Friday, October 14, 10:30 am–12:30 pm
Oklahoma South
This live event will not be recorded.
Chair: Ellie Dassler (South Arts)
10:30 am
In These Mountains: Stories of Fieldwork in Central Appalachia
Jesse Barber (South Arts)
10:45 am
Social Justice and Community Organizing in Appalachia
Victoria Grace Hewlett (East Tennessee State University)
11:15 am
Changing of Appalachian Death Care Industry Amid Covid
Caitlyn B. Sheets (Western Kentucky University)
11:45 am
optional discussion time
This panel brings together three graduate students, all of whom call Central Appalachia home. South Arts’ In These Mountains initiative supports each student’s enrollment and provides experience in ethnographic interviewing and photo/video documentation. Students Jesse Barber (Appalachian State), Victoria Hewlett (ETSU), and Caitlyn Sheets (WKU) share examples of their fieldwork and its impact on their perspectives as folklorists and documentarians as well as members of the Central Appalachian communities in which they conduct fieldwork. The panel shares successes and lessons learned from a regional, place-based fieldwork project, demonstrating the value of students documenting their own communities within academic spaces.