Appalachia in Regional Context: Place Matters ed. by Dwight B. Billings and Ann E. Kingsolver (review)

Place matters. It matters now as much as ever. And its salience to issues such as mass incarceration, white supremacy, asylum denial, worker disenfranchisement, and climate precarity—to name but a few—should not be overlooked. This work by Dwight B. Billings and Ann E. Kingsolver—first released in hardcover in 2018 and then in paperback in 2020—does not make that mistake. It instead situates place as a sophisticated contextual lens that helps readers make sense of issues that span the globe and that continue to shape our daily lives. The editors importantly see place as action, and they note that "it is about what people do—in one way or another, in concert, contestation, or consternation—as they try to make sense of and live with the nearby and distant forces in their lives" (7). The contributors to this collection make that clear again and again.

The work, divided into ten chapters, includes contributions by a host of authors such as Barbara Ellen Smith, John Gaventa, Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt, bell hooks, Ron Pen, and Kent C. Ryden that touch on a wide range of topics. These include power dynamics, capitalist globalization, transnational industry, spatial closure, organizing strategies, commons activism, queer visibility, death, disease, foodways, music, writing, thinking, teaching, and more. The chapters, bridged at times by a series of poems written by bell hooks, which first appeared in her collection Appalachian Elegy: Poetry and Place (2012), highlight the connections between the local and global in and beyond the Appalachian region.

Ann E. Kingsolver kicks off this collection with a discussion of capitalist logic and practice in "'Placing' Futures and Making Sense of Globalization on the Edge of Appalachia." The author is interested in how place shapes the perspectives of individuals affected by transnational policy and industry in the United States, Mexico, and Sri Lanka. Her discussion about "strategic alterity" is particularly interesting. Kingsolver explains that the "selective devaluing" and strategic othering involved in this process play important roles in capitalist logic by naturalizing the position of low- and nonwage workers in terms such as race, nationality, or cultural identification. The author importantly notes that Kentucky has a long history with strategically "othering" laborers—including enslaved people and immigrant and seasonal workers. The similarities that Kingsolver describes between the tobacco industry in Nicholas County, Kentucky, and the tea industry in the highlands of Sri Lanka are striking.

These types of connections make for vivid discussion in the classroom, and it is fitting that the collection ends with a panel discussion about "teaching region" in the twenty-first century. David A. Davis makes the point that teaching region has become more and not less important with the development of globalism. He notes that political boundaries have become less significant and that "most people live their lives in territories bounded by familial, economic, and infrastructural relationships" on segments of the planet "with which they have personal attachments" (219). Gina Caison makes the point that teaching region helps students to see the dynamic construction of place across time. The author notes that thinking in terms of region not only can help students "begin to examine the many regions that existed in their space before their 'own' region" but that it can also help them develop a better understanding of indigenous diversity and sovereignty (237).

The middle chapters of this work—like the beginning and ending ones—highlight some of the best of what regional studies have to offer. Mary L. Gray discusses queer youth visibility in rural areas in her chapter titled "'There Are No Gay People Here': Expanding the Boundaries of Queer Youth Visibility in the Rural United States." The author describes the tactics that some queer youth in and around the mountains have used to affirm their identities and assert their visibility in Kentucky. Rich Kirby, John Haywood, and Ron Pen discuss the connections between place, art, and music in their chapter titled...