Power beyond powerlessness: Miners, activists, and bridging difference in the Appalachian coalfields

Abstract

Powerful coal interests construct activists as radical “others” who oppose mountaintop removal at the expense of jobs, but how can we deconstruct these “other” identities? Focusing on the Coal River Valley in West Virginia, where miners have opposed environmental justice activists, I examine how these oppositional groups—activists and miners—can build power by engaging in deconstructive bridging. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, I diagnose the affective barriers to miners’ participation in the environmental justice movement and explore how activists have attempted to bridge to miners. I unpack the differences between activists and miners and present the miner mountaineer consciousness, or a sense of linked fate with those in the community rather than with the industry, to explain how activists and miners could stand together. While barriers between activists and miners persist, bridging attempts to deconstruct difference by emphasizing shared positive place-based attachments and negative affective industrial attachments. In the context of intractable environmental and social conflicts, the study builds on how deconstructing “other” identities undercuts the powerful by aligning workers and environmentalists.