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Paper short abstract:

In this paper, we theorize the liminal space between the end of coal mining in Appalachia and the political economic arrangements that follow as an ‘interregnum,’ drawing on the work of Antonio Gramsci. We present research on how power is shifting in an Appalachian valley during the coal transition.

Paper long abstract:

In 2020, after 140 years of coal mining, the last mines shuttered in the Clearfork Valley of Tennessee and Kentucky, part of the Appalachian region of the United States. The decline of coal mining left the community with few sources of employment, small business closed, and high outmigration. The decline of coal also created a power vacuum, ending more than a century of coal industry domination. Presenting research from our forthcoming book, Power and Just Transition: the Struggle for a Post-Coal Future in an Appalachian Valley, we theorize the liminal space between the end of coal mining and the political economic arrangements that replace it as an ‘interregnum,’ what Antonio Gramsci famously described to be when “the old is dying, but the new cannot be born.” Tracing how power relations shift as coal declines, we consider the ways that a new green economy, new economic actors, old political elites, and community-based actors seeking a just transition struggle for control in this one valley. In 2019, as mines closed, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) facilitated the purchase of over 100,000 acres of land once owned by a coal company in the Clearfork Valley. The conservancy generated new rents from conservation, carbon and solar energy, yet remain removed from many aspects of life in the Valley. Simultaneously, an upsurge in support for fossil fuels in regional and national politics puts the future of green political economy in jeopardy. In this uncertain interregnum, we find possibility for community-based efforts to achieve a just transition.