The Anti-Environmental State: Managing Toxic Grievances in Central Appalachia

• In Event: 103 - Regular Session. Environmental Sociology 2

Abstract

Although coal production represents one of the most socially and environmentally destructive forms of industrial activity in the contemporary Risk Society, quiescence prevails in many localities affected by mining-related blight. Drawing on nine months of ethnography, 40 in-depth interviews, and extensive document analysis, this paper explores the impediments to social and environmental protest in the Central Appalachian community of “Shale County.” I find that resident grievances are contained by an array of mutually-imbricated tactics that originate not only from industry operatives but from the local and state technocrats responsible for regulating them. My analysis shows how these tactics converge to block the formation of environmental grievances, deter discontented citizens from acting on grievances when they do form, and de-escalate emergent protest when uncontainable grievances erupt into community activism. By linking these findings to existing research, I develop a robust causal model explaining why toxic contamination produces citizen protest in some cases but quiescence in others.

Author

• Philip George Lewin, Florida Atlantic University