Cultural Identity tied to Ecology and Location-Iceland and West Virginia

  A blog on a topic of student’s choosing 

In our final class discussion, we touched on Iceland and their cultural identity. Professor Redick’s discussion of the Icelandic cultural ties to whaling reminds me of my geography classes’ discussion of West Virginian culture. The geography discussion revolved around the coal related identity that persists despite the fact that today coal is only a small percentage of their economy. 

 

My West Virginian boyfriend has spent quite a bit of time discussing their culture with me. Like Iceland, their local ecology history impacts their modern habits. Their ecological resource history has formed a shared and cultural identity. Even the politics of the state still revolve around coal. 

 

A drive through the state shows the ecological exploitation of mountain top removal, strip mining, and coal processing facilities. The land and coal was exploited because it was viewed as a resource for humans rather than as part of an interconnected flow of human and extra-human. In many of their early cemetery you see European languages that reveal the massive influx of migrants. Many of the coal miners were these new to the area individuals who knew no ecological history. They did not know that their actions would be detrimental to the extra-humans around them. They also failed to realize that the harm to habitus was also harm to themselves and their posterity. Black lung, mining accident deaths, landslides, polluted air , polluted water, and others are lasting consequences of extensive industrial mining in West Virginia. Ecological history and knowledge may have prevented some of these complications, know their damage becomes their culture.