Studying Appalachian Studies: Making the Path by Walking ed. by Chad Berry, Phillip J. Obermiller, Shaunna Scott (review)

In Studying Appalachian Studies: Making the Path by Walking, editors Chad Berry, Phillip J. Obermiller, and Shaunna Scott and contributors offer a provocative “critical assessment” of Appalachian studies’ past and present and suggest a range of ideas to spark a much-needed “paradigm shift” in the field (2, 27). In an effort to pass “the torch [of Appalachian Studies] to a new generation” of regional scholars, the editors and contributors lay out a clear vision for the field’s future that promotes “participatory research” and community engagement, interdisciplinary and comparative approaches, and the promotion and acknowledgement of the region’s diversity (3).

Studying Appalachian Studies makes a strong argument for participatory research (i.e., service-learning projects integrated into classrooms, community-based research, etc.) aimed at directly effectuating change within the region and collaborating with local communities. In chapter one, “Making Appalachia,” Berry, Obermiller, and Scott compare Appalachian studies to four other interdisciplinary fields (women’s studies, New West studies, African American studies, and Pacific Island studies). The authors conclude that these four interdisciplinary fields emerged with a “distinct activist orientation” aimed at “empowering” the region’s residents (10). The authors lament that not all Appalachian scholars embrace participatory community-involved research and that failing to do so “delegitimizes and dismisses local knowledge” and “dis-empowers communities, families, and individuals in the region” (22). In chapter five, “Developing Appalachia,” Amanda L. Fickey and Michael Samers chronicle the region’s failed economic development models (i.e., Appalachian Regional Commission’s “growth-center” strategy) and encourage regional scholars to link their work to “community-based efforts” to “reimagine [Appalachia’s] economic possibilities” (25, 134). In chapter seven, “Imagining Appalachia,” Douglas Reichert Powell offers three regional economic-development and cultural-preservation case studies that distort Appalachia’s history and cultural heritage. Powell encourages Appalachian scholars to use their training and platform to rectify these regional misrepresentations and to “help build arguments and plans for a better version of the region” (170).

The contributors to the volume also strongly promote interdisciplinary research, the comparison of Appalachian studies to other “area studies,” and the application of alternative theories and research models to the region (9–10). In their introduction, the editors argue “for both the vertical and horizontal integration” of Appalachian studies with other interdisciplinary fields (5). The editors also warn of the dangers of “disciplinary balkanization” and the “intellectual blind spots” that may result from failing to embrace interdisciplinary research (1, 199). In chapter one, the editors argue that regional scholars have often failed to incorporate feminist, postcolonial, critical race, and other theories into their scholarship and have fostered an “androcentric, heterosexual, and racist” field of study that focuses on white heterosexual men at the expense of a diverse regional population (27). In chapter two, “Representing Appalachia,” Barbara Ellen Smith compares Appalachian studies to women’s studies and also concludes that regional scholars have failed to capture the region’s diversity. Smith criticizes the identification of Appalachians as a “unified” and “monolithic” people and asserts that, while it may be impossible to understand the “social complexity” of the region, it is important that Appalachian scholars make the attempt (43). Smith argues that in order to usher in a paradigm shift in the field, regional scholars must reject the monolithic definition of mountain people and deploy social theories largely ignored by Appalachian scholars (i.e., poststructuralist and critical race theories).

Studying Appalachian Studies also challenges regional scholars to move beyond the well-worn “paths” of stereotype debunking and to embrace the region’s racial, gender, ethnic, and sexual diversity. While contributors like Barbara Ellen Smith, Chris Green, and Erica Abrahams Locklear acknowledge that there have been recent efforts at integrating the region’s diverse population into Appalachian studies, they also argue that these efforts do not go far enough. As Smith writes, “just because a scholar conducts research on [an overlooked group] . . . does...