Conflicting environmental imaginaries and the politics of nature in Central Appalachia

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Political ecology has become useful for contextualizing concerns of discourse, nature, society, and development within specific regional settings. Recent attempts to develop an environment-development approach within political ecology have produced a myriad of research topics that are linked to a diversity of theoretical literatures. Increased importance is being placed on conflicting environmental imaginaries, and doing contextual environmental histories within political ecology. This stems from the need to incorporate agency within the broader context of human–nature interaction in order to better assess material struggles over the natural environment. This paper examines the political ecology of environmental struggle in Central Appalachia. Of particular concern is how Central Appalachian environmental histories and natural resource struggles produce conflicting environmental imaginaries. Recently, conflict has flared between local land owners who view natural resources as a means for social reproduction and cultural survival, and government and environmentalist `outsiders' who view local environmental resources in the context of recreational consumption and resource conservation. It is concluded that natural resource struggles have internally transformed the social, environmental, and economic make-up of Central Appalachia, and in turn impacted the ways in which local residents use and understand the natural environment. This research also suggests that local social movements associated with the ownership, access, and use of natural resources are not necessarily progressive, as is often suggested in the Appalachian literature.