Cultural Matching, Collective Action, and Quiescence in Central Appalachia

• In Event: 227 - Regular Session. Environmental Movements, Inaction, and Inertia

Abstract

Why do some efforts at social change fail while others succeed? Scholars have largely focused on the presence of structural potential (such as political opportunities, resources, and social ties) or of successful framing (i.e., the meanings groups assign to events). But collective inaction, or quiescence, becomes more puzzling when these major components are present yet glaring discontent over widespread social and environmental devastation remains individualized. Using ethnographic research on the fight over mountaintop removal coal mining in central Appalachia, this project examines the space between structural potential and mobilization of residents. I argue that mobilization requires cultural matching, in which environmental activists and proponents of coal attempt to demonstrate their similarity to residents in key areas in order to gain their trust and build solidarity. Successful cultural matching is a key process enabling activists to convert the structural potential for change into residents’ actual mobilization. By analyzing cultural matching and mismatching when the potential for collective action is present, this case study shows why in some instances collective action fails, or never even begins.

Author

• Daniel Escher, University of Notre Dame