Removing Mountains: Extracting Nature and Identity in the Appalachian Coalfields by Rebecca R. Scott (review)

Mountaintop removal (MTR) for coal extraction is transforming forever the landscape of the central Appalachians. The tops of mountains are literally explosively removed to expose underlying seams of coal, and “valley fills” are created as soil and debris are pushed out of the way. The ecological impacts are significant: reduction of natural habitat, tainted water sources, and increased flood risk. Even after “reclamation,” the once forested mountain landscape is an unrecognizable “flatland.”

In this well-written and engaging book, Scott considers how this destructive practice became an acceptable method of coal extraction. Her method is ethnographic and based on interviews with coal miners (both above- and below-ground) and their families, residents, environmental activists, and business people conducted during three visits to the region between 2000 and 2008.

Scott, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Missouri, follows other commentators on the effects of environmentally damaging industries on the communities where they are located. She identifies the region as a “sacrifice zone,” “othered” in the national consciousness, to fuel the county’s energy needs. This “otherness” is critical to acceptance of MTR. However, at the same time, this is a landscape where some of the central themes of America’s national identity are played out. Scott explores the cultural politics surrounding MTR, examining in particular how whiteness, masculinity, and class intersect in construing Appalachia as a place separate and different from the rest of America.

In the region, the “it’s jobs or the environment” attitude, while still a powerful force, has frayed in the face of advances in mining technology which have reduced the number of jobs mining supplies. In its place, a feeling that the environmental costs of coal mining are the price the region must pay for its being part of America has arisen. A sense of duty arising from the region’s history of sacrifice and service buttress this attitude.

Scott also assesses anti–MTR and environmental justice movements and the role of MTR as a manifestation of humanity’s struggle to dominate and control nature, which is wild, empty, and useless in its untamed state. She concludes that the struggles over MTR reflect some of the same struggles affecting America at large: struggles that hinge on the meaning of progress, freedom, citizenship, and property.

While Scott provides important insights into the cultural logic of MTR, she does not fully consider how the coal industry has deliberately and explicitly striven to maintain its central place in the region. The coal industry’s role in the Appalachian coalfields as not only the major economic force but also the major social force responsible for the creation and maintenance of a culture where MTR is acceptable could have been developed more fully.

This minor criticism notwithstanding, this is an important contribution to several bodies of literature. The book that will be of interest those concerned with the Appalachian region, with environmental policy and resource extraction industries, and with the construction of ideology and the cultural processes that shape communities’ support of destructive industries.