The Decline of Coal, Structural Power, Memory, and Future Choices in the Jiu Valley and Central Appalachia

Abstract

Taking our points of departure from Pierre Nora’s notion of “lieux de mémoire” and Daphne Berdahl’s concept of “hegemonic and oppositional nostalgia,” we consider why, in Appalachia, coal memories and nostalgia takes remarkably contrasting and contestory forms, both denigrating and lauding the declining coal economy and its institutions, compared to the generally homogenous qualities of coal memories in the Jiu Valley that typically laud the past while expressing extreme repugnance toward the present. Further we consider the different ways by which memories of coal are concretized in the diverse sites and places where coal’s past is depicted and defined. In particular we show how the nature of memory sites in the two regions, such as museums, monuments, and public art, support and intensify the particular forms of nostalgia concerning coal’s past.