Appalachian Diaspora: the Environmental, Material, and Folkloric Ties to a Southern (and extending) Mountain Range

Stretching from Alabama to Newfoundland, the Appalachian Mountain Range is a collection of ridges, broad valleys, and sloping plateaus that both nurture and isolate its communities. Within this landscape, there is a way of being that impacts a person’s engagement in the world - a lasting, ancestral pull of place. Artists and researchers who have been touched by it often produce work that is environmentally, materially, or narratively connected to this southern mountain range, or to the extraction that is now rooted in its hills and valleys. In the divisive circumstances of the current moment, a more inclusive vision of Appalachia is emerging, tied to its diasporic community that finds itself far away in urban centers or suburban towns. Beyond any sense of elegy, there is a commitment among this diaspora not only to a sense of place, but also to a working-class ethic of mutual aid and rich material culture that spans visual outlets.

This session explores how such geographically-tied references might be both a salve and a reminder of realities so critical to the identity of home — a home twisted in on itself but also expansively beautiful and narratively rich. What are the visual ties that bind us back to Appalachia? How might we use this enduring connection to assert a less oppositional relationship between the mountains and the cities, the devastation of rural industry and the consumption of urban life? Panelists may share topics or practices that speak to Appalachia, whether directly or in diasporic echoes.