News
Activism and Academia Meet for the Mountains at Annual Conference
Wednesday, April 9th, 2014
Thanks to Dan Taylor with OVEC for this great write up of the recent Appalachian Studies Association Conference in Huntington, WV. Read on for an update about the conference and the important work:
It was great to have the Appalachian Studies Association conference back at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, where I live. I had a great weekend, meeting lots of interesting new people and hearing lots of interesting new ideas. The best thing about this conference is always the variety, as many disciplines and fields touch on the “Appalachian” experience. You can hear great academic lectures, talks on activism, music and art; it runs the whole gamut of cultural experience in an overloaded weekend.
A highlight was watching my co-workers here at OVEC, who is also based in Huntington, present on Cemetery Preservation issues, as it related to mountain top removal coal mining and gas extraction that threatens our states’ history. This session included Boone County residents and activists Maria Gunoe, Dustin White and Danny Cook, currently working on access issues with the Cook family cemetery, and OVEC organizer Robin Blakeman, who has dealt with these issues in the past.
There were also great sessions on Appalachian labor history, economic transition in Wales after coal mining left the region, prison expansion in Central Appalachia and the Highlander Center’s new Appalachian Transition Fellowship Program. This fellowship is a particularly interesting and fantastic opportunity to build capacity for economic transition in our region. The Alliance for Appalachia and OVEC have recently been accepted as hosts for fellows. I very much look forward to working with the fellows and seeing the great projects that they can accomplish in the next year.
The Alliance for Appalachia hosted sessions on the work of the economic transition team. We had a great crowd, great discussion and enthusiasm for our past work and our work moving forward to create a better and more just economy for our region.
Participating in events like the Appalachian Studies Association is just one way that communities are building the regional conversation for a just transition for a cleaner, brighter Appalachian future. Topics discussed at the panel hosted by The Alliance for Appalachian included the need for land reform, energy efficiency initiatives, and tax reform. Events like these are an exciting way for those working on these important issues to share information and keep moving the region forward. Stay tuned for more updates as this exciting work grows.
