Internal Colony--Are You Sure? Defining, Theorizing, Organizing Appalachia

Abstract

Despite its critics, the internal colony framework has shown remarkable resilience over the years. Successive generations of activists and scholars have targeted “outside interests” as the chief culprits in regional impoverishment, exploitation, and stereotyping. The concentration of land, for example, in the hands of those who reside outside the region seems by definition to represent a form of dispossession that must account for the poverty of many who live here. But is the fact that owners (of land, capital, major media outlets, etc.) are typically not from Appalachia the decisive factor that explains regional degradation? As the need for major economic transitions within Appalachia, perhaps especially the coalfields, becomes more widely accepted, questions about how to define and theorize the past in order to overcome its legacies and organize towards brighter futures become more urgent. Does “internal colony” adequately clarify the context and aims of our struggle? Is ridding the region of outsider ownership and control our central organizing goal? If not, what is? This roundtable explores such questions in the hope of contributing to insights about Appalachia’s past as well as its future