Reflections from Elsewhere: Ambivalence, Recuperation, and Empathy in Moral Geographies of Appalachian Ohio

Reflections from Elsewhere: Ambivalence, Recuperation, and Empathy in Moral Geographies of Appalachian Ohio DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Cassie Rosita Patterson Graduate Program in English The Ohio State University 2015 Dissertation Committee: Amy Shuman, Advisor Dorothy Noyes Katherine Borland Copyright by Cassie Rosita Patterson 2015 Abstract Throughout Appalachian Ohio, residents in small post-industrial cities grapple with redefining themselves as a place and a people in order to compete in the global economy. Young people caught in the middle of this economic transition—those born after the major factory closings in the early 1980s—struggle to negotiate their relationships with their hometowns, which typically offer limited career options beyond the service sector. Thus far, educators, researchers and policy makers have focused their attention on getting access to college for students from Appalachian Ohio, but how those students negotiate home-school relationships while in college, much less after graduation, remains unclear. Meanwhile, scholars of post-industrial contexts in the United States have focused on collecting and understanding the experiences of the men and women who were laid off from factory work, but rarely focus on the multi-generational impact of deindustrialization. Listening to the stories of college students and residents from postindustrial Appalachian Ohio is important for understanding the ways in which place, economics, and identity intersect in their lives. Students discussed being ambivalent about their relationships toward home and college because of the various messages they received from people in both spaces. In a region where place, family, and environment are important categories of meaning and significance, and where cooperation regularly makes up for a lack of resources, leaving to attend college becomes a fraught decision. Moral geographies of the region—the ways in which people position themselves in ii relation to people and place—are thus filled with reflections from elsewhere, constructions of self and community that are responsive to the expectations of peers, outsiders, and discourses of success and failure that influence everyday choices, such as how often to visit home or where to seek employment. Reflections from elsewhere work in two ways in this dissertation: they are both the lived negotiations of self in response to the expectations of others as well as the ways that students and residents reflect upon, evaluate, and tell stories about the ruptures that have shaped their experiences. Reflections from elsewhere include binders full of newspaper clippings and photocopies from the library, road stories that are enacted every few weeks, murals that stitch historical moments together to create a story of a place, and acts of resistance and critique. Students’ negotiations of place reveal the tensions they experience in coming from a place that is impossible to return to without the stigma of failure and to which continued belonging is possible only by habitually traversing the long-worn road home. Road stories, then, become all the more important as units of analysis, and force us to consider notions of place that cannot be defined in terms of a single locale. Contextualizing the students’ evaluative discourse, I examine critical positionings staked out by the university and home communities that shed light on the ways in which economic instability strains students’ relationships with home. I attend to important spaces in which reflections from elsewhere are prominent, analyzing both public and private “moral archives” of deindustrialization and recuperation in New Boston and Portsmouth in Scioto County, Ohio, where community leaders and residents work iii diligently to recuperate the value of their communities and the histories that shaped them. These moral archives are analyzed in contrast to the negative relationship between home and opportunity constructed by a university service-learning initiative directed toward the region (Ohio State University’s Buck-I-Serv Alternative Spring Break), as it seeks to orient young people toward college. The one-way communication taken for granted in the design of the service project intensifies the devaluation of “home,” while alienating both the target audiences and the students recruited to serve. Appalachia has long been a place where knowledge, resources, and representation intersect. While the moral archives of community elders attempt to hold these conflicting elements together, the moral geographies constructed by college students map that struggle onto the binary oppositions offered to them by the dominant culture. Both in reflection and reality, however, Appalachian Ohio students continuously travel the roads between points of value. This evaluative activity leads to some unexpected outcomes for individuals and undermines the seeming split between “going” and “staying.” Reflections from elsewhere among Appalachian Ohioans—as among many populations pushed toward mobility by a global economy—shape the life decisions of individuals. They merit the attention of the educators and policymakers who, wittingly or unwittingly, provide some of the mirrors. iv Dedication To my family, Maritza Roxanna Patterson, Kenneth Michael Patterson, and Kenneth Christopher Patterson, whose love and support has been the foundation upon which I have lived my life, and to Mark William Wyckoff, with whom I shared the burden of creation for many years. v Acknowledgments This dissertation is the work of many hands and many minds. I would like to thank the students who shared their lives and experiences with me over the past few years. We had a lot of fun riding around in cars together, and I can’t wait to hear what you do next. The Appalachian Project has contributed significantly to my research and to Appalachian students at Ohio State University. Dr. Patricia Cunningham, Dr. Krista Bryson, Dr. Megan Chew, Amanda Baker, and Lynaya Elliott, I’m so proud of what we’ve accomplished so far and I look forward to the work ahead. To my advisor and dissertation chair, Amy Shuman, I cannot express my gratitude for the ways you have challenged my thinking and continually reminded me that my ideas were valuable. Thank you for your compassion. Thank you for your conviction. And thank you for the delicious food! Dorothy Noyes and Katherine Borland were both my committee members and my Directors at the Center for Folklore Studies and supported my dissertation wholeheartedly, giving me time to write during the workweek, approving requests for time off for fieldwork/writing, and suggesting strategies for staying well while juggling work and writing. I absolutely could not have finished this dissertation without flexibility in the workplace and without their valuable comments. Thank you for supporting me in vi all the ways that mattered and for going beyond what others in your position are willing to do. To my “spit” sisters Leila Ben-Nasr, Dr. Yalidy Matos, and Dr. Katie Carmichael: “write on, write on, write on” and …@”. Leila, words cannot express my gratitude for your friendship and support over the past few years. Heart. To the many friends who helped me along the way and reminded me that this was “totally doable”: Cristina Benedetti, Olivia Caldeira, Andrew Cooper, Puja Batra-Wells, Lindsay Bernhagen, Elena Foulis, Emily Hooper-Lewis, Rachel Hopkin, Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto, Anne Langendorfer, Barbara Lloyd, Sonia Manjon, Lindsay Martin, Kate Parker-Horigan, Joanna Spanos, Alli Vermaaten and Nancy Yan. To my family members who have encouraged me in my academic pursuits since childhood: Lisha Gonzalez, Victor Gonzalez, Carole Bunch, Walter Bunch Sr., Irma Gonzalez, Julio Gonzalez, and my Nina Yoke. Thank you to Bob Morton, Mandy Hart, Nevada Hart, Kim Bower, Robert Dafford, Steve Jenkins, John Lorentz, Sean Boldman, Nikki Karabinis, Kim Cutlip, and other residents who were willing to talk to me about their city. I enjoyed hearing your stories, attending your events, and getting to know you. I look forward to many more years of working together. Thanks to Garage Café for the great eats! This work was made possible by the 2014 Ohio State Critical Difference for Women Grant, which allowed me to make six trips to Portsmouth during the 2014 year and to build deeper relationships with residents. vii Vita 2007 ............................................................ B.A. (Honors) English, California State University, San Bernardino 2007 ............................................................ B.A. (Honors) Philosophy, California State University, San Bernardino 2008-2009 ................................................... Graduate Teaching Assistant, Department of English, The Ohio State University 2009 ............................................................ M.A. English, The Ohio State University 2009 ............................................................ G.I.S. Folklore, The Ohio State University 2009-2011 .................................................. Graduate Archivist, Center for Folklore Studies, The Ohio State University 2011-2012 …………………………………..Graduate Teaching Assistant, Department of English, The Ohio State University 2011-2012 …………………………………..Graduate Research Assistant, Literacy Studies @Ohio State GradSem, The Ohio State University 2012-present ................................................ Assistant Director,

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