Cultivating Community Economy on Stinking Creek: The Lend-A-Hand Center Grow Appalachia Gardening Program

Abstract

This case study considers the Lend-A-Hand Center Grow Appalachia Gardening Program and how the diverse economy framework can provide helpful tools for examining the region and influencing the discourse, encouraging new economic imaginings, community economies, and post-coal futures in Central Appalachia. This analysis sets out to do the discursive work to identify and articulate processes and expressions of alternative economic spaces highlighting the importance of relocalization and representation in Appalachian communities. This article (1) explains the concepts of diverse economy, community economy, and resubjectivation and examines the diverse economy framework as a way of thinking about economic processes including diverse transactions, labor, enterprises, property, and finance; (2) briefly considers the use of this model in Appalachian scholarship; (3) applies this framework to the agricultural landscape of Stinking Creek; and (4) discusses three specific aspects of the Lend-A-Hand Center Grow Appalachia Program—home gardens, community gardens, and the Knox County Farmers’ Market. In the face of pressing social issues in the region and renewed interest in the discourses of development, local food, and just transition, this work seeks to intervene in region-wide discussions and suggest avenues for change.