The Afterlife of Extraction in the Coal Region: An Exploration into the ‘Land of the Living Dead’

Abstract

The Anthracite is a region living in the shadow of industrial collapse. Historically, it was a place destined to be inseparable, culturally and psychically, from exploitative, industrial coal extraction. Employing miners to dangerous, often deadly occupations in the mines, and extracted futures chock full of health hazards – the mines have not only extracted coal, they have extracted a landscape and its population. Prideful associations with the former coal industry vibrate willingly among the region’s common chatter. Culture cannot be removed in ideology from the coal industry’s past. While once defining a place, this pride, now serves as some ghostly sentiments lost in a vacuum tube, like the industry itself, unable to come to fruition. In the afterlife of industrial America, former coal towns and residents are left with the dually inflicted trauma of an extracted past and a precarious future lying ahead without coal. The area is alive in a sense yet the lifeblood of coal has ceased to flow. This is my investigation of what it means to live in ‘the land of the living dead’: an apt description for a region haunted by relics of the past and persisting material reminders, left with no ability to manifest them again in the present. Using navigation, photography, and analysis as a means, I wish to investigate what it means to live in the Anthracite region now. What it means to live in a place that has been extracted. What it means to have a pride for an industry that failed. And, what it is to live in coal’s absence.