In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

acknowledgments I cannot begin to express how deeply grateful I am to the twelve strong, brave, and determined women whose stories fill this book. Donetta Blankenship, Teri Blanton, Donna Branham, Pauline Canterberry, Maria Gunnoe, Debbie Jarrell, Maria Lambert, Joan Linville, Mary Miller, Patty Sebok, and Lorelei Scarboro, you are amazing individuals. Judy Bonds, words do not adequately convey how much you are missed and what an inspiration you have been, and continue to be, in my life and in the lives of so many others. I have learned so much from all of you and am eternally thankful that I have had the chance to meet you, hear your stories, and share your stories with others. Thank you also to Lisa Henderson Snodgrass, Andy Mahler, Vernon Haltom, Maria Gunnoe, and Bill Price for allowing me to include the beautiful tributes you spoke and sang at Judy Bonds’s memorial service in January 2011. My dear friends Vivian Stockman and Tricia Feeney with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition deserve special recognition and thanks for connecting me with many of the women in this book. Thanks also to Sarah Haltom, Vernon Haltom, and Matt Noerpel from Coal River Mountain Watch, who also helped me to make connections in the community. I would also like to acknowledge Melissa Ellsworth and Manali Sibthorpe, who were wonderful companions during a number of my interviews. The Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS) at the University of Oregon believed in this project when it was just an idea in a new graduate student’s mind. Many thanks to CSWS for providing me with a Graduate Student Research Support grant during the summer of 2007 to conduct the bulk of the interviews for this research. Thank you also to the following agencies and grant programs that funded the Photovoice component of this research: the University of Oregon Department of Sociology Wasby-Johnson Award; the American Sociological Association’s Sydney S. Spivack Program in Applied Social Research and Social Policy Community Action Research Initiative Grant, the Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation, the Appalachian Regional Commission, CSWS, and the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition. I am indebted to my colleagues and mentors who read and commented on drafts and chapters of this manuscript during its various stages: Yvonne Braun, Joan Acker, Sherry Cable, Betsy Taylor, Sandra Ballard, Richard York, Dwight Billings, and Sandra Morgen. Thank you also to Gender & Society for allowing me to reproduce parts of Yvonne Braun’s and my 2010 article, “Coal, Identity, and the Gendering of Environmental Justice Activism in Central Appalachia” in this book. I am so grateful to Laurie Matheson at University of Illinois Press for her enthusiasm for this project and for believing in the importance of this book from the beginning. Thank you also to my parents Susan and Tom Bell, who have unconditionally supported me and who have been my constant cheerleaders, no matter how far from home my projects and dreams have taken me. Finally, I want to express my deep gratitude and appreciation for my wonderful partner Sean Bemis and the endless ways he continues to support me and our family. Thank you for your love and for always knowing how to make me smile. Note to Readers Throughout the text I use the term “women activists” rather than “female activists” to describe the individuals in the book. While I recognize that it is more grammatically sound to use “female” (an adjective) than it is to use “women” (a noun) to modify “activists,” doing so would not be analytically correct. In this book I am examining the ways in which these activists’ social location in the gender hierarchy affects their activism—not how their biological sex affects it. x acknowledgments ...

Share