Fighting King Coal: Challenges to Micromobilization in Central Appalachia PDF

Introduction PagestoreadforBelldiscussion 1.1594 Different people stood up and told about their water and told about what they...

Introduction PagestoreadforBelldiscussion 1.1594 Different people stood up and told about their water and told about what they believed was happening, and told about the different illnesses—the brain tumors, the gallbladder problems, stomach problems, children’s teeth falling out, and all of these things. … And it’s like my whole life flashing before my eyes, because my children had lost their teeth, my parents had had cancer, we’d had our gallbladders removed, and all of these things was, it’s just like, oh no, it’s not just us—it’s the whole community, and we’re not even blood related. —Maria Lambert, West Virginia coalfield resident, as quoted on page 72 of Bell 2013 Maria Lambert lives in the community of Prenter, West Virginia, deep in the heart of the coal-mining region of Central Appalachia. In 2007, resi- dents of Prenter, who had long been plagued by alarmingly high rates of cancer and other serious health conditions, learned that their well water was contaminated with coal waste. Coal waste, also called “slurry” or “sludge,” is generated when coal is cleaned to remove non-combustible materials such as sulfur and rock. The liquid waste generated in this process consists of water, chemicals, and particles of coal, which contain a host of heavy metals and semi-metal compounds that can be toxic when ingested or inhaled, including arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, lead, mercury, nickel, and selenium. The large quantity of coal waste that is Copyright © 2016. MIT Press. All rights reserved. produced in the coalfields of Central Appalachia is either stored in huge slurry impoundments on the surfaces of flattened mountaintops or pumped underground into abandoned mine shafts. In recent years, increasing numbers of communities neighboring these slurry-injection sites have found that coal waste has leached out of the underground storage chambers into the water table, silently contaminating drinking-water wells in the vicinity. Bell, Shannon Elizabeth. Fighting King Coal : The Challenges to Micromobilization in Central Appalachia, MIT Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/pitt-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4448148. Created from pitt-ebooks on 2025-02-02 23:08:12.  2 Introduction For many years, individuals living in communities like Prenter did not realize that the brown—or sometimes black—water that ran through their faucets was coal waste; many were told either that they just had a little iron in their water or that dirt was getting through their filters. They continued drinking, cooking with, and bathing in this contaminated water for many years, until they, and especially their children, started getting sick. Resi- dents throughout the coalfields whose water has been contaminated with coal slurry have been found to have high rates of liver, kidney, and brain cancer, as well as gall bladder disease, skin disorders, and even organ failure (Orem 2006; Wells 2006; Bell 2013). When residents of communities like Prenter find out that their health and safety—and the health and safety of their families—have been jeopar- dized by a polluting or destructive industry, do they typically rise up to fight for environmental justice and the rights of their communities? The answer to this question is No. In cases of environmental injustice, such as what is taking place in communities like Prenter, there are hundreds of people who choose not to participate in local grassroots movements work- ing for environmental justice in their communities, despite being person- ally affected by these hazards. This is the underlying question this book seeks to resolve: Why do so many of the vast number of people who experi- ence industry-produced environmental hazards and toxics not rise up to participate in movements aimed at bringing about social justice and indus- try accountability? As McAdam and Boudet (2012) maintain, there is a tendency among scholars of social movements to “select on the dependent variable,” begin- ning with an instance of successful mobilization and then retrospectively studying the factors that have led to collective action and to recruitment into the movement.1 This tendency creates a skewed picture of social move- ments, overstating both the frequency of collective action events and the Copyright © 2016. MIT Press. All rights reserved. success of mobilization efforts. There are, in fact, many more instances of non-action2 in the face of injustice than there are cases of action. Even in communities where there are successful social-movement organizations working against local injustices, there are many more people who choose not to participate in collective action than who choose to participate. How- ever, we know very little about the factors that constrain grassroots partici- pation in such organizations. It is within this void in social-movement theory that I situate my study. an imam is coalmining the b ackbone economic of culture thesecommunities and Bell, Shannon Elizabeth. Fighting King Coal : The Challenges to Micromobilization in Central Appalachia, MIT Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/pitt-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4448148. Created from pitt-ebooks on 2025-02-02 23:08:12.  Introduction 3 This book also seeks to answer David S. Meyer’s call for social-movement scholarship that is aimed at the “passionate pursuit of answers to questions that are important to people trying to change the world” (2005, p. 193). Trying to understand why so many unjustly treated individuals do not fight back when given the opportunity is a question that has long plagued orga- nizers of social movements. Figuring out how to recruit people into a move- ment requires an understanding of the barriers that prevent people from joining it. I explore the question of non-action through a case study of the coal-mining region of Central Appalachia, where mountaintop-removal mining3 and the increasing frequency of coal-industry-related flooding, sickness, and water contamination have led to the emergence of a working class, women-driven, grassroots environmental justice movement that is demanding protection from and accountability for the destruction and pol- lution in coalfield communities. (See Bell 2013 for an account of the local women at the center of this struggle.) The coal industry’s impact on local communities has been profound; however, recruiting new local4 residents to join the movement has proved to be an ongoing challenge. Although there are some very strong local voices at the forefront of this struggle, the number of participants from the affected population is relatively small, despite extensive organizing efforts in the region. This book examines the barriers to mobilization within this context. The bulk of the data for this book are drawn from 13 months of field research that I conducted between July 2006 and May 2009 in southern West Virginia, the center of the struggle for coalfield environmental justice in the United States. My methods of data collection and analysis included in-depth and semi-structured interviews, participant observation, content analysis, geospatial viewshed analysis, and an eight-month “Photovoice” project with 54 women living in five coal-mining communities. Also Copyright © 2016. MIT Press. All rights reserved. included in this book are insights gained from follow-up interviews I con- ducted with Photovoice participants in 2013. The chapters of this book are divided into two parts, representing two distinct phases of research. Part I presents four studies that build on existing social-movement theory to examine barriers to coalfield citizens’ involve- ment in the environmental justice movement. Specifically, these studies present and investigate potential barriers to the processes of solidarity building, micromobilization, identity correspondence, and consciousness Bell, Shannon Elizabeth. Fighting King Coal : The Challenges to Micromobilization in Central Appalachia, MIT Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/pitt-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4448148. Created from pitt-ebooks on 2025-02-02 23:08:12.  4 Introduction transformation (or cognitive liberation), which are the critical micro-level factors affecting an individual’s propensity to participate in a social move- ment (McAdam 1988a; Gamson 1992). Through these studies, I identify four major obstacles to local coalfield residents’ participation in the envi- ronmental justice movement: depleted social capital in coalfield communities, indicating that there are high levels of isolation, sparse social networks, and few formal organiza- tions in the region the gendering of activist involvement—that is, the underrepresentation of men in environmental justice activism, owing to the coal industry’s influence on the local hegemonic masculinity of the region the coal industry’s ideology-construction efforts to maintain and amplify the perception that coal is both the economic backbone of the state and the cultural identity of the citizenry the fact that the majority of the coal industry’s environmental destruc- tion is not visible to most local residents. Are these the only factors constraining local participation in the coalfield environmental justice movement? It is difficult to know because, as McAdam and Paulsen (1993, p. 641) assert, “almost invariably” studies of movement participation “start by surveying activists after their entrance into [a] movement.” Thus, our research subjects have typically already overcome whatever barriers to participation may exist among people expe- riencing injustice. To determine if there are, in fact, other forces hindering local participation in the Central Appalachian case, it is necessary to study a group of individuals who are not yet activists but who are exposed to events and circumstances that could lead to their recruitment into the envi- ronmental justice movement. In part II, I introduce the participatory-action research method of “Pho- Copyright © 2016. MIT Press. All rights reserved. tovoice”5 as a means of studying—in real time—the factors facilitating and constraining involvement in the environmental justice movement. I present the findings of an eight-month Photovoice project that I conducted with 54 women living in five coal-mining communities in southern West Virginia. Forty-seven of the participants in this project had had no previous involvement in environmental justice activism; seven of the participants (one or two from each community) were associated in some way with one of the local organizations fighting the coal industry’s irresponsible practices Bell, Shannon Elizabeth. Fighting King Coal : The Challenges to Micromobilization in Central Appalachia, MIT Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/pitt-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4448148. Created from pitt-ebooks on 2025-02-02 23:08:12.  Introduction 5 in the region. Through this Photovoice project, I attempted to control for the four barriers discussed in part I while also creating a “micromobilization context”6 (McAdam 1988a) for the non-activist participants, providing a structure that could serve to facilitate their recruitment into the environ- mental justice movement. By studying the women who chose to become involved in environmental justice activism during the project and those who did not, I examine the additional social factors that hinder local coal- field residents’ participation in the movement.7 My analysis of the Photovoice portion of this research suggests that there are two additional barriers to participation in social movements among local residents. The first is the power of members of the local elite, who have direct or indirect ties to the coal industry and who benefit from the maintenance of the status quo. The pressure that these individuals exert to stifle other local residents’ willingness to speak out against environmen- tal injustice is a powerful force in these small communities. The second barrier revealed through the Photovoice study is that the collective identity of the environmental justice movement is changing in ways that have made many potential local recruits less likely to view the movement as compatible with their own personal identities. Although the movement was started by local people, in recent years, as mountaintop-removal min- ing has received increasing national media attention, many “non-local” people have also joined the movement. My data suggest that the influx of non-local environmental groups, col- lege students, and celebrities into the environmental justice movement, and the protest tactics they have chosen to use, are changing the collective identity of the movement such that many local citizens are now viewing it as an “outsiders’ movement.” This finding presents a significant dilemma for the future of the environmental justice movement in Central Appala- chia. On the one hand, the influx of non-locals into the coalfield region has Copyright © 2016. MIT Press. All rights reserved. been positive in the sense that it has helped draw attention to the injustices taking place, and it has given the environmental justice movement a strong and deep base of support. At the same time, however, many supporters of the coal industry have been quick to condemn the newcomers—and the environmental justice organizations by association—as groups of “outsider extremists” who, if successful, will close all the coal mines and leave the “locals” without a source of income to feed their families. Thus, although the environmental justice movement was started by local coalfield Bell, Shannon Elizabeth. Fighting King Coal : The Challenges to Micromobilization in Central Appalachia, MIT Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/pitt-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4448148. Created from pitt-ebooks on 2025-02-02 23:08:12.  6 Introduction residents, and those local coalfield residents are still central to the leader- ship of the movement, the influx of non-local people into the region has provided an opportunity for the opposition to capitalize on an “insider- outsider” dichotomy, effectively challenging the collective identity of the movement so that many in the region no longer perceive it as a “local” struggle. My Positionality within the Coalfields of Appalachia Although the collection of data for this book officially began in 2006, the seeds of this project were sown more than ten years earlier, when I was a high school student volunteering for a community-service project in the coal-mining region of southwest Virginia. I spent a week during the sum- mer of 1995, and another during the summer of 1997, in Wise County, Virginia, helping to rehabilitate the homes of individuals who could not afford needed repairs. What I thought was simply a community-service trip with members of my church ended up being an experience that shaped the next fifteen years of my life. I grew up as a fairly sheltered middle-class kid in suburban Maryland, and so my first exposure to coal-mining-related damages and injustices in rural Appalachia was shocking. During my first week of community service, I was startled when I blew my nose and saw black mucous, which, I learned, was the result of coal dust in the air. What, I wondered, did this coal dust do to the lungs of people who actually lived there? I met a number of children who were sick with chronic asthma. I also met retired coal miners, many of whom had frequent coughing spells due to the “black lung” (pneumoconio- sis) that plagued their respiratory systems. Many of the homes my group repaired had cracked foundations and warped walls, which, I learned, were attributable to underground coal mining. The people living in these partic- Copyright © 2016. MIT Press. All rights reserved. ular houses weren’t eligible to receive compensation for their damaged property, because their homes didn’t fall within the required angle of the mining operations. The areas in which we worked were extremely impover- ished, yet, I was told, billions of dollars’ worth of coal were extracted from the region every year. How could that be possible? Why were these commu- nities so poor when they had such wealth buried within their mountains? How could the coal industry so clearly be damaging the health and property of the people living in these communities and not be held responsible? Bell, Shannon Elizabeth. Fighting King Coal : The Challenges to Micromobilization in Central Appalachia, MIT Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/pitt-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4448148. Created from pitt-ebooks on 2025-02-02 23:08:12.  Introduction 7 As a college student, I searched for words to fit what I had seen during those service trips. Exploitation. Corruption. Injustice. I finally began to develop a vocabulary to describe what I saw. Though I would soon learn of many, many other terrible injustices taking place throughout the world, my first “awakening” occurred in the coalfields of Appalachia. That is why, I believe, this particular injustice became “my issue.” Many of the papers I wrote during my undergraduate studies explored the history of coal mining in Appalachia and attempted to unravel how that industry had come to possess so much power within the United States and to enjoy such impu- nity for so many of its destructive actions. I returned to Central Appalachia between my junior and senior years in college as a Shepherd Alliance Intern and AmeriCorps volunteer at a non- profit health center in rural southern West Virginia. During my eight weeks there, I began to understand that the region’s relationship with coal was much more complicated than I had realized. The coal industry was respon- sible for great environmental and social harm, yet it was also deeply con- nected to many residents’ identities and pride. Even people not employed by the coal industry were often reluctant to speak negatively about it, fre- quently expressing, “It’s all we’ve got.” After finishing college, I returned to the same non-profit health center in southern West Virginia, working there from 2000 to 2005 in public health and community organizing. During those five years, my education contin- ued. I saw mountaintop-removal coal mining for the first time and wit- nessed the devastating impacts of this practice on not only the environment but also on the health and well-being of residents living in nearby commu- nities. Flooding, water contamination, structural damage from blasting, and accidents involving overweight coal trucks were all taken as the inevi- table costs of living in the communities in which I worked. I learned that there was a line that I had to toe carefully because of my Copyright © 2016. MIT Press. All rights reserved. status as an “outsider.” My affiliation with the local health center where I worked (which had been started in the 1970s by the United Mine Workers of America and a group of local residents who had taken out personal loans to pay for the construction of the facility) gave me some credibility and helped me gain the trust of community members. But that was only so long as I didn’t overstep certain boundaries—for example, by speaking “too politically” (or too negatively) about the coal industry. I came to realize how important it was to spend a lot of time listening to local people and Bell, Shannon Elizabeth. Fighting King Coal : The Challenges to Micromobilization in Central Appalachia, MIT Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/pitt-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4448148. Created from pitt-ebooks on 2025-02-02 23:08:12.  8 Introduction really hearing the complexity of the struggles they and their communities faced. In those long conversations, residents would discuss the hardships they suffered because of the coal industry, but they would also express the pride they felt in their families’ and their community’s coal-mining history. I would watch as individuals eagerly dug up old photographs of their daddies and grand-daddies, covered in coal dust, standing in front of an underground mine entrance. They would pull out old carbide lanterns that had been used in the mines and pieces of coal company “scrip” that had been used as money in the coal camps where they lived. They shared stories about gruesome mining accidents and explosions that had happened while they were young, and they told me how poor their families had been, always in debt to the Company Store. But they would also tell me that, despite these difficult living circumstances, their coal camp was “the best place that a kid could grow up” because people took care of one another and the community was close-knit. During our conversations, many people expressed regret that coal- mining practices had changed so drastically in recent years. Very few under- ground coal mines were left in the area, and even fewer union mines. Although more coal was being extracted from the region than ever before, jobs in the coal industry were difficult to come by. Many people told me how much they hated to see mountaintop-removal mining destroying their mountains and blocking access to many of their favorite hunting grounds and ginseng-digging spots. Some said that they had noticed increased flooding in the area since mountaintop-removal mining began, and some had experienced flood damage to their own homes. Others revealed that coal-related pollution had rendered their creeks unsuitable for fishing or swimming. Many talked about the dangerous road conditions and deadly accidents that had resulted from increased truck traffic to and from the mountaintop-removal mines in their community. Copyright © 2016. MIT Press. All rights reserved. When conversations shifted toward problems related to the coal indus- try, I often took the opportunity to share information about the work that environmental justice organizations such as Coal River Mountain Watch and Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition were doing to advocate for the rights of coalfield citizens. On numerous occasions, I enthusiastically offered to put community residents in contact with these organizations or to set up meetings with organizers. Most of the time, people didn’t take me up on my offers. On a few occasions, residents did express some interest in Bell, Shannon Elizabeth. Fighting King Coal : The Challenges to Micromobilization in Central Appalachia, MIT Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/pitt-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4448148. Created from pitt-ebooks on 2025-02-02 23:08:12.  Introduction 9 learning more, but most would not commit to joining or becoming involved in the activities of these groups. Why were they so reluctant? What was keeping coalfield residents who were affected by coal-industry-related pol- lution and destructive mining practices from participating in a movement that was advocating for their rights? This question has shaped much of my research agenda over the past ten years. I returned to West Virginia many times to collect data for the various studies that make up this book. During each stint of field research—two months during the summer of 2006, one month during the summer of 2007, ten months in 2008 and 2009, and weekend trips in 2013—the ques- tion of local non-participation was the puzzle that tied together my data- collection efforts. Every time I went back into the field, new observations generated additional questions. Thus, the trajectory of the various compo- nents of this study wasn’t mapped out from the very beginning, but instead unfolded through a series of stages. Through each phase of the research process and over the years that I was observing, interviewing, reading, and writing about what was taking place (or not taking place) in the coalfields, I saw that there were, in fact, many complicated reasons why it was difficult to recruit local people into the environmental justice movement. There is no simple answer to the ques- tion, but I hope that I have at least begun to unravel these issues so that others will be able to pick up where I have left off and to expand and refine our understanding of the barriers to participation in environmental justice struggles. Activist Research and Self-Reflexivity As my personal history suggests, I situate my work within the tradition of activist research: research that is undertaken with the goal of advancing social justice objectives. Although sociological theory guides my research Copyright © 2016. MIT Press. All rights reserved. and I endeavor to make theoretical contributions through my work, theory building is not my sole purpose. I count myself among the number of social scientists who wish to “offer our analytic skills with the aim of improving society” (Pellow 2007, p. 35). Furthermore, I agree with those who contend that this advocacy aim should be a duty within the academy. “A large part of humanity,” Greg Philo and David Miller (2001, p. 79) assert, “is being obliterated by the social, material, and cultural relationships which form our world. It can be painful and perhaps professionally damaging to Bell, Shannon Elizabeth. Fighting King Coal : The Challenges to Micromobilization in Central Appalachia, MIT Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/pitt-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4448148. Created from pitt-ebooks on 2025-02-02 23:08:12.  10 Introduction look at such issues and to ask critical questions about social outcomes and power …. But for academics to look away from the forces which limit and damage the lives of so many, gives at best an inadequate social science and at worst is an intellectual treason—just fiddling while the world burns” (quoted in Pellow 2007, p. 35). Thus, I do not deny that I bring opinions and passions to my research agenda. Instead, I lay them bare and acknowledge how they have shaped the questions I have chosen to ask. The importance of self-reflexivity on the part of researchers is articulated by Sandra Harding and other feminist- standpoint theorists. Harding argues that “all human beliefs—including our best scientific beliefs—are socially situated” (1991, p. 142). Proponents of standpoint theory argue that we researchers should acknowledge that our social locations, our biases, and our perspectives influence all aspects of the knowledge-creation process. According to Harding (1993, p. 69), the underlying and unexamined beliefs that the researcher holds “must be considered as part of the object of knowledge from the perspective of scien- tific methods.” By divulging my personal history, previous observations, and experiences, I hope to contribute to a more open and honest social science. Organization of the Book As has already been noted, the book is divided into two parts, part I includ- ing four studies that build on existing social-movement theory and part II presenting the findings from the Photovoice study. Before diving into the studies in part I, I first provide (in chapter 1) some contextualization for the Central Appalachian case: historical background on the roots of the coal industry’s exploitation of Central Appalachia, the environmental injustices that have plagued the region, and the history of resistance and mobiliza- Copyright © 2016. MIT Press. All rights reserved. tion against irresponsible mining practices. In chapters 2–6, I draw on social-movement theory to explain and exam- ine the micro-level processes inhibiting participation in the environmental justice movement among local coalfield residents. In chapter 2, I provide an overview of the sociological literature, focusing on the processes of solidar- ity building, identity correspondence, consciousness transformation (cogni- tive liberation), and micromobilization, the four critical micro-level factors affecting an individual’s propensity to participate in a social movement Bell, Shannon Elizabeth. Fighting King Coal : The Challenges to Micromobilization in Central Appalachia, MIT Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/pitt-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4448148. Created from pitt-ebooks on 2025-02-02 23:08:12.  Introduction 11 (McAdam 1988a; Gamson 1992). Within this literature, I situate four dis- crete studies that examine possible barriers to the four micro-level factors in the context of the Central Appalachian coalfields. These four studies make up chapters 3–6. Chapter 3 presents a qualitative study of social capital in a coal-mining community and a demographically similar non-coal-mining community in West Virginia. Through interviews and participant observa- tion, I examine experiences of social capital within the two communities and find that there is a severe depletion in social capital within the coal- mining community. My data suggest that the causes of the coalfield town’s social-capital deficit include extensive depopulation and conflicts related to the de-unionization of coal mines in the region. Insofar as both of these processes have been widespread throughout Central Appalachia for more than 30 years, I maintain that this depletion of social capital probably is generalizable to other coalfield communities. A low level of social capital translates to a deficit in social networks and social trust—factors that are integral to the process of solidarity building, the first of the micro-level fac- tors influencing participation in social movements. In addition to inhibit- ing the building of solidarity, the weak social networks and the lack of organizations in the region also mean that there are few opportunities in the coalfields for micromobilization to take place (i.e. a lack of micromobi- lization contexts). Thus, I argue that the social-capital deficit in Appalachian coal-mining communities is one reason why relatively few local residents participate in the coalfield environmental justice movement. The study presented in chapter 4 examines the gendering of participa- tion in the environmental justice movement in Central Appalachia. Of the small proportion of local citizens who are involved in the coalfield move- ment, an even smaller proportion are men. In order to explore whether there are challenges associated with the process of “identity correspon- dence” (Snow and McAdam 2000) among local coalfield men, potentially Copyright © 2016. MIT Press. All rights reserved. leading to their low levels of environmental justice activism, I conducted participant observation and twenty in-depth interviews with a purposive sample of local environmental justice activists. The analysis of the data (conducted with Yvonne A. Braun) suggests that the differing rates of envi- ronmental justice activism among women and men in the Appalachian coalfields may be related to how readily their gendered identities are able to align with the collective identity of the coalfield movement. The findings suggest that the hegemonic masculinity of the region creates a barrier to Bell, Shannon Elizabeth. Fighting King Coal : The Challenges to Micromobilization in Central Appalachia, MIT Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/pitt-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4448148. Created from pitt-ebooks on 2025-02-02 23:08:12.  12 Introduction local men’s ability to achieve identity correspondence with the collective identity of the environmental justice movement, in effect removing a major segment of potential social-movement participants from the pool of potential recruits. Chapter 5 examines the ideology-construction efforts of the coal indus- try in Central Appalachia and the ways in which cultural manipulation impedes the process of consciousness transformation among coalfield citi- zens. This study (conducted with Richard York) uses participant observa- tion and content analysis to examine the West Virginia coal industry’s faux-grassroots front group Friends of Coal, which was created to construct the image that West Virginia’s economy and cultural identity are centered on coal production. I argue that through this campaign, and others like it, the coal industry aims to “greenwash” its destructive practices and to con- vince the public that being a “true Appalachian” means supporting the coal industry. This industry-created ideology poses yet another impediment to local people’s willingness to join the fight to hold the industry accountable for the environmental and social harms it inflicts on the region. The final study in part I, presented in chapter 6, argues that the process of consciousness transformation is also inhibited among local coalfield resi- dents because the extent of the coal industry’s effects on the Appalachian landscape is not readily visible to the majority of the population. This study (conducted with Sean P. Bemis) employs a geographic information system (GIS) in the foremost coal-producing county in West Virginia to quantita- tively identify how much of the landscape of the county is visible from transportation corridors. With these data, the local viewshed relative to active and recently surface-mined sites is analyzed to determine whether the effects of mountaintop-removal mining are less likely to be visible than equivalent portions of the landscape. The data reveal that although 47 per- cent of the total landscape in Boone County is visible from transportation Copyright © 2016. MIT Press. All rights reserved. corridors (including U.S. highways, state highways, and county roads), only 23 percent of the surface-mined land mass is visible from these corridors. Removing the county roads (which are remote and largely depopulated) from the analysis makes the findings even more dramatic: only 4 percent of the total area of surface-mined land in Boone County is visible from U.S. and state highways. Thus, these findings support the claims of coalfield activists who contend that much of the coal-mining-related destruction in Central Appalachia is not visible to the majority of the population. I argue Bell, Shannon Elizabeth. Fighting King Coal : The Challenges to Micromobilization in Central Appalachia, MIT Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/pitt-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4448148. Created from pitt-ebooks on 2025-02-02 23:08:12.  Introduction 13 that this hidden destruction is another factor blocking consciousness trans- formation among coalfield residents. In chapters 8–10 (part II of the book), I seek to address the limitations that are inherent to most studies of social-movement participation, which consistently draw conclusions about recruitment and participation by col- lecting retrospective data on activists and non-activists after their successful (or unsuccessful) recruitment into a movement. By initiating an eight- month Photovoice project with a group of non-activist coalfield women in five communities in southern West Virginia, I attempted to create a micro- mobilization context that would allow me to study the processes that shape and constrain local residents’ entry into the Central Appalachian environ- mental justice movement. In chapter 8, I introduce the Photovoice process and present an overview of my methods; in chapters 9 and 10, I present the findings from the Photovoice research. In the concluding chapter, I synthesize the findings from the five research studies that are the subjects of chapters 3–10, examining the barri- ers to local participation in the coalfield environmental justice movement and reflecting on what these findings mean for the future of this grassroots struggle. Copyright © 2016. MIT Press. All rights reserved. Bell, Shannon Elizabeth. Fighting King Coal : The Challenges to Micromobilization in Central Appalachia, MIT Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/pitt-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4448148. Created from pitt-ebooks on 2025-02-02 23:08:12. Copyright © 2016. MIT Press. All rights reserved. Bell, Shannon Elizabeth. Fighting King Coal : The Challenges to Micromobilization in Central Appalachia, MIT Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/pitt-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4448148. Created from pitt-ebooks on 2025-02-02 23:08:12.