From the Editor

The Fall 2023 issue of the Journal of Appalachian Studies features three articles with innovative perspectives on questions of perennial interest to the region. The first, entitled “Animalizing Appalachia: A Critical Animal Studies Analysis of Early Sociological Surveys of Southern Appalachia” by Corey Lee Wrenn, uses an animal-centric lens to re-examine three early sociological accounts of Appalachia: George E. Vincent's “A Retarded Frontier,” which came out in the American Journal of Sociology in 1898; John C. Campbell's Southern Highlander and His Homeland, which was published in 1921; and Mandel Sherman and Thomas R. Henry's Hollow Folk from 1933. Whereas the cultural and economic marginalization of Appalachian people in these texts has been frequently the object of analysis, the critical animal studies lens Wrenn applies to these texts deconstructs both social hierarchies and the scientific classifications that bolster them, which were produced in these early examples of social science. The categories of human and animal prove to be a rich site for the exploration of power structures and taken-for-granted elements of social order.The second article, by Sarah L. McMullen and Alison A. Ormsby, is entitled “Using a Mixed Methods Approach to Investigate Land Use History and Herbaceous Plant Diversity in Southern Appalachia.” This article uses ethnobotany, which is the study of the relationships between human societies and plants, to offer a new perspective on Appalachian regional cultures. The authors bring contemporary ethnobotany and archival research together with artistic representations, scientific accounts, and land use history to trace the history that can be found in the regional flora in the six hundred acres at Christmount Christian Assembly, located near Black Mountain, North Carolina. This research points to the valuable revitalization of local ecological knowledges and the place-based cultural practices of the Cherokee and other Indigenous peoples, emphasizes the importance of the protection of biodiversity in the Appalachian region, and offers a methodological approach to understanding natural history in other parts of the region.The third article in this issue is entitled “Fooling with Things: Affordances and Appalachian Wheelchair Users” by Zach Glendening. The prevalence of disability in Appalachia exceeds the national average by 3.5 percent, indicating that disability is an important element of Appalachian diversity. Glendening uses a critical disabilities studies framework to understand how wheelchair users in North Central Appalachia resist stigma and expand their mobility by altering the existing possibilities for action, or affordances, in their environments. Through interviews with disabled Appalachian wheelchair users, this article illustrates how people work to expand access and exceed the limitations set by things like insurance coverage and equipment failures on their ability to participate in the activities they desire within their environments. Appalachian tinkering meets disability in this study of how people in rural Appalachia make possibilities for themselves in the context of not-always-accommodating locations and resources. The author argues for considering these wheelchair users’ “fooling with things” as a kind of critical tinkering that can be located within the context of Appalachian culture and history.This issue also features a research note by Casey Jakubowski entitled “A Brief Examination of the Northernmost Appalachian Counties: Southern Tier New York.” Jakubowski notes the limited coverage that the Appalachian counties of New York have received in the Journal of Appalachian Studies and identifies various forms of commonality between these counties and the more frequently recognized parts of Southern and Central Appalachia. These range from the political (as in “Trumplandia”) to the economic and social, including attitudes toward military service and resource extraction. This research note pushes for a more inclusive definition of Appalachia, and of rurality itself, which can denaturalize the taken-for-granted borders of the region and foster more robust comparative analysis of comparable processes.This issue's book reviews include The Bootleg Coal Rebellion: The Pennsylvania Miners Who Seized an Industry, 1925–1942, written by Mitch Troutman, and reviewed by Lou Martin; Wheeling's Polonia: Reconstructing Polish Community in a West Virginia Steel Town, written by William Hal Gorby, and reviewed by Teresa Meddings; and Craft: An American History, written by Glenn Adamson, and reviewed by Philis Alvic and Thomas A. Adler.These are followed by three media reviews, which include Susan Divita's review of season 7, episode 2 of The United Shades of America, “Black in Appalachia,” hosted by W. Kamau Bell; Jimmy Dean Smith's review of the live performance film Blackalachia, directed by Moses Sumney; and Anne Ward‘s review of the online archive Digital Watauga.