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Appalachia and the Construction of Whiteness in the United States
Author(s) -
Scott Rebecca R.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
sociology compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 31
ISSN - 1751-9020
DOI - 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2009.00235.x
Subject(s) - deconstruction (building) , hegemony , appalachia , white (mutation) , ideology , sociology , identity (music) , gender studies , white supremacy , field (mathematics) , race (biology) , politics , aesthetics , political science , law , art , ecology , paleontology , biochemistry , chemistry , mathematics , gene , pure mathematics , biology
The field of critical whiteness studies has made significant progress in the deconstruction of ideologies of white supremacy. In part, this has been accomplished by analyzing whiteness as a racial identity. Another step in this deconstruction has been a focus on groups of marginalized whites, ‘white trash’ or ‘hillbillies’. Since the mid‐19th Century, Appalachia has been considered the paradigmatic place for these marginalized whites in the United States. Hillbillies are simultaneously stigmatized and idealized in the national culture. Accounting for both the negative and positive representations makes visible how marginalized white identity is a space where white hegemony is both challenged and reaffirmed.