The Taxidermy of Bioluminescence: Tracking "Neighboring" Practices in the Coal-Camps of West Virginia

This article examines some of the discursive practices through which residents of West Virginia coal-mining communities negotiate the emically defined role of "neighbor." Notions of personhood privilege the synaptic, the contextual, and the relational. The ontology informing these discursive practices is contextualized within the historical conditions of their lives as working-class. Data and analysis contest essentialized notions of 'Appalachia', working-class consciousness, and social 'identity'. [Appalachia, class, person, narrative, resistance]