Energy violence in a sacrifice zone: keeping the lights on in West Virginia 公开
Moss, Marian (Fall 2024)
Abstract
Faced with the existential threat to coal that is renewable energy, the West Virginia Public Service Commission has attempted to revive coal’s economic and cultural value as a last-ditch effort to avert crisis by resuscitating a dying way of life. In this work, I explore how this resuscitation impacts low-income communities, specifically those with a high energy burden, in West Virginia. Using the artifact of the energy bill as a launching point for this research, I first demonstrate how the West Virginia Public Service Commission and broader government engages in sacropolitics by prioritizing coal “at any cost,” an energy politics that has life or death consequences for low-income communities.
Then, I examine how a high energy burden might be a matter of life and death, and in what ways this is an effect of sacropolitics: who is being sacrificed in the name of “progress” or “coal,” and how do these communities reckon with this economic sacrifice? I argue that the impact on physical health is felt by low-income communities as a form of physical violence. Second, I investigate the environmental costs of coal’s continued dominance, focusing on both public health and the mental health impacts on those living in coal-dependent areas. I examine what it means for Appalachia to be labeled an “environmental sacrifice zone” by the EPA, specifically how people envision their role in the economy as a sacrifice population. Finally, I explore the cultural logic of pro-coal support in the wake of these skyrocketing costs to demonstrate how support for coal has shifted from an economic domain and into a moral one.
Because the cultural pressure to support coal extends into certain dominant ways of living more than others, people who live lifestyles that are contrary to a heteronormative and racialized pro-coal directive loudly exist against the norm. Therefore, in my conclusion I argue that the visibility of alternative ways of life that are abundant in Appalachia’s culture can be critical to re-orienting the dominant narrative of coal and sacrifice around a more diverse, real, and resilient future, one which resists the narrative of expendability and creates a new narrative of Appalachia.
Table of Contents
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...1
Chapter One: Heat or Eat? ………………….………………………………………………………….…………..….23
Chapter Two: Sacrifice and Surplus…………………………………………………………….……..………….….46
Chapter Three: Devils You Know…………………………………………………………………….………………..57 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…71 References………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….74
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Energy violence in a sacrifice zone: keeping the lights on in West Virginia () | 2024-12-17 00:22:06 -0500 |
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