Date of Award

4-8-2011

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

The central Appalachian region, encompassing West Virginia and most of Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, is a region filled with contradictions. It has one of the richest endowments of natural resources, yet twenty percent of families live in poverty. Safe drinking water is an issue in Appalachia, and one-fifth of Appalachian counties do not even have a hospital. Furthermore, the very identity of the Appalachian people has been continuously misrepresented and oversimplified. Throughout the twentieth century, the image of a toothless, uneducated hillbilly has persisted as the typical Appalachian. Stereotypes can certainly be a useful way to categorize information and understand the world around us. When new information is acquired, people tend to fit it into their already existing schemas of what the world, and its people, are like. However, the stereotype of Appalachia that has prevailed – an uncouth, lazy, aggressive mountaineer – has serious implications for the actual socioeconomic and cultural problems that persist there today. The central Appalachian region has been entrenched in poverty since its industrialization and dependence on the coal industry. Because outside employers controlled any the infrastructure in the region, the decline of coal mining meant that average, hard-working Appalachians were left with very little employment opportunities or channels through which to be civically engaged. Local institutions, most importantly the schools systems, began to fail; people who had lived such structured, purposeful lives saw the decline of their communities and their livelihood. This paper argues that it is because of the development of a family structure and sense of masculinity that has made Appalachia uniquely susceptible to the cultural and economic issues it faces today. The growth of substance abuse, most notably methamphetamines, has entered these already impoverished communities and instilled a sense of ambivalence and fatalism in a generation of Appalachians. The strong kinship bonds that once characterized the region are being threatened by the rise in substance abuse, but the region is simply not equipped to handle this growing trend. The nation has largely subscribed to the stereotype that Appalachians are lazy, and thus somehow deserve the poverty in which they live; only by breaking through these stereotypes and understanding the unique development of the region and the identity of the people, will the methamphetamine problem be properly dealt with and the generational poverty be lessened.

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