Gender Struggle, Scale, and the Production of Place in the Appalachian Coalfields

Recent changes in the coal mining industry of Appalachian Kentucky have entailed a widespread economic restructuring with profound effects on the character of the social relations that constitute place. As the traditionally male-dominated mining industry has seen a reduction in employment, there has been a parallel rise in service sector employment, in which women dominate many jobs. Drawing on in-depth interviews with fourteen women living in one coalfield community, we discuss how this economic restructuring has produced a series of struggles between men and women over appropriate gender roles relating to waged work and household work. We also show how these gender struggles—which we suggest are most evident in the microsites of the body and the household—influence the character of networks of social relations at the scale of the locality and, therefore, have an important impact on the production of place and scale. This case study contributes to ongoing discussions of the social production of place and the politics that surround this process. It draws on a feminist theoretical framework to argue that understandings of the production of place cannot disregard the role social relations shaped at the microscale play in shaping place and that our understandings of the politics of place and scale must include the gendered struggles of everyday life.