practitioners who work in Appalachia know that the typical “textbook” methods for dealing with clients often have little relevance in the context of Appalachian culture. Despite confronting behavior and values different from those of mainstream America, these professionals may be instructed to follow organizational mandates that are ineffective in mountain communities, subsequently drawing criticism from their clients for practices that are deemed insensitive or controversial. In Appalachian Cultural Competency, Susan E. Keefe has assembled fifteen essays by a multidisciplinary set of scholars and professionals, many nationally renowned for their work in the field of Appalachian studies. Together, these authors argue for the development of a cultural model of practice based on respect for local knowledge, the value of community diversity, and collaboration between professionals and local communities, groups, and individuals. The essays address issues of both practical and theoretical interest, from understanding rural mountain speech to tailoring mental health therapies for Appalachian clients. Other topics include employee assistance programs for Appalachian working-class women, ways of promoting wellness among the Eastern Cherokees, and understanding Appalachian death practices.Keefe advocates an approach to delivering health and social services that both acknowledges and responds to regional differences without casting judgments or creating damaging stereotypes and hierarchies. Often, she observes, the “reflexive” approach she advocates runs counter to formal professional training that is more suited to urban and non-Appalachian contexts. Health care professionals, mental health therapists, social workers, ministers, and others in social services will benefit from the specific cultural knowledge offered by contributors, illustrated by case studies in a myriad of fields and situations. Grounded in real, tested strategies—and illustrated clearly through the authors’ experiences—Appalachian Cultural Competency is an invaluable sourcebook, stressing the importance of cultural understanding between professionals and the Appalachian people they serve.

The Southern Appalachians

The Southern Appalachians PDF Author: Susan L. Yarnell
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1428953736
Category : Agriculture
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description


Changing Climate, Changing Worlds

Changing Climate, Changing Worlds PDF Author: Meredith Welch-Devine
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030373126
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
This book explores how individuals and communities perceive and understand climate change using their observations of change in the world around them. Because processes of climatic change operate at spatial and temporal scales that differ from those of everyday practice, the phenomenon can be difficult to understand. However, flora and fauna, which are important natural and cultural resources for human communities, do respond to the pressures of environmental change. Humans, in turn, observe and adapt to those responses, even when they may not understand their causes. Much of the discussion about human experiences of our changing climate centers on disasters and extreme events, but we argue that a focus on the everyday, on the microexperiences of change, has the advantage of revealing how people see, feel, and make sense of climate change in their own lives. The chapters of this book are drawn from Asia, Europe, Africa, and South and North America. They use ethnographic inquiry to understand local knowledge and perceptions of climate change and the social and ecological changes inextricably intertwined with it. Together, they illustrate the complex process of coming to know climate change, show some of the many ways that climate change and our responses to it inflict violence, and point to promising avenues for moving toward just and authentic collaborative responses.