Energotopia: re-turn communication in energy transition

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ENERGOTOPIA:
RE-TURN COMMUNICATION IN ENERGY TRANSITION

By

Junyi Lv

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(COMMUNICATION)

August 2023

Copyright 2023 Junyi Lv

ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
On June 26, 2015, I made it to Los Angeles. It was my very first intercontinental travel, but I
admit that LA did not impress me at first sight. The place felt like a giant pancake with all the
stuffing spread out. Yet after eight years of living and studying here, I have generated
“separation anxiety.” Partially because of all the diverse and yummy food, but more importantly,
the incredibly fantastic people I met here. It was you who made my years in LA the best quarter
of my life, and the City of Angels isn’t just a beautiful name.
Studying at USC Annenberg was a life-changing experience. My mom often said that I grew
up having the best luck with teachers. It still holds true until the last day of being a student. I
thank my dream committee, who really indulged me. They encouraged me to research and learn
freely and supported each of my baby steps, whenever needed.
Tom, I still remember the first time I met you in the classroom. You stuck out one hand and
briefed, “Tom,” smiling. You made my day that day and enlightened my life since then. Thanks
for prioritizing great care for my wellbeing more than academic performance. I couldn’t tell
which one I appreciated more, talking in your office or baking blueberry muffins. The most
valuable lessons I learned from you are not only how to research and write, but how to live life to
the fullest.
David, you are my very first mentor at USC and a constant source of inspiration. It was
wonderful to observe how you live your “three lives” in the past decades, dare to dream, and
most amazingly, always make your dreams come true. Thank you for teaching me all the
interview skills, which I carry through my past and future research. Also, thank you for listening
to all my experiences, especially the ones that came with tears.

iii

Randy, I enjoyed our long talks about rhetoric, argumentation, environmental
communication, social movements, and teaching. I am grateful for your great patience with me
over the years. I stepped into your office with little knowledge of rhetoric. But you welcomed me
with your profound and accurate conceptualization of rhetoric as a perspective of life, and a
warm puppy.
Janet, you led me into the beautiful labyrinth of anthropology, which is why I regret not
having met you earlier. Thank you for offering all the thorough and insightful feedback to my
research, and all the support and tips for my fieldwork. They have grown into marvelous
mushrooms along the road for me to pick up in my future career and life.
Dominic, I have known your works much longer than I have known you in person. I was
surprised and appreciated that such a great scholar is so down-to-earth and approachable. Thank
you for guiding and supporting my research and career in the past year. I hope to have the
privilege to continue deepening my learning from you.
In the past eight years at USC, I was also inspired by other teachers and colleagues. Some
may be brief, but all meaningful. Tracing back encounters over time, I thank Ben Lee, Matthew
Curtis, Peter Clarke, Henry Jenkins, Clayton Dube, Taj Frazier, Sarah Holterman, Anne Marie
Campian, Patty Riley, Larry Gross, Michael Cody, Josh Kun, Dmitri Williams, Nick Cull, Ken
Sereno, Sheila Murphy, Lawrence Green, Tom Hollihan, Jillian Pierson, François Bar, Devin
Griffiths, Hector Amaya, Kady Bell-Garcia, Sarah Banet-Weiser, Christina Dunbar-Hester, Tang
Li, Colin Maclay, and Chelsea Graham.
I also thank Greg Dickinson, Teresa Bergman, Sam Ford, David Hingstman, Takeshi Suzuki,
Jiyeon Kang, James Klumpp, Kathryn Engle, William Turner, Victor Seow, Alessandra Von

iv

Burg, Jennifer Keohane, Phaedra Pezzullo, Biao Xiang, Jennifer Holdaway, and Guobin Yang
for their guidance, help, and inspiration.
My friends and cohort, Mingxuan, Meiqing, Cerianne, Ana, Jessica, Ashley, Sarah, Ally,
Sukyoung, Lichen, Feixue, Jack, Herbert, Becky, Pam, Soyun, Donna, Eugene, Kathy, Yue, Wei,
Jingfang, Xin, T. J., Emma, Ming, Lei, Xini, Yuqi, Feijun, and Evan, thank you for all the joy we
shared and all the support you have kindly offered.
Lemon, Jamie, Ruiqi, Wei, Chunhui, Kun and Cai, Yu, Yi, and Mo, long live our friendships.
My students, thank you for making teaching much more fun and showing me diverse
possibilities of life.
Farrah, Mimi, Gotham, Parker, and Pumpkin, thank you for your short but warm company.
I am very grateful for communities in Kentucky and my hometown, Yangquan. You know
who you are, although your names remain confidential. This dissertation couldn’t be done
without your great hospitality and generous sharing. Talking and walking with you all brought
me to a bigger world of heritage and ingenuity.
A special thanks to the Goodnight’s and the Appleget’s, who welcomed me like a family. My
deepest thanks to David Goodnight for guiding my way in Kentucky.
Finally, I thank my parents for their unconditional love. Not only had they postponed the
plan of getting an apartment with elevators and invested the money in my education, but they
gave infinite support to my research and health.
I also thank my grandma, who taught herself to read and write and taught me. Nainai, six
years have passed, and I still dreamt of you whenever I was in extreme joy or sorrow. I know
you will always be with me like you have been since my pre-kindergarten days, holding my hand
and writing down each stroke of characters and life. This dissertation is for you.

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ……………………………………………………...………………….……ii
List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………………vii
Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………………....…..ix
Prelude: Firing Up a Coal Stove ……………………………………………………………..…….1
Chapter One: The Slow-burn Transition in Energotopias …………………………………...…….3
Emplaced Energy Transition: Local and Planetary……………………………...……………....3
Energotopia……………………………………………………………………………………12
Slow Burn: Transition, Transfiguration, Transformation, and Transience……………….……20
Methodology: Fieldwork of Return and Re-turn………………………………………….…...22
Chapter Outline………………………………………………………………………………..28
Interlude: A Family Story……………………………………………...……………….………...30
Chapter Two: Hometown, Coal Town………………………………………………….………...32
“Plant” Coal…………………………………………………………………………………..32
Trade Coal ……………………………………………………………………………………34
“Protect” Coal………………………………………………………………………………...36
Cut Coal……………………………………………………………………………………...40
Drive Coal……………………………………………………………………………………51
Away from Coal, Away from Home……………………………………………….…………56
Interlude: More than KFC, More than Coal……………………………………….………..…….63
Chapter Three: Look Homeward from Southeast Kentucky……………………….……………..65
Mountains: Ingenuity………………………………………………………………………...66

vi

Media: De-stigmatization…………………………………………………………………….87
Mines: Pride………………………………………………………………...………..............92
Museums: Heritage………………………………………………………………………....98
Interlude: Return to Nanshan Park…………………………………………..……….………….107
Chapter Four: Return Home, Re-Turning Energotopia….……………………….…………….. 109
Energy Transition……………………………………………………………………….......109
Coal’s Transfiguration……………………………………………………………………...118
Societal Transformation………………………………………………………….…………127
Transience: Participatory Engagement and a New Museum……………………...................140
Interlude: Where Are We From? ……………………………………….……………….………154
Chapter Five: From Coal Dependence to Coexistence………………………….……..………..156
The Discovery of Voices: Inter-referencing Two Coal Dependent Areas……………....….157
The Anthropology of Communication……………………………………………………...167
For Future Energy Studies and China Studies…………………………… …………………169
Coda: The Energy of Resonance………………………………………………………………...171
Endnotes...……………………………………………………………………………………...174
Bibliography...……………………………………..…………………………………………...197

vii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Daycare Center for Seniors …………..…………………………………………….…..35
Figure 2. Brick on the Wall.……………………...…… ……………………………………..…..35
Figure 3. Trough………………...…………….……………………………………………..…...35
Figure 4. Old Tax Agency, Lijinju…………………………. ……………………………..…….36
Figure 5. The Beautiful Land of Kentucky………....…………………………………………....66
Figure 6. The Beautiful Land of Kentucky………………………………………………………66
Figure 7. A Corner at Downtown Pikeville …………….……………………………………….85
Figure 8. Van Lear Coal Miners’ Museum ………………………………………….…............101
Figure 9. The Model of the Town ……………………………………………………………...103
Figure 10. A World Map Marking Tourists Globally ……………………………………….....105
Figure 11. A World Map Marking Tourists Globally ……………………………………….....108
Figure 12. The Renewable and the Reclamation ………………………………………………115
Figure 13. Banning Coal Notice ……………………………………………………………….117
Figure 14. Solar Panel ………………………………………………………………………….117
Figure 15. Aerogel COVID Testing Workstation …………………………..………………….120
Figure 16. Zero Energy Consumption Room Model ……………………………………….….121
Figure 17. Zero Energy Consumption Room Model ……………………………………….….121
Figure 18. Masks’ Functions Illustration ……………………...……………………………….121
Figure 19. “Rooted in Coal, Strengthen Coal (Industry), Extend Coal, Go Beyond Coal”…….122
Figure 20. Garden-like Mine ………………………………………………………….………..124
Figure 21. Garden-like Mine …………………………………………………….……………..124
Figure 22. Garden-like Mine and Headlight Charging System ………………………………..125

viii

Figure 23. Garden-like Mine and Headlight Charging System ………………………………..125
Figure 24. Bathing and Living ……………………………………………………….………..125
Figure 25. Bathing and Living ………………………………………………………….……..125
Figure 26. A Local Bookstore Promoting Yangquan Identity ……………………..…………..132
Figure 27. A Local Bookstore Promoting Yangquan Identity …………………………..……..132
Figure 28. Yangquan Memory 1947 Museum …………………………………………..……..134
Figure 29. Imitation Old Train Station…………..……………………………………………..135
Figure 30. Yangquan’s Industrial Systems …………………………………………...………..135
Figure 31. Old Machines Being Reused for Displays ………………………………...………..135
Figure 32. Old Machines Being Reused for Displays ……………………………...…………..135
Figure 33. Giant Weierkang……...……………………………………………………………..136
Figure 34. Running Track…………..…………………………………………………………..136
Figure 35. Local Communities Hanging Out Outside the Museum in the Evening …………...137
Figure 36. A Driverless Car Selling Breakfast …………………………………………...……139
Figure 37. Closed Mine Shaft ………………………………………………………………….143
Figure 38. Nonhumans inside the Third Coal Mine ………...…………………………………..145
Figure 39. Nonhumans inside the Third Coal Mine …………………………………...………..145

ix

ABSTRACT
This dissertation is an inter-referencing study of energy transitions in the world’s two
largest carbon emitters, China and the United States. With hometown fieldwork in Yangquan,
Shanxi Province, China’s largest anthracite base, and in Southeast Kentucky, energy transition is
proposed to be a slow burn with multiple rhetorical meanings in heterogenous local
communities. To weave complicated narratives of coal dependence and energy transition, I coin
“energotopia” as an evocative idea foregrounding their rhetorical groundedness and place-based
changes. Chapter One introduces coal transitions in my hometown and Southeast Kentucky.
Building on previous studies, “energotopia” and “slow burn” are elaborated with multiplicities of
transition, transformation, transfiguration, and transience. Three methods are presented and
explained: fieldwork of re-turn, inter-referencing, and descriptive imperative. In Chapter Two, I
explore ancient and contemporary history and culture of my hometown, describing how it
intertwined with coal. Chapter Three presents my journeys through southeast Kentucky, learning
local transition experiences in mountains, media, mines, and museums, and referencing with my
hometown. Chapter Four expresses my experiences and work upon returning to Yangquan and
re-turn relations between communities and coal, disentangling local energy transition with
ambiguity and possibility. Chapter Five discusses the strengths, limits, and future directions for
this research. Communication, rhetoric, and anthropology are connected into a relational view. I
emphasize the importance of inter-referencing fieldwork to China studies in the global context
and today’s rapid changes of energy and communication. Personal stories of coal communities
prelude each chapter, as a source of intrigue in fusing a slow-burn narrative.
Keywords: Energy, Coal, China, Kentucky, Return

1

Prelude: Firing Up a Coal Stove
I grew up with my grandparents in Yangquan, a small city in north inner land China
abundant in coal. My grandparents’ apartment lacked central heating (still common today in
northern China). During the long cold winters, an absolute essential in every household was a big
black stove with a chimney sticking out of the roof. The stove burned coal. Often, the very first
task that my grandpa performed, when he woke, and the very last task before he slept, was to fire
up the stove. Lighting a stove may look easy, but it requires skills and sequence: sweep up ashes;
ignite a piece of old newspaper; put in small pieces of wood that enlarge the flames; use a big
black iron gong holding coal to carefully space the coal lumps for airflow to maximize burn. The
key was to first put something easy and quick to burn, then put coal, which was not easy to burn
but the hot coals would last long. Later our household could afford a cylinder that held coal
pieces neatly in a beehive structure fengwomei ( 蜂窝煤, literally “beehive coal”). After the coal
burned, grandpa covered the stove with lids, keeping the coal in a slow burn to provide longer-
lasting heat. The lids consist of a series of iron rings in concentric circles. To open or close the
rings, grandpa used an iron hook to move them, from the smallest in the center to the biggest on
the edges. He never rushed but performed the process at his own pace—partially because playing
with fire could be dangerous. Nevertheless, in a three-year-old’s mind, the stove lighting was a
craft that only experienced adults were allowed to perform. In Chinese, the pronunciation of
firing up the stove—shenghuo ( 生火), is similar to the pronunciation of living a life—shenghuo
( 生活). Just as firing up the stove was an essential household ritual for my family in northern
China, coal use remains deeply interwoven with coal town life. Presently, in thriving cities
electricity is used to heat houses. Yet, at a much larger scale, coal fires support modern living
across the globe.

2

Nowadays, coal stoves can hardly be found in my hometown. Coal communities are
experiencing transitions from coal dependence to new paths of coexistence. These transitions,
compared with previous changes in energy sources over millennia, are substantial. Still, change
is a slow burn, just like my grandpa’s ritual of firing up the stove. Comparing decarbonization
with coal burning may appear nostalgic, so be it. Coal in my community is esteemed, not as an
exploitative industry, but as the provider of stable livelihoods and close communal relations. But
to draw this metaphor I endeavor in this research to reveal a basic comparison. Coal was
intended to be used—to burn as long as possible; so, the dream of capping coal use in order to
achieve decarbonization, too, cannot be accomplished frictionlessly. Human beings’ discovering
and using fossil fuels may be accidental,
1
but modern coal extract woke up a beast that we
thought could be fully controlled and exploited. Its mining, use, and carbon controls are not easy.
Coal transitions remain daunting and require persistence, resilience, and juggling among many
moving pieces of energy sustainability. As grandpa firing up a coal stove inspired the slow burn
metaphoric description detailed in the upcoming chapter, it also fired up my inquiry on energy
transition.

3

Chapter One: The Slow-burn Transition in Energotopias
Emplaced Energy Transition: Local and Planetary
Energy is essential to life. Various kinds of energy—material, biological, rhetorical—
create flows powering individuals and communities, and generate fluxes of concurrence and
conflict. Urged by climate change, energy crisis, and wars, human beings’ long dependence on
fossil fuels since the industrial revolution needs a change. Energy transition is a goal announced
by the United Nations, affirmed at the Paris accords, and left as an obligation for each signatory
nation across the world. Among fossil fuels, coal remains “the largest energy source globally for
electricity generation and for the production of iron and steel and of cement, as well as the
largest single source of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.”
2
As one of the oldest forms of energy
powering households, burning coal is hands-on and habitual to many communities. Mining coal
is “not just a job, but a way of life.”
3
Coal is a double-edged-sword. On the one hand, it fuels the
domination of industrialized regime in local and global contexts; empires thus utilize the energy
resources to pursue and maintain power.
4
On the other hand, it opens ground-up agency to
mobilize toward democracy, especially compared with oil.
5
Coal is thus a rhetorical topos
emplacing the desire of control and fixations, the demand for change and disruption, and the
vectors of orientation and disorientation.
This dissertation digs into communities’ dependence on coal and current efforts of
transition, from a local perspective with cross-cultural references. How do individuals, families,
and communities get intertwined with coal and strive to adapt, adjust, and overcome
dependencies? What are vested interests involved and vectors driving changes? How can diverse
international energy communities communicate about experiences and collaborate for an
alternative future of resilience?

4

This dissertation is written to expand the spaces of communication among agents of the
energy industries, state governance, and local civil society. Energy communication is “an
emerging subfield of communication studies that examines the role of energy in society.”
6

Endres and colleagues believe that energy studies should move from following merely disasters
to “rethinking and expanding energy communication,” arguing for comparative studies and
“energy in everyday life.”
7
This dissertation follows the suggestion by construction orientations
that permit anthropological inquiry through ethnographic encounters of coal communities. In
particular, the study follows Hans Blumenberg’s notion of an anthropological approach to
rhetoric.
8
The surplus of symbolic resources exists within communities that must undergo
transitions due to alternation of coal productions, processes, and markets. These symbolic
resources are directed in varied vectors of experiences of living within coal town communities.
Ethnography is employed with loosely structured interviews to invite and encourage the people
in coal dependent regions. To speak about their understanding of their situation and the
possibilities of transformation underway is crucial. The rhetorical approach examines topoi, in a
material, concrete sense, rather than topic or theme for composition. I seek to discover the topoi
of relationships among people in overlapping conditions of energy vulnerability. Rhetorically,
how do people repair, abandon, remain, remember, and sacrifice in order to live and thrive in
situations that are shared but beyond their control?
This study emerges from my biographical position as an inquirer who lived in a coal
town in China, moved to the United States and conducted research in coal communities in
Southeast Kentucky, then returned home during a time of vigorous change. In this study, I
attempt to work from a negotiation of emic/etic perspectives, for which I can maximize the
bounding and resonance with local communities as someone growing up in a coal town.

5

Additionally, I aim to overthrow ignorance and misassumptions about coal and coal communities
through a more analytical and critical lens. This dissertation blends autobiographic experiences,
geographic descriptions, analysis of industry-state relations, and ethnographic inquiry with
members of coal communities—including coal miners and their families, coal truck drivers,
industry executives, government administrators, NGO volunteers and workers, educators and
scholars, entrepreneurs, and other coal community members. The findings reveal that coal
transition has been ignited as a “slow burn” in cultural, social, and community living.
Representing sites of friction, these coal communities have become “energotopia,” emplacing
geographical and rhetorical topoi of energy transitions, portending mutual communications and
collaborations.
The remainder of the chapter begins with a background introduction on coal transition
locally and across the planet. My hometown lifeworld is recalled, with my sense of leaving
remembered. Then a literature review of studies on energy transition and its consequences for
place is presented. Built on these works, the terms “energotopia” and “slow burn” are coined,
defined, and elaborated. These terms constitute spatial and temporal vectors to weave the
patchworks of events, actions, and uncertainties that I identified during fieldwork and archival
research. Energotopia constitutes a placial and rhetorical topos of energy transition that can be
flexible in size but mainly grounded in a small place. I argue that energy transition, especially in
China with 60 percent of electricity generation relying on coal currently,
9
is a slow burn with
multiple meanings and directions: transition, transformation, transfiguration, and transience.
Once the key constructs are made clear, the research methods of this dissertation are introduced.
The research methodology includes the fieldwork of return and re-turn in my hometown and
inter-referencing with southeast Kentucky coal communities, with 60 interviews embedded. The

6

methods section justifies the description-heavy style of the dissertation analyses and
presentation.
“Where Are You Going?”
I love my hometown. It has a beautiful name, Yángquan ( 阳泉), meaning “sunshine and
spring.” The name is an oral-communication variation from an even more beautiful old name
Yàngquan ( 漾泉), which means “rippling springs.” According to Annals of Pingding Prefecture
in the Guangxu Period (1875-1907) of Qing Dynasty, Yàngquan was a village near Pingding
Prefecture (now Pingding is a county of Yángquan), where five springs continuously flowed.
10

As early as North Song Dynasty, a village named Yàngquan was established in the area, with
abundant water. However, due to constant coal mining in the region, water depleted
significantly.
11
Since coal is “buried sunshine,”
12
the new name is well-suited by coincidence.
Beyond names, I love my hometown for its long and rich history all the way back to the Spring
and Autumn period (770 to 481 BC), the beauty of mountains and a river running through it, the
convenient transportation both by highway and railway, the various kinds of noodles and dishes,
and more importantly, a concrete, tangible relational web of love weaved by my family.
I always knew that I would leave one day. To me and many of my peers, our hometown
is where we were born, and we were destined to leave after growing up. I do not remember ever
questioning the idea of leaving. It is not possible to recall whether the idea emerged from within
or being placed into our heads. The feeling of leaving was particularly strong when I felt an
itchiness in my throat. I coughed chronically through the dry, cold winters of my town. In middle
school, a classmate created an unofficial poll about cities that we hoped to move to in the future;
the results were divided in the group between Beijing and Shanghai. Teachers spoke of one
“legend” of my high school, Robin Li. He later studied in Peking University and in the United

7

States. He founded Baidu, an online search engine company. Legends of success encouraged us
to see a bigger world. So, when “D-day” came and all students were filling college applications,
the way to say, “Hello,” became asking one question: “Where are you going?”
Where are you going? I also asked myself the question and chose a city in the south, for I
wanted to be far away from home. Life was sheltered and predictable in a small, tier-five city
(the lowest tier in the Chinese city ranking system). My first two decades were anchored by
several locations: the hospital I was born, the three venues where my parents and I had lived
successively, my grandparents’ apartment, my kindergarten, primary school, middle school, and
high school, all located on the same street, South Avenue, and all within a fifteen-minute walk. I
yearned for a route as different as possible. However, the size of the city could not fully explain
my attraction. What is behind the feeling of “smallness” is the marginalization of location which
we associated with restricted social relations and resources. The advantage of big cities are not
only the concentration of better education and career opportunities, but also the interactive
spaces for multiplicities, which can activate even more possibilities. A small city like Yangquan,
on the contrary, offers opportunities for learning and work built around its primary industry,
coal.
Coal industries overshadow Yangquan’s rich history, natural beauty, and diverse food
culture. The necessity of transporting coal laid the foundation for the city’s convenient
transportation. The village of springs thus becomes “the city of coal,” China’s largest anthracite
base. Coal industries dominate the area. The place of community and the coal business are
entangled with each other, demonstrated by the naming of things. Coal appears to be nowhere,
but it is everywhere. Its signs are both stable and mobile. For instance, every local is familiar
with the “two bigs”: the “big yard”—coal companies’ living blocks, and the “big truck”— the

8

coal truck. Such an “invisibility” of coal’s central presence has a counterpart in the naming that
verifies coal’s diffuse prevalence—so prevalent that it can be taken for granted, that everyone
knows what you refer to even though you did not mention the specifics. Coal is the norm, the
assumed, the only option for community life. Recently, during China’s opening, the local took on
much greater significance. For a long time since the early 2000s, Yangquan communities were
familiar with a campaign slogan: “Build China’s Ruhr Area and Construct the ‘Pearl City’ at the
East Shanxi ( 打造中国鲁尔区，建设晋东明珠城 dazao zhongguo luer qu; jianshe jindong
mingzhu cheng).”
13

Coal industries drove the rapid economic growth of the city. Yangquan took on the
nicknames of “little Shanghai” and “little Hong Kong.” Of course, depending on any single
resource for value is unsustainable. Depending on coal is fundamentally unsustainable, not only
because burning fossil fuels cause climate change and various environmental problems, but also
because mining industries are built on a regime that violates humanity, diminishes human
agency, and replaces it with industrial system’s domination. The rhetoric of energy transition
made the continuity of coal production uncertain. When would coal demands dwindle or
disappear? Even if market demand remained strong, promises of new energy investment are
always accompanied by automation that promises to reduce cost and dangers to labor. Positive
growth rates of coal production are used by the industry and state to suggest development.
14
The
question remains, development for whom? Who will be the winners and losers? Which
development will accelerate and what would be discarded into the waste bins of decay? The
younger generations, especially, can sense the unsustainability and want to jump out of the
“sinking boat.” Given the limited channels for “voice,” many choose to “exit.”
15
This
uncertainty seems to be not only true of my hometown, but it also pervades rural and mining

9

areas across China. China’s youth have left home for other big cities. This is a difficulty for a
nation with an aging population.
Not all departures are final. Migration may be a process of circulation.
16
To the everyday
problems of a migrant’s circulation are the additional questions of changing circumstances for
individual units and the places of home, work, and commitment. Departures are fraught, always,
but may become coupled with sometimes surprising returns. A decade later, I embarked on a
journey of returning, only to discover that my hometown, where I thought was without many
things of interest, had become a hub of events, projects, and initiatives. The return overthrew lots
of assumptions and ignorance I had held about the place and its communities. Yangquan’s
campaign of “Build China’s Ruhr Area and Construct the ‘Pearl City’ at the East Shanxi” had
changed meaning.
17
Germany’s Ruhr had embarked recently on its own journey of coal transition
and deindustrialization. China’s “city of coal” was changing, too, into a frontier of energy
transition. Its 1.3 million people had to answer the question: “Where are you going?” Leaving
was still a choice, but new regimes of power promised to make a difference and spurred
constructive activities of development.
Emplaced Energy Transition and the N-Body Problem
Energy resources are geographically located. Fossil fuels are an under-ground, ice, and
ocean resource. These continue to be mapped. Mining coal is the chief energy supplier for
electricity and metals work. Renewables, too, are linked to geographical location. Solar, wind,
and hydro regimes are interweaved with the movement of air and water above ground within
geographical regions that facilitate transformations of energy into power.
18
Yangquan’s coal
industries were integrated in the coal regime of Shanxi Province. The group of coal companies
acted as pillars of local economies respectively. These companies are often named after the city.

10

They are known by abbreviations. Yangquan coal company is called Yang Coal ( 阳煤); Datong
coal company, Tong Coal ( 同煤). Moreover, fossil fuels mining and fracking have tangibly
changed the land, rendering studies on resource-based regions often fixed on geographical
anchors, such as mountains.
19
To study energy transition, returning to the emplaced context is
necessary. As coal mining and carbon consumption have been recorded in the landscape,
20
de-
capacity of coal mines and decarbonization also involve communities’ efforts of dwelling,
working, building, and moving within and out of the local place.
Energy transition is not a linear process from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources.
Rather, the activity of shifting the amount, means, and value of energy does bring about
sweeping changes on many societal aspects beyond the economic sector.
21
Yangquan’s coal
transition demonstrated such multiplicity with overwhelming projects, visions, and directions.
One is to build “the city of science fiction” associated with the celebrity effect of Cixin Liu, a
Yangquaner and the author of the renowned text, The Three-Body Problem.
22
It might be a leap
from mining to sci-fi, but the core of the sci-fi coincidentally captured the complexity of
Yangquan’s transition in an accurate way. Yangquan’s transition is not only a three-body, but n-
body problem. No neat mathematical formula will be able to fully predict the impact of
conflicting tensions on the multiple state, market, or lifeworld bodies effected by Yangquan’s
transition. Together the complex patterns of change require interpretative investigation from an
inside/outside inquiry that works toward synthesis and generates a process of refreshing
continually.
This dissertation aims at weaving a complex narrative of coal dependence and energy
transition. It rejects oversimplified oppositions of the old and the new, the east and the west,
nature and culture, humans and nonhumans, and insiders and outsiders of coal communities. By

11

observing, communicating with, and living through energy cultures and cultural energies of coal
communities, I strive to describe how communities remember the past, live the present, and
imagine the future. To coal communities, coal is not just a job, but a way of living. However, as
Latour argues, “to inhabit the same place in a different way,”
23
this dissertation explores the
question: Could there be another way of living?
From the Local and the Planetary
All embeddings and geographical shifts have consequences.
24
Energy politics and
globalization offer new iterations of this process. The 21
st
century emphasizes how the global is
invested in the local and vice versa.
25
Network geographies spotlight the cybersphere. Emplaced
in the local does not reject the connectivity with the global. Human beings in the lifeworld
26

gathered for this inquiry are anchored by “hearth,” house and neighborhood, family and kinfolk,
habit and custom.
27
There are also understandings of the larger horizons from which come
strangers, messages, and orders for change—“cosmos,” world, civilization, and humankind.
28

The study is premised on an understanding that “while we are ‘here,’ we can always imagine
being ‘there,’ and while we live in the present, we can recall the past and envisage the future.”
29

Co-existence is comprised of intimacy and solidarity as well as diversity and multiplicity.
30

Energy transitions manifest in local and heterogeneous activities and events. Yet,
resource-dependent communities globally share challenges, uncertainties, and confusion,
although they may be in different phases of transition. Previous studies on energy transitions in
different places have demonstrated the shared precarity and possibility. For instance, Appalachia
scholars rejected viewing the region as the “other America,” but pointed out “the region’s
uncertain destiny stood as a warning to the rest of the nation.”
31
They asked, “But what happens
when more places and more people become disposable? What happens when the Appalachian

12

experience becomes the more common American one?”
32
Similarly, Victor Seow, studying
another coal city in northeast China, Fushun, offered an immersive comment:
As I traveled through Fushun that first summer and in trips back after, my
eyes would be repeatedly drawn to the mounds of dusty rubble strewn across
this deindustrializing landscape, particularly around the individual mines that
have closed down in succession. We who live in this world that carbon made
have yet to use up all the buried sunshine beneath our feet. But we see similar
effects, a result not so much of coal’s exhaustion as its unrelenting use. As we
now begin to reckon with the harrowing devastation wrought by climate
change, Fushun’s fate appears, then to be nothing less than a chilling
microcosm of this most pressing of our planetary problems.
33

Local heterogeneity and planetary connectivity require inquiry on sustainable expectations and
imparts resilience to build communicative bounds among energy dependent communities. This
dissertation starts out with coal, upon which the modern industrialization is dependent, and from
which efforts toward transition are launched. The research investigates the dynamics of present
condition, the expectations of future differences, the vectors of change, and the ongoing
communities’ identity building through engagement of memory. I embark on a journey of
returning to my hometown, Yangquan, after visiting southeast Kentucky, where local
communities are also in transition away from coal dependence. Choosing the two places is not to
say that only China and the U.S. matter in energy transition—they do matter a lot as the world’s
two largest carbon emitters. The site selection represents a balanced decision considering my
personal experience and interest in the Pacific Rim, contingencies, and local connections, and the
two countries’ conflicts exacerbated through the pandemic and the possibility of climate change
mitigation to promote their collaborations.
Energotopia
The human quest for energy and power never stops. Chinese philosophy regards energy
as “qi ( 气),” which means the “existence of whatever is of a nature to change.”
34
Such an energy

13

is relational, as “qi” is regarded as an energetic connection with other people or things. For
instance, to describe an “enchanting” travel experience, one can say “I felt a strong energetic
connection with the mountain.”
35
In Chinese, “qi” can be combined with another word “shi
( 势),” which can be regarded as “a form of rhetorical energy” too, a “potential, or trajectory that
is inherent to, emerges from, and in turn transforms the propensity of material things and that
reconfigures the power dynamics between humans and between humans and things.”
36
To
Aristotle, energeia (energy) describes the “vitality of speech.”
37

Among its kaleidoscopic constellations, energy can be attributed to material forces, as a
power of change that impacts human lives, destiny, and relations with the nonhuman world.
More simply put energy is “a set of fuels and their associated machines.”
38
Energy can also go
beyond material, as a “socio-material apparatus that flows through political and cultural life,”
39

and even a “precondition for social life.”
40
Previous studies thus approach energy based on its
materiality, but extend to its sociocultural influence and potentiality.
Energy and energy transition draw interests from various disciplines and fields. For
instance, rhetoricians paid particular attention to the fossil fuel industry’s various and nuanced
rhetoric to lock the regime, hinder transition, strengthen “energy unconscious” and “energy
utopia,” or ride on energy nationalism.
41
On the other hand, rhetoricians have noticed
environmental activists’ rhetorical efforts to reveal the disappointing status quo and advocate for
change.
42
Some also argued that energy communication is a vector to drive environmental
studies to go beyond the crisis discipline, and care for everyday practice.
43
Media scholars
focused on media and especially digital medias’ energy dependence and consumption, pointing
out the finiteness of resources and calling for sustainable media ecologies.
44
Historians combed

14

regional, national, international, or broad human history, intertwining with and shaped by a
particular energic force.
45

Energy and environmental humanities studies discussed energy’s connections with topics
such as politics, power, labor, work, and life.
46
Many have pointed out that energy and
environmental justice closely connect with racial justice and gender equity.
47
Moreover, scholars
noticed the energy’s intercontextual flexibility as material force and human agency, particularly
focusing on the relation between energy and publics. Public can be regarded as “standing
reserves of energy,”
48
and energy has potential in gathering publics to deliberate energy futures
through a “more diverse set of ideological voices,” and “help foster social change through
ongoing dialogue and debate.”
49
Catalina de Onís, in the study of Puerto Rico’s energy
transition, described energy as “imagined as a communal, a process of eternal learning,
combativeness against injustice, and fun,” and a “desire to serve.”
50
Thus, energy is a nexus,
connecting the material, the biological, social, cultural, and ontological.
Energy as Defamiliarization
Intrigued and overwhelmed by the various interpretation of energy and the broad scope
the concept covers, I searched for an anchor to create a novel, robust line of research. This
dissertation establishes an initiating line of inquiry that begins with a movement of
defamiliarization from my hometown to an adjacent but distant coal region. Then, I moved back
to my hometown, displaced from familiarity by my time away. As an infrastructure, energy is
often taken for granted, which becomes visible only when it breaks down and causes problems.
51

There is also a need to defamiliarize energy from the familiar invisibility.
Energy itself is a kind of defamiliarization. Back to Aristotle, energeia (energy) is a
“quality of language that successfully defamiliarizes and surprises.”
52
Particularly, to

15

defamiliarize literary languages is a way of writing poetry, to poeticize things—poetry is defined
as “organized violence committed on ordinary speech.”
53
But rhetoric is not limited to language;
it has been defamiliarized from humancentric symbols to multimodal thing-symbols long before
human existence.
54
Energeia as defamiliarization, thus, can go beyond describing the effect of
certain forms of language to the entanglement of the symbolic and the material. What if we go
from poetic writing to poetic dwelling, where humans and nonhumans coexist in peace and
harmony?
55
As Thomas Rickert defined, dwelling is “how people come together to flourish (or
try to flourish) in a place, or better, how they come together in the continual making of a place;
at the same time, that place is interwoven into the way they have come to be as they are—and as
further disclosed through their dwelling practices.”
56
In communities’ dwelling, to defamiliarize
energy is to reconsider human beings’ relations with energy in the place-making process.
To capture energy as defamiliarization, the word topia jumped into my mind for its
connotation of place, language, and “defamiliarization.” Rhetoric is always contextualized. To be
in a place or a topic is to contextualize the being, or probably to defamiliarize the current context
from the previous one. This research is to recontextualize the familiar hometown and energy, and
really talk about them. I thus propose “energotopia” to contextualize and recontextualize energy.
Emplace Energy into Energotopia
Energotopia is to highlight the importance of localness in energy transition. Climate
change is a hyperobject affecting massive scales of time and space;
57
energy transition also
involves various aspects of societies.
58
The hope lies in the local.
59
Communities in my
hometown Yangquan and southeast Kentucky happen to showcase two kinds of approach to
energy transition, both have space for local agencies. Southeast Kentucky communities are
already used to being local, and value community-based, ground-up, and self-reliant heritage.

16

Yangquan’s transition, however, often follows central agenda and policies, which also leave
tremendous potential for 1.3 million local people.
Rooting energy and transition studies in the local is not new. For instance, Catalina de
Onís weaved an island perspective of energy transition by studying her hometown, Puerto Rico,
centering around fossil fuel industry workers’ precarities and coalitions.
60
Cymene Howe and
Dominic Boyer “duographed” transition to wind power in Mexico’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
61

Appalachia studies also grounded coal and community changes in mountains, counties, and
towns. This research is to enrich the understanding of heterogenous local practices of energy
transition. Different from the island narrative, it is a perspective of return, to the mountains,
where “encounters have helped define particular ways of seeing, experiencing, and representing
the world.”
62
The return is not a simple route back to the land-based view of human beings, but
to revisit, re-examine, and remap our relations, as land-based creatures, within the larger world.
“Energotopia” is to foreground the emplacement of energy transition, especially in small places.
Understanding small places is important to understanding the bigger world, especially to
a centralized regime like China, where resources could be overly concentrated to the center—the
big cities, and people often believe that life at the margins (geographically) is not worth living.
63

The over concentration to the centers has led to the involution in Chinese societies—competition
for the sake of competition. The link between energy regime and capitalist work logic has also
been spotted by Cara New Daggett.
64
Refocusing on small places is to rediscover diversity,
mobility, and vibrancy that have not been universalized or standardized by centralization. Biao
Xiang addressed the importance of studying small places to China studies:
By the same token, big has its drawbacks, and sometimes you see more things because
you are in a small place. This may sound strange because isn’t there more to discover in
big places? It’s true. China is big and complicated, but one of China’s central concerns is

17

to eliminate this complexity, to simplify it. But in a small place like Singapore, politics of
course has to be unified, but in cultural terms, you have to live and let live.
65

The local and small-place focus is not a provincialism but in the context of the planetary.
Grounded in the local heterogeneity, diverse biomes can communicate and collaborate.
Energotopia is also to emphasize the impossibility to know “the whole picture” of global energy
transition, but the infinite possibilities embedded in each small part.
A topia, meaning “small place,” is a non-linear perspective of place based on memory
rather than mathematical calculations, emphasizing both material landscapes and rhetorical
multimodality.
66
A topia thus conjoins physical locus and rhetorical focus. A topia is not a
neutral place; rather, it produces, circulates, and negotiates powers: a heteorotopia mirrors and
unsettles the world outside; a utopia idealizes and desires a perfection within; an omnitopia
creates enclaves in which one “interact[s] with other people and natural parts of the world only
as a series of objects.”
67
Power is often defined as suppression, constraints, and limitation;
however, with Biesecker’s interpretation, power suggests a constructive notion of “being able” or
“can-do ness.”
68
Therefore, this inquiry of topia not only addresses power dynamics of existing
energy regime, but opens to invention, deliberation, and orientation.
Topia comes from the Greek word topos, rooted in a rhetorical and literary tradition.
Topoi “were not only tools of ordinary thought but also tools meant to construct argument.”
69
E.
R. Curtius have distinguished two kinds of topos: One is rhetorical topos built on shared culture
and in a particular historical moment and contingency, for the purpose of immediate
persuasion.
70
As Aristotle defines, rhetoric refers to “things about which we deliberate, but for
which we have no systematic rules.”
71
The other is what Curtius called literary or poetic topos,
which emphasizes to establish the historicity and normality that can endure across time. Curtius
believes the latter is more advantageous than the former.
72
He compared rhetorical topoi as

18

“stockroom, where one can find general ideas suitable for specific discourses,” and called for a
poetic topoi: “Whereas antique topics is part of a didascalium, and hence is systematic and
normative, let us try to establish the basis for a historical topics.”
73
But his favor of poetic or
literary topos has also been criticized by scholars as being universalized and timeless.
74
Energy
transition is an ongoing process, in which the images of particular historical moments are
valuable and universal truth is unreachable. In this dissertation, the orientation of energotopia’s
topos, therefore, is not directed to establish a literary form of composition or depicting an
archetype guiding a transitioning model. Slow-burn and energotopia are constructed as rhetoric
tropes rooted in material contingency, symbolic energy, and local heterogeneity, which goes
beyond the merely symbolic, assembling a material and concrete aspect of place.
Built on topia, inquiries into energotopia mobilize a threefold orientation: 1) Place: the
material, landscapes, objects, and infrastructures, 2) Rhetoric: languages, memories, narratives,
and affect, and 3) Vector, the “can-do ness” of energy as a vector to orient societies toward
justice and wellbeing.
75
An energotopia emplaces energy transition in small places, in local
diversity, of local agency, but for translocal resilience. An energotopia is a mix of discourse and
concourse, symbolic action and materiality, and relations and infrastructures. Energotopias are
constituted in ways that change as old resources deplete, new ones are discovered, and unknown
reserves are rendered available.
My exploration of energotopias were loosely navigated by these questions: How did coal
communities become coal communities over time? How can coal communities influence and
how are they influenced by energy transition? How do energy transitions and communication
transformation mutually (de)mobilize each other? How can coal communities with local
heterogeneity, shared precarities, and possibilities learn from each other, and offer references to

19

planetary communities? The ambition of the dissertation is not to arrange analytic, final answers
to these questions. Rather, ethnographic inquiry is structured and put into practice so that the
voices of those I encountered are uncovered as speaking to coal experience of living in single
energy dependent communities.
To clarify, energotopia is not energy utopia.
76
On the contrary, a topia is a physical
place—the opposite of an ideal utopia. Thus, energotopia must be grounded in physical places,
with variable scales. In this dissertation, energotopia can be as large as a city or a town, or as
small as a conference, a mine, a media platform, or a museum. But these energotopias are not
fixed entities with clear boundaries. They are permeable spheres emplacing local communities’
experiences in transition. Like what Yi-fu Tuan wants to do with topophilia,
77
energotopia is less
a neologism than an evocative idea stringing stories and encounters together.
Moreover, using energotopia as rhetorical invention is to destigmatize the resource-
dependent places and overcome the oversimplified victimization of the coal communities and
mountain communities. Resource-based places have been called “sacrifice zones,” “peripheral
zones,” “internal colonies,” and “cursed by abundance” to emphasize the exploitation of the land
and people under unequal power dynamics.
78
These descriptions may well capture the suffering
but could be rashly interpreted as labels with heavy baggage instead of drives for changes.
During the process of this research, I also found that local communities do not always appreciate
being addressed as cursed, sacrificed, peripheral, or colonized. Furthermore, some previous
studies on coal towns, for instance, Shifflett’s research on southern Appalachia from 1880-1960,
depicted a much more complex narrative of coal town life instead of regarding coal miners and
their families as mere victims from the biased middle-class perspective toward working-class

20

culture.
79
Bearing a critical lens, energotopia focuses on both precarities and agencies, and
especially resilience—hybrid possibilities instead of pure ruptures.
Slow Burn: Transition, Transfiguration, Transformation, and Transience
To capture emplaced transition, a dimension of temporality needs to be taken into
account. Coal as an energy and material force, changed Yangquan from a space into place.
According to Yi-fu Tuan, our feelings about space and place are affected by time.
80
While the
place is security, the space is freedom; the meaning of the two always need to be understood in
comparison. As communities dwell over time, they become familiar with the space and mutually
influence the space. Thus, the space becomes place by the merit of time.
81

Thus, I used the metaphor “slow burn” to depict the temporal dimension of energy
transition. The metaphor conveys the “liveliness”
82
and complements the spatial dimension of
energotopia by teasing out the energeia (actuality) and dynamis (potentiality) of various
transition actions. Slow burn has two primary meanings. One meaning of slow burn is
accumulated anger or disappointment. The other meaning of slow burn is often related to
narrative production as a particular style: the plot, action, and scene develop slowly with
suspensions and maybe trivia, but eventually reach “the point of burning” and bring intense
affective and cognitive enjoyment. In this dissertation, the meaning of slow burn is closer to the
latter than the former, as the energy transition in my hometown developed at a slow pace, with
previous efforts and failures long before its “official launch.” Like the rising local activism in my
hometown, the first meaning can also capture the accumulated emotion of the coal communities.
The coming up of the slow burn metaphor was inspired by my grandpa’s firing up the coal stove;
it also aptly described the ingrained coal system in Yangquan communities, which makes
transition a long-term persistence. Such a metaphor is refined from fieldwork and aims to grasp

21

the relational patchworks into a rather complete and comprehensible narrative.
83
The metaphoric
framework also leaves enough fluidity to describe the “figurative—material—literal
relationships” of multiplicity and complexity.
84

The slow burning energy transition results from the massive scale and various directions
of projects, initiatives, and activities. In China, a country having 60 percent of electricity
generation still coming from coal, transition may have multiple meanings not without ambiguity.
Transition in Chinese is “ 转型 (zhuan xing),” a two-character word. It can be a verb and a noun,
having two meanings: 1) the change of society’s economic or cultural models, or the change of
values and ideas; 2) the change of a product’s structure or model. The meanings can be as broad
as involving many societal aspects, or as narrow as focusing on specific, tangible matter in the
industrial system.
85
In other words, “ 转” (zhuan, meaning to change, turn to) is consistent, but
“ 型” (xing, meaning model, type) can vary.
To capture the ambiguous meaning and various changes of coal transition, I use four
words: transition, transformation, transfiguration, and transience. Previous studies have
differentiated transition and transformation. While transition mainly refers to the changes in
societal subsystems such as energy, mobility, cities, transformation is mainly used to describe
broader, complex changes in society that may involve multiple aspects.
86
Thus, I follow the
studies’ differentiation in this dissertation. Transition refers to changes in energy sectors, but
given China’s top-down approach, transitions in energy sectors are mainly policies, initiatives,
and projects launched by local, province, and national governments. Transformation, on the other
hand, covers many aspects of society, and in this research, are largely related to communication
technologies and media changes. Besides transition and transformation, I use transfiguration,
meaning “a complete change of form or appearance into a more beautiful or spiritual state,” to

22

capture the changes in the coal industries. In my hometown, coal industries’ changes still largely
rely on coal, with several invented “new materials” being different forms of carbon. The
incomplete “break up” from coal is due to coal’s deep integration in national and local
communities and renders industrial changes away from coal a partially beatification of coal
toward cleaner, greener, more efficient. Finally, through fieldwork I found many efforts did not
eventually actualize for different reasons. Transilience is to describe this kind of attempt.
Although projects may be transient, they my lay foundations for future possibilities locally when
opportunities change or serve as a reference to other places in transition.
Methodology: Fieldwork of Return and Re-turn
Classic ethnographic fieldwork prompts researchers to go out. My research fieldwork,
however, is composed of multi-sited routes of returning to my hometown. Hometown matters to
people in different ways. It can be a tangible, warm habitat weaved by the land and social
relations, or an abstract symbol in distance and memory. Scholars placed importance on how
hometowns can shape individuals, communities, and societies. Karida Brown quoted Yi-fu Tuan
to describe the value of home in the book on her hometown, a coal town in Appalachia
Kentucky: “our histories are inscribed in home, ‘recorded in the landscape’; our origin stories are
in the land. It is a living, age-old family tree.”
87
Previous studies also explored research on
hometowns, practicing “hometown ethnography.”
88
Hometown ethnography differs from typical
ethnography in which visitors stay in cultures different from their own for significant periods,
learning languages if necessary, engaging in rituals and routines, and interacting with local
people. Hometown ethnography also differs from “native” or “insider ethnographies,” focused
on “the researcher’s relationship to the population and culture they study.”
89
Instead, a
hometown ethnography “highlights the importance of a particular place and the people who live

23

there.”
90
My hometown matters to me as a physical and emotional accommodation, but also
matters in the context of global energy transition, as it affords various transitions in a particular
period. Compared with ethnography in a different culture, hometown ethnography can bridge the
gap of geographical distance and social class status by applying the researcher’s local
knowledge.
91
It “decenters the role of the researcher, redirecting attention to the complex
relationships between a hometown, its current residents and their social practices, and the
researcher’s positionality.”
92
In hometown ethnography, researchers are often more trusted by
fellow residents, and thus can gain insights that informants would not share with “outsiders.” For
example, in fieldwork at his hometown Flint, Michigan, Milner found that local residents only
divulge certain information about the water crisis after knowing the researcher was local.
93

Returning to the field is not simply returning to place and material and social relations,
but also a process of re-turning “the soil” like “earthworms.”
94
Energy transitions have been well
studied, and many have engaged in ethnographical and rhetorical fieldworks. Scholars
emphasized the importance of presence—“being there,” which is not simply showing up, but
requires the researcher to take a critical lens and an advocating role.
95
The in-situ method is
valuable because it can “sharpen the ability for CR (critical rhetoric) to engage seriously the
voices of marginalized rhetorical communities and mundane discourses that often evade critical
attention.”
96
Moreover, energy communication studies demand fieldwork to understand the
vernacular everyday practice of energy resources, production, and consumption, driving the field
beyond a crisis discipline.
97
The fieldwork of return and re-turn, reinforce the point that “being
there” matters,
98
and opens up my study to a diffractive perspective, with my privilege of being
both a coal community member and a researcher. Just like a CD diffracts a beam of light into a
rainbow of colors, making visible the different characteristics of light, diffraction is to “make a

24

difference in the world,” instead of “displace the same elsewhere.”
99
There are numerous ways to
make visible the multiplicity and to disentangle the entanglement of relations. Yet “my”
interpretations matter for my double role of being both researcher and a community member. To
re-turn requires a constant negotiation between the two roles, drawing connections and making
contrast. The journey of return and re-turn is to recompile, reconnect, and relive the previous
experiences of my hometown, but in a critical way through filling in the blanks, abandoning
ignorance, and overthrowing misassumptions. A return to home is to re-turn hometown anew.
Specifically, the fieldwork includes 60 informal and formal interviews, collective
discussions, direct observations, participation of activities and conferences, and visiting physical
sites, online sites and media platforms, and historical archives. My approach to the field is
aligned with Marcus’ call of not limiting to a pre-set, rigid ground, but to follow people, things,
events, networks, and relations.
100
Therefore, although my exploration was mainly bounded to
my hometown and southeast Kentucky, it did not strictly stay in those territories because
dynamic transitions often flow and connect with other places and contexts. During visits to
various kinds of sites, I paid particular attention to the sensory and affective encounters,
regarding ethnography as an “embodied” experience, a “sensuous interrelationship of body-
mind-environment.”
101
The multi-sensory perspective was especially useful in differentiating
various environments underground and above ground, and their influences on social and human-
nonhuman relationships.
The in-depth interviews were semi-structured and unstructured, and mostly embedded in
the fieldwork, but some were conducted remotely online, depending on traveling capacities due
to COVID-19’s impact. I regard participants of interviews as “conversational partners” rather
than “interviewees” to acknowledge that they are not “object[s] of research, but subjects with

25

equal authority over subject matter and flow of the interview.”
102
Rhetorical field methods also
emphasized the need to “ask communities being critiqued to build theory with researchers, not in
the presence of researchers.”
103
These conversation partners were often stake holders in public
and private sectors of energy transition, such as coal miners, government officers, industry
executives, NGO operators and volunteers, environmental activists, entrepreneurs, and common
community members. They offered great insights in terms of general memories, attitudes, and
vision on energy transition and climate change mitigation, as well as the work and life
experiences in their specialized areas. These conversation partners were connected through
personal, local connections and snowballing techniques. Conversation audio or text were
recorded with the permission of the partners.
Inter-referencing Approach
Starting in my hometown, then going to southeast Kentucky before returning home, my
research is inter-referencing across cultural contexts. I chose my hometown Yangquan and
counties in Southeast Kentucky as main sites, considering geographical and geological
similarities and variation, economic development, population size, travel capacities through the
pandemic, and resources and connections availability. Specifically, I traveled to Pikeville,
Paintsville, Wayland, Corbin, Lynch, and Benham in Kentucky, participated in conferences,
talked with government administrators, entrepreneurs, NGOs, and community members in their
offices and home, and visited museums and landscapes. These communities demand attention
and care for they are microcosms and frontiers of energy transitions. These communities have
many problems, questions, and concerns, not limited to themselves. At the heart of two old
mountains, Appalachia and Taihang, respectively, Southeast Kentucky and Yangquan open
different windows to understanding the two countries away from coastal metropolises.

26

Previous studies on energy and energy transitions mostly focus on a single context. In
reaction, Endres and colleagues call for comparative studies across energy resources, actors and
stakeholders, and cultural contexts.
104
Banerjee and Sowards also prompt environmental
communication scholars to engage in more cross-language-and-culture studies.
105
Moreover,
Pezzullo and de Onís have pointed out that intercultural comparisons can advance rhetorical field
methods by paying particular attention to translation and the drawback of English
monolingualism:
After all, there are consequences for whether expressions, experiences, and
ephemera are translated and to what extent the translation resonates culturally and
in one’s preferred language. For example, in one of our research sites, English
monolingualism, shaped by English-only mandates and a dearth of translations for
marginalized non-English speakers, elides and erases certain experiences and
restricts rhetorical agency. If certain communities are denied the practice and
rhetorical materials of translation, they are denied livable lives. This oppression
also hinders solutions to our climate crisis.
106

Resonating with their calls, I paid special attention to coal communities in different cultures so
that partners could describe coal and their relations with coal using their own languages. I strove
to translate the languages as accurately as possible.
However, my “comparison” of coal communities across cultures is not symmetrical,
rather it is shaped by experiences of growing-up in my hometown. The focus of this research is
tilted toward Yangquan, as scholars have done excellent research on Southeast Kentucky and
Appalachia and many of them are community members. My research is therefore, more “inter-
referencing” than “comparative.” Comparison is a position that is “above and beyond all specific
cases;” however, inter-referencing is firmly grounded in context A, then refers to context B in a
broad, informed way to deepen understandings of context A.
107
Using the inter-referencing
approach, I strive to put coal communities with local heterogeneity in conversation with each

27

other, communicating about shared precarities and possibilities, and offering references to other
parts of the world in energy transition.
Descriptive Imperative
The way I chose to express my findings during fieldwork and weaving various stories and
experiences into a dissertation is rather descriptive. Energotopia and slow burn are metaphorical
instead of theoretical frameworks. The rest of the dissertation mainly consists of descriptions of
stories of coal communities and personal experiences. This is what Yang and Moses called
“descriptive imperative,” rooted in an “ethics of caring,” and emphasizing “individual
expressiveness, the appropriateness of emotions, and the capacity for empathy.”
108
The reason to
be descriptive is threefold. First, energy transition is an ongoing process, an open sphere with
lots of possibilities; even the current wave of transition in my hometown still contains
uncertainties and room for development. Instead of rushing into some fixed theoretical models,
describing what is going on allows space for further interpretations and conversations. Second,
the stories I collected and experiences I had speak for themselves. They are the most “energetic”
part of the fieldwork. Being descriptive “registers appreciation for the experiences
of protagonists in the stories we study,” and “connects us to others — to those described, to the
makers of what we describe, to other describers.”
109
Third, being descriptive can “enhance the
visibility and audibility of stories from ordinary people.”
110
Yang and Moses used descriptive
imperative to study the public culture of sharing their experiences during the pandemic,
especially during the lockdown of Shanghai and Wuhan. During a transition period, especially in
a top-down regime in which the most affected are actually the least participated, communities
can also face drastic anxieties, precarities, and uncertainties; let alone they also experienced the

28

pandemic, and many had to work through difficult times. Descriptive imperative is to celebrate
and remember the greatness of ordinary people.
A brief outline, is useful to orient the journey within which my research was conducted,
shaped, folded, and articulated.

Chapter Outline
Built on previous scholarly works, I have introduced metaphorical frameworks and
methodologies, coming to the end of Chapter One. The dissertation comes out of my experiences
growing up and leaving a coal town. Then, I was welcomed to visit a distant place that was also
coal dependent and undergoing transition before returning home with a different outlook, which
permitted a more vibrant inquiry into the lay of the land, at least for times of transition,
uncertainty, and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Chapter Two to Four illustrate the route of leaving (hometown) and returning. Chapter
Two follows the vector of temporality, tracing back how Yangquan communities intertwined
with coal from folklore, imperial times, the republican era, to the “wild bloom” time of coal
mining, and the recent crossroads of transition and decarbonization. Sections of Chapter Two are
named after verbs plus coal: plant, trade, protect, cut, and drive. These verbs depicted the
changes of human-coal relations over time, highlighted human beings’ delusion to take control
over coal, and revealed the fundamental unsustainability of mining to the environment and
communities’ work and life.
Chapter Three follows the vector of spatiality, capturing transitions in southeast
Kentucky as an inter-reference. The spatial vector moving in mountains, media, mines, and
museums in the Appalachian region offers leeway to the study, as I realize roles that transition
gradually from a community member to a researcher, especially given the contingency of the

29

pandemic. To the four loci, four rhetorical foci are refined through communication with local
communities: ingenuity to mountains, de-stigmatization to media, pride to mines, and heritage to
museums. Double-layered loci and foci illustrates energotopia’s material and symbolic aspects.
Chapter Four follows the vector of rhetoric, returning to my hometown and re-turn
energy transition. The four rhetorics are: 1) energy transition, which introduces transition
policies and initiatives in Yangquan in the context of the provincial and national transition; 2)
coal’s transfiguration, which examines technology’s role in both facilitating transition and
strengthening coal regime, as well as the exploration in developing largely carbon-based new
materials; 3) societal transformation, which focuses mainly on how communication and media
shape broader changes of coal communities; and 4) transience, which discusses a mine-museum
adapting project that did not go through and a “failed” participatory design project centering
around the museum. The four “trans-” demonstrated the ambiguity, multiplicity, and possibility
of energy transition and its “slow-burn-ness.” From Chapter Two’s “verb+coal” to Chapter
Four’s multiple rhetorics, the delusion of humans’ absolute agency versus energy being passive
objects have been smashed, leaving hope for an uncertain future.
Chapter Five concludes with this dissertation’s contribution and limitations, anticipating
the next project on energy migration, and offering invitations to future energy transition studies.
The conclusion also puts communication, rhetoric, and anthropology into conversation by taking
a relational view and interrogating fieldwork’s importance in resonance, empathy, and affect,
with the development of artificial intelligence. Finally, the conclusion discusses the necessity of
inter-referencing research in global energy transition and climate change mitigation, and
especially to China studies in the global context.

30

Interlude: A Family Story
Have you had a moment when your grandparents retold the same old story, and you
became impatient and stopped listening, or murmured the rest of the plot? In my family, the
same old story was my father being chased by a big black dog when he was a child. The story
was usually narrated by my uncles. My father’s twin brothers laughed out loud when seeing their
elder brother in a moment of discomfort. Eventually, my grandma, who worked for the local
hospital and built a good rapport with the dog (which always hung around the neighborhood),
stepped up and called the dog away, and saved her son. Picturing my father, an often serious-
looking man, running so hard and panicked as a boy, was hilarious to me. So instead of
becoming impatient, I would beg my uncles to tell the story again and again. More and more
details emerged during the retelling. I learned the hospital, called the Second Hospital, where my
grandma worked as a cook, was affiliated with a coal mine, the Second Coal Mine, which went
bankrupt and closed. Moreover, my uncles and father, before being chased by the dog, were on
their way to pick up futan ( 麸炭, charcoal).
Picking up futan was a common way to supplement a household’s fuel needs when coal
was rationed in China’s planned economy. Futan is partially burnt coal. In a coal town like my
hometown, mines and factories would dump ashes from furnaces in junkyards, forming meihuipo
( 煤灰坡, coal ashes pile). People from communities nearby followed the coal ash trucks, and
picked up the incompletely burnt futan to bring home. Futan burnt slower and produced little
carbon monoxide and were safer for household heating and cooking.
111
Schools also called
community members to contribute futan to classrooms to keep students and teachers warm. For
instance, my dad, being his class monitor, had to arrive at school early every day to fire up the
stove with futan he picked up. Picking up futan is only one example illustrating coal’s

31

prevalence in communities’ daily lives and memories. The next chapter will show how my
hometown Yangquan has been intertwined with coal since the imperial time, forced by colonial
powers and industrialization in the republican era, and strengthened in contemporary China. Like
the verb “pick up,” the history and culture of community-coal entanglement are weaved by a
series of verbs: plant, trade, protect, cut, and drive. These verbs demonstrate human beings’
“actions” toward coal in world-making and indicate the desire to take control. As the transition
goes on, human beings must think about more sustainable ways of making a living, other than to
“do something” to coal.

32

Chapter Two: Hometown, Coal Town
“Plant” Coal
My hometown Yangquan has many Laojun Temples ( 老君庙), especially in the Kuangqu
( 矿区 mining district). Laojun refers to Taishang Laojun or Daode Tianzun (The Heavenly Lord
of Dao and its Virtue), a high Daoist deity. Coal miners regard Taishang Laojun as the god of the
mining industry, and thus build big and small temples to worship. On Laojun’s birthday, the 18th
day of the 12th month in the lunar calendar, local coal mines often hold worship rituals to beg
the god’s blessing of safety and prosperity for the coming-year. They prepare a black male pig
covered with a red cloth (for safety) and a black male goat covered with a green cloth (for
productivity) as sacrifice, and many other tributes. The goat and pig must be black because coal
is black.
112

Many reasons could explain why Laojun is regarded as the god of the mining profession.
Some referred to the renowned classic novel Journey to the West, Laojun was the deity subduing
the Monkey King in the alchemy furnace, using fire to force a surrender. Therefore, miners
believe Laojun can control the power of fire, which is fueled by coal. Others believed that as the
main god of Daoism, Taishang Laojun is well-known and in high status, powerful enough to
protect the mining industry, which is often despised for its low social status.
113
However, a wide-
believed explanation in the Shanxi area is that coal was “planted” by Laojun. Such a belief varies
in different regions in Shanxi, with the protagonist changing from Laojun to other gods such as
Erlang god. Yet there is a common pattern: gods “plant” coal on land for humans to reward the
good virtues they have such as courtesy and hospitality, hardworking and kindheartedness. The
belief of planting coal by Laojun is associated with the belief of “sustainability:” older
generations of coal miners, around the establishment of PRC when mining through mainly

33

manual labor instead of machines, belied that you can only dig coal as far as you can, while you
are opening lanes. But you should not dig coal outside the lane in which you are moving
forward. If there is no wind (air) for a certain distance, you will naturally retreat. You can go
back to the wellhead and choose the direction to dig coal. By this means, mining for current
generations will not hurt the next generations’ coal usage. It was believed that coal will grow
back by itself over time.
114

Another coal-related myth is specific to the Yangquan region. Once upon a time, the
world was wrecked by catastrophe – floods, fires, and earthquakes. The cause was a hole in the
sky made by the fight between the god of fire and the god of water. Nüwa, the mother goddess
(the equivalent of Gaia) in Chinese mythology, fused stones of five colors with alchemy and
patched the gap. The world then regained habitability and peace; creatures could live again. It is
believed that the stones used by Nüwa were actually coal from the Dongfu mountain at the East
Pingding county, Yangquan.
115

Compared with Laojun Planting Coal in the religious mythological system, Nüwa
Mending the Sky emerged earlier since the time of matriarchal clans. From the two myths we can
tell how human beings’ relation with coal changed over time: in the time of Nüwa’s story, coal
came from nature existing longer than humans and perhaps even longer than gods and goddesses.
Later in Laojun’s story, coal was planted after humans’ existence, by a religious deity incarnated
as a human. Coal was also “degraded” from goddess’ usage to humans’ usage. But either way,
coal was regarded as a passive resource to utilize. Local communities never stopped their
imagination on the origin of coal, with which they have close relations in everyday life.
In pre-industrial times, coal’s symbolic appearance can be dated to 4th century BC in The
Classic of Mountains and Seas ( 山海经 Shan Hai Jing), with the name of “shi nie” ( 石涅).
116

34

Coal mining had developed sophisticated timbering methods in the Warring States period and
techniques accelerated since the Song dynasty when coal fueled the development of the iron
industry.
117
During Ming times, coal mining was illustrated in Works of Heaven and the
Inception of Things (Tiangong Kaiwu), a book by Song Yingxing depicting artisan methods and
technologies of the era. Specific to Yangquan area, in 1045, Song Dynasty, Chen Yaozuo, an
officer in charge of transportation and trading in Shanxi area, requested the central government
to exempt the coal tax for Yangquan area, which is the earliest record of the region’s coal
production.
118

Trade Coal
Because of Yangquan’s special location at the east gate of Shanxi, next to Hebei
Province, Yangquan was a transportation nexus to trade coal since the imperial time. Following
the historical traces, I visited villages in Pingding County (in Chinese system, county is a lower
tier than city), where my god mother and her husband come from. Some of these villages, like
the one where my god mother’s husband is from, has a 500-year history, founded in the Ming
dynasty.
119
These once active villages have now become almost empty. A grandma approached
asking if we wanted to adopt her cats. She shared that most young people these days went to the
city for job opportunities, leaving the seniors in the village. Walking along the road, I saw
several senior daycare centers, illustrating grandma’s claims. In my hometown, where younger
generations leave for education and job opportunities, aging is a bigger problem than the national
average. The needs for Kangyang ( 康养, health and elderly care) has increased locally in recent
years.

35

Figure 1. Daycare Center for Seniors (Photo by Junyi Lv)
Empty now, the village still contains many historical traces of trading coal. My god
mother asked me to guess the function of two things: A brick sticking out of the wall with a hole
in the center and a stone-made rectangular tank with rounded corners. She later explained the
former was for horse or mule leash to rest, and the latter was where horse and mule could eat.
Horses and mules, she continued, were major means for transporting coal out of Yangquan
before trains and trucks were available.

Figure 2. Brick on the Wall (Photo by Junyi Lv) Figure 3. Trough (Photo by Junyi Lv)

36

Another trace of coal trading’s activeness was 厘金局 (lijinju), the equivalent of tax
agency in the Qing dynasty. Only in important transportation nexuses did the government
arrange such an institution to levy tax.
120

Figure 4. Old Tax Agency, Lijinju (Photo by Junyi Lv)
“Protect” Coal
Baojin Movement
Shanxi’s coal eventually caught attention from outside of China. In 1868, Ferdinand von
Richthofen, a German geologist who gave “Silk Road” its name, came to China for fieldwork.
Traveling across the country, he excitedly reported to the world that China has abundant coal
resources.
121
When traveling to Shanxi Province, he wrote:
Shansi (Shanxi) is one of the most remarkable coal and iron regions in the world…. at the
present rate of consumption of coal, could be supplied for thousands of years from Shansi
alone… [W]ith an area of about 55,000 square miles, [Shanxi] will take the palm from
Pennsylvania, by a considerably more favorable proportion.
122

Richthofen’s discovery had profound impacts internationally and especially domestically. China
was forced to re-open to foreign trade in the 1840s. The West was keen to gain access to China’s

37

mineral resources. China also wanted to learn about the world beyond its borders, as it realized
that it was no longer “the center of the world.” Reformers, journalists, scientists, intellectuals,
and even officers inside the Qing ruling caste strove to save the nation from colonial invasions
and joined the league of modern states. Coal was regarded as essential to China’s
industrialization as well as its scientific and technological advancement, just as it played a
crucial role in building and advancing European empires. Coal not only powered transportation
and machines, but also “served as a rhetorical device and metaphor for Chinese sovereignty.”
123

In the late 19
th
century, the Yangquan area (named Pingding then) became one of the
three major coal mining centers in Shanxi (Pingding, Taiyuan, and Lu’an). Richthofen traveled
to Pingding in 1870 and 1872 and pointed out the development of mining and iron industries in
the region.
124
After China failed the First Sino-Japanese War, the Qing government decided to
develop mining and borrow money from foreign merchants and banks. The Shanxi governor, Hu
Pinzhi, signed agreements with Pekin Syndicate, an Italian-merchant owned private company
later owned by the British government, to grant the syndicate the right to mine in Shanxi’s major
mining centers. The syndicate officially gained mining rights to Shanxi’s coal in May 1898. At
that time, Yangquan still lacked railways transporting coal efficiently. Therefore, Pekin
Syndicate remained less active in the area until 1905 when Zhengding-Taiyuan Railroad was
built to Pingtan Village in Yangquan. The same year in July, Pekin Syndicate started coal mining
in the region and required the government to ban local private mining.
125
Losing the mining
rights to the British company engendered a rights-recovery movement—Baojin ( 保晋 Protecting
Shanxi; Jin is the abbreviation of Shanxi) Movement.
126

In this movement, merchants, peasants, students, degree holders and officials
participated actively, demanding Qing government to rescind the mining agreement with the

38

British Syndicate. Local merchants, officials, and peasants started the societies Guben Company
and Bao’Ai Company to protect Yangquan’s mines from foreign companies.
127
Associating coal
mines with land integrity and sovereignty, students cried their petition, “If Shanxi’s Coal is Lost,
then Shanxi is Lost!”
128
Local merchants and peasants, together with Shanxi Governor Enshou,
requested central government to found Shanxi’s own mining company, Baojin Mining Company,
in 1907. Feeling the pressure and difficulty, Pekin Syndicate decided to give up the mining rights
in Shanxi, but on the condition that the rights should be bought back. In 1908, Baojin Mining
Company paid the syndicate the first half of the total 2.75 million taels payment to take over the
mining operations.
129

Baojin Company
In the Baojin Movement, Shanxi merchants ( 晋商 jinshang) played an important role. As
the common saying goes, “Where there are sparrows, there are Shanxi merchants” ( 有麻雀的地
方就有山西商人 you maque de defang jiu you shanxi shangren) Shanxi merchants, as one of the
three major merchant groups in China, have actively shaped the country’s economic and urban
development since the Ming Dynasty. Shanxi merchants created innovative business, finance,
and management models, laying the foundation for modern banks and enterprises.
130
The first
leader of Baojin Company, Liang Benqiao, was a local merchant. To pay Pekin and recover the
mining rights, he borrowed large amounts of money from many companies across Shanxi. After
the founding, Baojin Company invited foreign engineers to design new mineshafts and other
infrastructures, laying the foundation for its further development. At the same time, the company
was built under the circumstance of large debts, affecting its operation.
131

The company reformed under its third leader, Cui Tingxian, who studied in Japan. As a
provincial officer, Cui got the formerly promised support from the government, moved the

39

headquarter from Taiyuan to Yangquan, eliminated redundant staff and organizations, recruited
professionals and expertise, and built a board of trustees and operation and management teams,
which made the company close to a modern enterprise. However, with the constant wars going
on between warlords in the area, the company suffered from military levy, market decline, and
currency depreciation. The company underwent another reform and managed to survive until
October of 1937, taken over by Japanese militarists.
132

To maximize coal production, Japanese militarists ran the company in the way of
“junguanli” ( 军管理, military management) at the cost of human resources and environmental
damage. They ordered to open more shafts, to dig into more layers of coal seam, and to use more
productive, yet dangerous, mining techniques. They also adapted the local railway to transport
coal to northeast China and Japan, built a coal power plant, and took over local private coal
mines. Many local people were either tricked or forced to worked in coal mines, under
unbearable working and living conditions. During the eight-year Japanese militarist operation,
local coal mines produced more than 4,800,000 tons, with production increasing nine times from
1938 to 1943. The rough way of producing coal also caused a tremendous waste of resources,
such as 23,000,000 tons of coal, which was two times as much as the total local coal production
from 1907 to 1945.
133

When Japan failed in World War II, Yan Xishan, a warlord affiliated with the
Kuomintang Party, took over Yangquan’s coal mines. With the currency depreciation and
inflation during war time, miners were paid with millet instead of money. The millet, however,
was often skimped through the management hierarchy. Miners were also required to pay for
various fees and taxes, living in precarities and difficulties. On May 2
nd
, 1947, the Communist
Party built Yangquan City, which was the first city ever established by the party. Baojin Mining

40

Company later became Yangquan coal company, the largest economic pillar in the region.
134

Since then, coal is always affiliated with nation-owned industries and closely associated with
nationalism and patriotism.
The development of coal industry in Shanxi is entangled with the colonial history of the
region. The protection of coal mines was to protect the resource from colonial and military
powers, which caused tremendous damage to both human and nonhuman communities locally.
Yet, coal is still regarded as a resource to utilize and thus to own, control, and fight for. Because
of the colonial history, coal mining is gilded with symbolic association with nationalism and
patriotism, which continued after the establishment of PRC. As the first city established by the
Communist Party, Yangquan witnessed such an association being amplified in the region.
Cut Coal
Coal miners used the verb “cut” to describe the process of removing coal from seams.
After the industrialization and wide use of machines underground, the motion of mining coal has
changed from “dig” indicating human labor to “cut.” I could not help connecting the verb to a
one-sided relation in which humans, facilitated by machines, have dominant power over the
energy resource. Yet, later in this section, you will find coal miners’ vulnerability, rather than
domination, in an extremely dangerous work setting. Then, who is claiming to be dominating?
The machines? The industry as a whole system? Or is the domination a delusion?
Yangquan Coal Company
Coal has powered China’s industrialization and urbanization “throughout the twentieth
and twenty-first century, especially after the liberalization of coal production in 1979.”
135
After
the PRC’s establishment in 1949, coal industries’ development in Yangquan aligned with the
country’s rise and struggle in different periods. Before the opening-up and reform, Yangquan

41

Coal Company was still called “Bureau of Mine” ( 矿务局, Kuangwuju), following the Planned
Economy model of the country. The coal industry grew rapidly in the first five years, receiving
support from the Soviet Union’s experts; it even maintained a general growth during the Great
Leap Forward. However, during the cultural revolution, the bureau was controlled by the
“rebels” ( 造反派 zaofanpai), and shifted away from economic development.
136
After the
marketization of the economic model in 1978, the bureau got back on track with coal production,
and gradually diversified businesses and operations from coal production to chemical
engineering, construction, mechanics, and even service industries such as hotel accommodation.
In 1997, the bureau changed its name into Yangquan Coal Industry Group Co., Ltd., marking its
establishment as a modern enterprise system and transition to a state-owned enterprise. The
company went IPO in 1999, and experienced “the golden decade” (2003-2012) of the coal
industry.
137
During the golden decade, the city and the company strove to emulate the Ruhr area
in Germany, as the campaign went, “Build China’s Ruhr Area and Construct the Pearl City at the
East Shanxi.”
138
The company was proud to be listed as a Fortune 500 company multiple
times.
139

The coal company, like what Marina Welker observed on an American Mining Firm in
Indonesia, was “inherently unstable and indeterminate, multiply authored, always in flux, and
comprising both material and immaterial parts.”
140
A major tension exists between the material
and the immaterial part: the material part—buildings, properties, financial systems etc. has
adopted a modern enterprise management system. Like what Victor Seow described in Carbon
Technocracy, the system was “consistently underestimating or overlooking the human factor,”
141

but valued standardization and efficiency for lowering the cost and making more profits. The
immaterial part—the humans, however, was still largely based on relationships. It was still a

42

hierarchical system, instead of project-based flat organization. The mid-level leaders, many of
which had professional training and frontier experiences underground, were the ones actually
driving changes and proposing new initiatives; the top leaders made decisions based on
subordinary’ proposals. Mr. V,
1
a staff member in the coal company was concerned about the
difficulties in getting approval from his boss, which might halt many great ideas and plans.
When it comes to lower-level mines, relationships still play an important role in many aspects.
The new miners were appointed to a more experienced coal miner as their mentor, following the
mentor’s close guidance underground. Many coal miners emphasized the importance of relations
in getting promoted or being transferred to a less dangerous position. For instance, being
transferred from the excavation team to ventilation team. In the documentary, The Third Coal
Mine, the team leader referred to the team members as his “children,” reflecting that family-clan
model still held although the management system was “modernized.”
142

Four Rocks, One Flesh
When asked about the working conditions underground, coal miners used a phrase
commonly circulated among them: one flesh hemmed by four rocks ( 四块石头夹一块肉 sikuai
shitou jia yikuai rou). The contrast between hard rock and the vulnerable human body is directly
illustrated in this phrase, and an even more moving contrast was the half-joking tone of coal
miners when talking about it. I heard the phrase when I was having dinner with six coal miners,
talking and recollecting their days underground, and repeating the phrase. After Mr. O
2
explained
the phrase, Mr. C
3
immediately responded, “It should be five instead of four rocks. You see?” He
started counting with his fingers, “Floor, top, left, right, and front. You forgot to count the front.”

1
Pseudonym.
2
Pseudonym.
3
Pseudonym.

43

Another coal miner interjected, “In front of you was the machine, cutting coal seam; but yes,
there is the coal seam—rock, in front of you.” Despite the disagreement, the isolation,
vulnerability, and danger were agreed by all of them.
The underground working conditions, although improved over time with more advanced
technology and machines replace human labor, still “hem in” miners in a “multimodal” way.
Coal miners introduced the working condition to me. Coal dust was common, slowly improving
over time. Miners do have masks, but often they could not stand to wear them all the time due to
long hours. Still, many have pneumoconiosis. Coal miners must stand extremely loud sounds of
machines constantly, contrasted by the common deprivation of vision—these days, the main
tunnel is often constructed nicer with lighting, yet the major coal seam where miners work has
dim light. It was also cold and damp underground, with constant “wind” created by the air
ejector. Many miners have rheumatic disease. Moreover, underground did not have clean water
transported for a long time, and miners had to drink whatever was available from the rocks and
mountains. Coal miners must deal with all the hazards above every day for long hours, usually
between fifteen and twenty hours. They are a group of people who “never see sunlight,” said by
a coal miner and a coal company executive. Although one shift of working was eight hours,
miners had to get up before sunrise, leave home, and wear the uniform, then participate in pre-
work meetings—usually emphasizing safety measures. Then, it takes time to go to the working
seams. Sometimes, simply descending deep underground to the work site takes ninety minutes.
During the long commute underground, they usually took a “monkey car” ( 猴车), a cableway
transporting system. It is called a “monkey car” because a person has to “sit” in this car, which is
really a pole with a small sitting area, like a monkey. After work, they go up, take a shower, and
go home, and it is often close to midnight.

44

As early as the 19
th
century, Zola’s novel Germinal has depicted the unbearable working
conditions of coal miners. During the research into mines at Anzin, Zola saw a big workhorse
and wondered how to transport it in and out of the mine every day. The miners explained:
Mr. Zola, don’t you understand? That horse comes down here once, when he’s
a colt, barely more than a foal, and still able to fit into the buckets that bring us
down here. That horse grows up down here. He grows blind down here after a
year or two, from the lack of light. He hauls coal down here until he can’t haul
it anymore, and then he dies down here, and his bones are buried down here.
143

Journalist and writer, Tom Wolfe, commented on the story:
When Zola transfers this revelation from the pages of his documentation notebook
to the pages of Germinal, it makes the hair on your arms stand on end. You
realize, without the need of amplification, that the horse is the miners themselves,
who descend below the face of the earth as children and dig coal down in the pit
until they can dig no more and then are buried, often literally, down there.
144

The hard labor has been ameliorated by technology and machines today compared with
the 1800s. It is still ironic that coal miners, as the ones digging the “buried sunshine,”
were those who cannot see the real sunshine daily while working underground.
What is worse, coal miners face constant hazards – gas leaks, roof collapse, and rock
burst. A technique that many coal miners must learn, especially before machines were commonly
used, was qiaobangwending ( 敲梆问顶), to knock the rocks on the top to detect the geological
condition and judge for the safety. In our conversations, coal miners described their work as “life
in exchange for coal” ( 以命换煤 yimeihuanming). A number kept by the industry and its
supervisor was death rate per million tons. The rate has decreased significantly from the imperial
era to nowadays—after machine mining and especially shutting down illegal private mines with
limited safety measures. The counting rates continues to suggest the expectation that there will
be death in coal mining. Often, the supervising department would put a cap on the rate, below

45

which the rate would be considered “fine.” Mr. W
4
, having worked in a local small village mine,
described the seemingly absurd scene: when a coal miner died in an accident, the company sent
people, often the miner’s co-workers, to drag the body using a cart back to his family in the
village. “You need to be quick! Throw the body and run,” Mr. W added in our talks, “otherwise
the family will beat you because they were so upset.” Although the machine has significantly
reduced human labor and improved working conditions, due to the complex geographical and
geological conditions, machines cannot reach every corner. Mr. Z
5
, in charge of gas monitoring
underground shared, “using machines on flat land is fine, but humans are still needed in hills or
cramped place.” When asked about his job satisfaction, Mr. Z was practical and honest. He
described his job as “worse than some, better than many.” His work allowed his children to have
the option to leave Yangquan and have a better life. His hope is common among parents who
support their children to leave their hometown for better education and career opportunities.
To prepare for the high-risk working conditions, coal miners did receive training in
schools, usually affiliated with the coal company. However, the curriculum often did not meet
the required skillset underground, but aligned with typical school subjects like math or Chinese.
Students could not pay attention to the courses that they regarded as “useless.” Moreover, the
labor conditions, already unbearable as they were, have become even more unstable due to
various kinds of contracts that coal miners can sign with the company. The formal employees
can have all the benefits, insurance, reimbursement, and compensation; but not the temporary
employees, often recruited in local villages or migrants from other regions.

4
Pseudonym.
5
Pseudonym.

46

Coal miners work to support their family. Their jobs often cause worry and concern about
family members; and many could not start families because of the high-risk job. Mrs. W
6

described a habit of hers over the decades, “Every night, I had to hear the gate of my yard make a
sound, then I knew it is my husband coming back safely from work. It was usually late, so we
didn’t interact, but I had to hear the sound so that I can sleep.” Coal miners often draw a clear
boundary between work and home. They hardly share the experiences underground with
families. In our conversations, Mrs. W explained that she had never heard Mr. W talk in much
detail about his work. “They (wife and children) won’t understand,” Mr. W said briefly to me.
At the social level, females are also segregated from the underground world. Women are
restricted from stepping into the mine, for it is believed that it will bring bad luck. I found this
belief common not only in my hometown, but also in other coal culture, for instance, Southeast
Kentucky. Coal miners and their families gave various possibilities of where the belief came
from. Some referred to Chinese Daoism dialectics, that everything in the universe can be
categorized as Yin and Yang. Women are Yin as men are Yang. Similarly, the earth is Yin, and
the sky is Yang. Underground coal mines, therefore, is the most Yin place, and only men’s Yang
could complement the Yin. Women, however, will only exacerbate the Yin when going
underground, breaking the balance of Yin and Yang. Others claimed that it is not only
inconvenient but dangerous for women to work underground. There were no restrooms at all.
Mining requires physical strength and thus, is more suitable for men. Mining takes place in dark,
closed spaces with a group of men, so it could be a potentially dangerous job for women. A
female conversation partner, who I related to because of our shared female identity, explained
that women go through menstruation every month, yet blood is believed as a taboo, the worst

6
Pseudonym.

47

luck in mines. A coal company executive also pointed out that it is written in the law that
females shall not work underground. Chinese government published Provisions on the Scope of
Taboo Work for Female Workers ( 女职工禁忌劳动范围的规定) in 1990, forbidding female
workers from working for:
...underground mine operations and operations with the fourth level of physical labor
intensity in the ‘Classification of Physical Labor Intensity’ standard, these taboos mainly
include: forest harvesting operations, relocation and exile operations; assembly and
dismantling of scaffolding in the construction industry; High-altitude stringing operations
in the electric power and telecommunications industries; continuous loads (referring to
more than 6 loads per hour) each time exceeding 20 kg, and intermittent loads each time
(exceeding 25 kg).
145

But there was a female miner, Jinyun Su, in the coal company’s history. She graduated
from Coal Industry School in Fushun,
146
Liaoning Province (also a coal city), and came to
Yangquan to become a coal miner in 1955. She used the knowledge and skills learned
excellently and was appointed as team leader in 1956. Su’s experience is not common, and is tied
with a specific social context in the 1950s, when Mao Zedong called for women’s liberation,
“Times have changed, and men and women are alike. What male comrades can do, female
comrades can do too” (“ 时代不同了，男女都一样，男同志能办到的事，女同志也能办得
到”).
147
The liberation was closely associated with the country’s need of economic and industry
development.
“Lazy Bear” as Resistance
Working within poor conditions, coal miners have to come up with passive adaptations
and active resistance. When asked the most common thing to do underground, miners gave an
unexpected answer—napping. Mr. K
7
, a miner who worked underground for ten years, attributed
napping to the extreme darkness and isolation in our conversations, “there is really nothing much

7
Pseudonym.

48

you can do when you are not the central person in the team—meaning operating machine and
cutting coal. You just lie down and nap.” The napping resonates with the “lying-flat” movements
as a resistance initiated by younger generations in China in reaction to a highly competitive and
involuted working culture.
148
It can be regarded as Chinese coal miners’ version of “weapons of
the weak,” an everyday form of resistance when organized resistance and movements are less
viable.
149
Moreover, it has remote resonance with Rest is Resistance, a New York Times best
seller by the “napping bishop” Tricia Hersey, written against capitalism and white supremacy.
150

A more active resistance than passive adaptation was initiated by the “lazy bears” among
coal miners. In Yangquan dialect, calling someone “lazy bear” is scolding them for being lazy. In
The Third Coal Mine, a documentary depicting a 110-year-old coal mine, a production team
captain laid that term thick on his team members, to prompt them to work harder.
151
All coal
company executives emphasized safety issues during talks. When asked why accidents happen,
they sometimes pointed to miners being lazy with an “it will be alright” mindset, and not
following rules and instructions. For instance, the electric cable should be fixed on the wall, but
sometimes they are just too lazy to do that and let the cable fall into water, causing electric
shocks. Coal miners were also honest about their occasional “laziness” during talks. I become
curious about how “being lazy” can be common under high-risk conditions. Don’t they know if
they do not fix the cable, or if they sit on the coal conveyor belt and fall asleep, or do not place
machines properly on the wall, their lives will be threatened?
As our conversations went deeper, reasons emerged. Of course, coal miners are tired.
Apart from fatigue, the so-called “it will be alright” mindset comes from habits living in a
completely different environment—in the mountains. Most miners in my hometown, especially
those working for small village-owned mines, are also farmers. Just like many Southeast

49

Kentucky coal miners love fishing and hunting, Yangquan miners enjoy going to the mountains,
breathing fresh air, picking fruits, and catching wild rabbits. Mr. W
8
described how different he
felt when in the mountains versus being underground in mines during our talk. He always
referred to the coal mine as “theirs.” In the coal mine, he felt he was working for someone else,
but in the mountains, he could live a self-sufficient life and work to support his family.
Moreover, a farming-gathering-hunting lifestyle has trained him to be aware of and alert in his
surroundings and trust his instincts and experience. When underground, he is used to trusting
himself, instead of following the instructions and rules. The very first thing he did when I visited
his apartment was show me all the instructional and training textbooks he read. But later he said,
there was always a gap between theory and practice:
Underground, everything happens so fast. I encountered fire, gas leaking, small
explosions, mine roof collapse, water leakage, almost everything through my 18-year
work. I cannot just follow the instruction step-by-step. It would be too slow. Often, I just
need to trust my experience and gut.

Organized resistance was rare. Although coal mines all have unions, they function
differently than Kentucky’s union organizing strikes and even fight for miners’ rights against the
coal company. The unions affiliated with the coal company were responsible for preparing
benefits and gifts for miners during holidays and organized cultural events such as Spring
Festival Gala for the communities. Its resistance function was replaced by community culture
building solidarity and enriching miners’ lives in leisure time. In other words, unions play an
epideictic role, especially in terms of acknowledging, rewarding, and celebrating coal miners’
contributions in ceremonial occasions. Coal miners are regarded as heroes nationally or

8
Pseudonym.

50

industrially, and those who made great contributions or sacrifices are acknowledged as “model
workers” in different ranking systems: national, provincial, and municipal.
Factory-yard Life
Working in the factory, miners and their families live in “dayuan ( 大院, big yard).” Big
yards are the most typical way of organizing communities in a coal town, serving as
complementary living areas, and are often geographically close to mines and factories. Residents
in the same yard usually work for the same company branches or units, knowing each other well.
Children in big yards grew up together, went to the same schools before college and played
together after school and during vacations. The coal company provided not only employment for
most of the community members, but also all kinds of living facilities and services, such as real
estate development and management, hotels, hospitals, schools, restaurants, and even for a while,
self-produced milk by a company-owned factory trying to diversify its businesses. Mr. F
9
,
working for Yangquan Coal Company, introduced proudly, “We have everything except the
crematorium.” Similarly, Mrs. I
10
was satisfied with the benefits that the coal company can
provide for employees and their families:
I chose to buy a coal company developed apartment. It is high quality, much higher
quality than many other real estate developers. It is also much cheaper. If you buy an
apartment in the city, it will probably cost about 5,000-6,000 per square meter these days;
but if you buy a company-developed apartment, it only cost 3,000-4,000 per square
meter.

This kind of apartment developed by coal company is called xiao chanquan ( 小产权, little
property). It can only be purchased and sold by coal company employees and their families.
Instead of having the general ownership certificates, the coal company grants special ownership

9
Pseudonym.
10
Pseudonym.

51

certificates of the property recognized by their own system. The company affiliated
organizations also provided higher pay for its employees. Mrs. M,
11
working in a primary school
in the city, expressed her jealousy of teachers who worked in company-affiliated schools.
However, in the 2000s, the city government worked together with coal company and started the
initiative of “shehuihua ( 社会化, socialization).” Many company-affiliated organizations,
especially schools, belonged not to the company but the city. The big yard also changed over the
past 50 years, from single-story houses to tall apartment buildings. The old vegetable cellar that
came with each house, now became an independent storage room.
At the microlevel, coal communities’ lives are centered around factory and yard. At the
macrolevel, the Yangquan area is categorized as the city districts and the mining districts.
Yangquan contains three districts and two counties in total: the city district, the mining district,
and the suburban district, including Pingding County and Yu County. The city district was the
city center. The mining district contains five old mines, among which three have been shut down.
The suburban district, and two counties also contain some mines. The traces of coal mines have
been deeply embedded in the area’s geographical histories. Streets and bus stops are named after
mines, even after their closing-down. If parents are too embarrassed to answer their children’s
question, “Where do I come from?” they will simply joke, “We picked you up at a coal ash pile.”
Drive Coal
Besides “big yard,” another “big” is “big trucks,” referring to coal trucks. Trucks are the
major transportation means of coal other than railway. As the “east gate” of Shanxi Province,
Yangquan has many coal trucks that run between Shanxi and nearby provinces. My childhood
witnessed big trucks soaring across streets day and night, leaving dust in the air and debris along

11
Pseudonym.

52

the road. To protect the air and environment in the city, coal trucks are not allowed to enter the
cities, at first during the day. Now most of the time, coal trucks are not allowed to enter the cities
during day nor night. Traveling between Yangquan and neighboring places, however, I can still
see coal trucks running on the freeways.
Mr. J
12
was a coal truck driver for more than ten years since the 1990s. He used to drive
Yangquan’s coal, also local aluminite and iron, to Hebei’s powerplants, and bring back sand for
local construction. Living an irregular schedule, Mr. J was supposed to be on the road from 7am
to 7pm daily; but with frequent traffic jams, he often arrived home the second morning. Sit-down
dining was hardly viable. Stuck in traffic jams, the available food was often ham sausages and
bottled water thrown into the window by local villagers along the road. This kind of “window-
shopping” was not always voluntary. Despite drivers’ hunger, as long as the sausages
successfully made it through the window, it was to be paid.
Although the driving was long, Mr. J did not think his job was “that tiring,” he added,
“but, it could be dangerous.” From the early 1990s until around 1997 was a “wild bloom” era of
coal industries and local economies in many places. Driving on the road, Mr. J encountered
various situations. The traffic jam does not count as a difficulty at all. Often, stuck in traffic for
hours, the drivers would find coal, aluminite, iron, sand, and even oil stolen. If driving at night,
villagers along the road dressed up in white, block the road with a big coffin and asked for
money. Usually, 10 or 20 Yuan would be enough to clear the road. “Big trucks” were the target
of road blocking. “Small cars were fine,” said Mr. J, “they are afraid of people sitting in small
cars.” Once he parked and tried to fix the tire, only to find that all the tools were stolen by an
owner of a tire shop nearby. The owner insisted that Mr. J should get the tire fixed in the shop.

12
Pseudonym.

53

Mr. J particularly remembered in 1994, when driving back to Yangquan from Hebei
together with a co-driver Mr. D
13
, the tire was broken so they drove to the tire shop to get it
replaced. Before fixing it, the owner said it would cost 20 Yuan, which was the typical price to
fix a tire at that time. Yet, after fixing it, the owner asked for 200 Yuan. Being rejected by the
two drivers, the owner moved the fixed tire indoors, locked the door and turn off the lights. Mr. J
and D thus decided to call local police, who arrived two hours later and started to “huoxini” ( 和
稀泥, try to mediate differences at the sacrifice of principle), trying to convince the two drivers
to pay 100 Yuan. Mr. J explained, “The local police were often on the side of the locals. As
outsiders, we were not protected. Being beat was not uncommon to truck drivers.”
Even more surreal, once Mr. J and Mr. D, together with another friend, Mr. H
14
, drove
back near a bridge at the Yellow River. A nearby restaurant owner waved and welcomed the
three for dinner. After parked the truck and entered the restaurant, Mr. J and Mr. D found Mr. H,
who went in first several minutes ago, lost. The owner pointed to a room inside the yard and the
two drivers walked toward it with hesitance. Opening the door curtain, they saw Mr. H was
handcuffed against the headboard of a bed, with his pants pulled halfway down. A woman was
sitting at the bed, pretending to cry. The owner asked for 2000 Yuan to settle this down.
Knowing it was too short for Mr. H to do anything, Mr. J and D refused to pay. The deadlock
lasted for the whole night and eventually the drivers paid 400 Yuan to get them out.
Overloaded was the default for coal trucks at that time. Once driving an overloaded truck,
Mr. J found the brake pad did not work. He thus drove into a pile of coal at a nearby coal storage
yard and survived. Later he made a deal with the yard manager: “You can take all the coal, just

13
Pseudonym.
14
Pseudonym.

54

helped me to get my truck out.” Mr. J explained, “Because coal belonged to the company, not to
myself. Therefore, I don’t care about the coal.” Moreover, he continued, “Stealing coal to sell
was typical for drivers at that time; not only coal, but also iron sand; along the road there were
always people, often villagers, buying coal.” Working for the transportation company, coal truck
drivers were getting paid by the times they run instead of the amount of coal being transported.
Moreover, constantly overloading the truck, the transportation company was loose in recording
the actual amount of coal. The transportation company often only collaborated with local small,
private coal mines. The big mines, for instance, those owned by Yangquan Coal Company, often
transported coal via trains instead of trucks.
Because individuals’ “steal” coal and sell privately, the transportation company
eventually could not afford the loss and decided to change its business model: individuals could
sign contracts with the company, pay certain fees and the company would provide trucks and
facilities. Then the individual could directly operate their own truck(s). All the money made by
transporting the coal belongs to the individuals, not the company. The new model allowed the
individuals to afford winning or losing themselves, and provided the company additional revenue
streams. Now thirty years later, two out of four major transportation companies are still in
operation in Yangquan, but they sell automobiles these days instead of transporting coal.
The stealing, fraud, and even violence in the “wild bloom” phase were ameliorated since
Zhu Rongji, the former Prime Minister, started economic reform in 1998. Eventually crime
dwindled as private, illegal coal mines were shut down, and President Xi Jinping started anti-
corruption initiatives and Saoheichu’e ( 扫黑除恶, cracking down organized crimes),
152
said Mr.
J and Mr. X
15
, a friend of Mr. J who still drives coal trucks after starting in 2003. More than

15
Pseudonym.

55

thirty years on the road, Mr. X felt the change, “Nowadays it is very safe. Xi’s cracking down
works. Previously, if you report to police, they may not make any move. But now if you report a
case, they move fast.” Mr. J added, “Also, we all use cellphones now. There is no cash to steal or
rob, it’s all digital. In old days, we had to carry cash everywhere.”
The digital transformation also changed the coal transportation business. Mr. X
elaborated that these days, all business came from platforms. The platform functions like the
Uber App, except drivers pick up coal instead of passengers. The platform affords uploading and
offloading coal through QR code confirmation. After the trip is finished, the driver can
immediately get paid, whereas in the old days, drivers received calls for business and had to call
back to confirm finishing the trip. “Calling was not convenient,” said Mr. X, “often our payment
got delayed, and what’s the worse, the payment could be lower than what we agreed on before
the trip. But nowadays with the platform, everything is set; they cannot cut our payment
anymore.”
However, the transportation business is currently going down based on Mr. X’s
experiences. Driving a truck is always a low-threshold job: the skill threshold is low, although
driving truck requires a specific type of license, but anyone can learn and pass the test. The
operation threshold is even lower with availability of bank loans. Mr. X explained, “Right now,
it’s zero down payment. You do not need to pay anything in advance to get a truck.” Mr. J added
“Even though someone can afford paying for the truck themselves, they may still choose to get
bank loan. Why not? It costs nothing. Even though eventually you cannot pay the bank back, just
let them have the truck. It is not a big deal.” The lower thresholds led to higher competition as
Mr. X explained, “Previously we had more businesses than trucks, but now, we have more trucks
than businesses.” Moreover, running a business with a loan is much harder than expected. “It is

56

like every day you opened your eyes in the morning, you already owe the bank 800 Yuan (about
$111 US Dollar),” Mr. X expressed his feelings, “the bank lends you an umbrella when it’s
sunny but take it away when it’s rainy.”
The pandemic affected truck business heavily. Before the pandemic, Mr. X could get
deals all year round. But since 2020, he could only stay in Yangquan in winter like everybody
else due to the quarantine requirement. The business could only resume in May and ran until late
October. November was usually another wave of the virus coming back and the quarantine order
started again. During the active seasons, the frequency of trips decreased since it took much
longer to run a single trip because of Covid tests while on the road. For each trip, the payment is
going down year by year. In 2021, said Mr. X, a driver could still receive 8,000 Yuan per month,
with 60-120 Yuan to cover daily food expenses. In 2022, it has become 6,000 Yuan per month,
with no daily expenses covered.
More and more truck drivers are not letting their children take the same path these days;
although in earlier times, truck drivers, like coal miners, can be a generational job passed down
through generations in families. “Nowadays the best job is a tiefanwan ( 铁饭碗, iron bowl,
referring to a stable job usually affiliated with state-owned company, or public institutions such
as schools, or civil servants),” said Mr. X. Envious about Mr. J’s job move from driving trucks to
driving cars in “tizhi nei” ( 体制内, within the system, usually state-owned company or pubic and
civil service systems), Mr. X said, “it was the right move you made.” Mr. J laughed, “I asked you
to join me two years ago, but you refused, saying the money was not good.”
Away from Coal, Away from Home
Four Disembeddednesses of Coal Dependence

57

Scholars on modernity studies have focused on the concept “disembedded,” trying to
draw a schism, a contrast between the old and new from different perspectives. For instance,
Karl Polani’s embeddedness addressed economic activities being restrained by non-economic
logic such as kinship, religious, and political ways of rationalization and institutions.
153

Disembeddedness on the contrary, depicted that people are pulled out of original life
experiences, and become increasingly centered around economic activities and production.
154

Anthony Giddens’s disembedding describes how modern communication and transportation
technology facilitate people to have less in-person interactions, and that social relationships are
less restrained by space.
155
Charles Taylor coined “the great disembedding” to capture the rise of
individualism and self-consciousness, leading people to break from the abstract whole such as
religion in the pre-modern era.
156
The three kinds of disembeddedness, economic, social, and
identity, aptly delineated Yangquan communities gradually being locked into industrialized coal
regime and uprooted from their life experiences. Starting in the imperial times, Yangquan
communities were forced by colonialists and militarists during the republican era, and
strengthened after the industrialization of the country.
From the perspective of economics, coal miners’ work and life are centered around coal
production. Coal industries are fixated with numbers—the number of productions, death rate,
profit, working hours, and so on. Every day the company will assign a number of coal mining
jobs to each mining team. By meeting the number, coal miners can gain “credit(s),” which will
later being transferred as monthly salary. There is a multiplicity of difficulties, such as so many
steps that can go wrong, if not impossible to control, yet the numbers are easy to measure,
standardize, and practice. The economic model surrounding numbers, thus, is a linear
oversimplification of complex situations underground. On the societal level, the coal industry

58

became the dominant industry in the region, for which other possibilities of life are eclipsed and
even eliminated. Even within the industrial system, coal becomes the only dominant unit while
other industries either disappeared or served in the supply chain of coal and coal-powered
industries. For instance, some light industries such as food production and clothes-making used
to be developed in Yangquan, gaining the city nicknames “little Hong Kong” and “little
Shanghai” for its small but complete industrial system. Yet other units of the industrial system
eventually gave away to coal production, as policy, money, and labor and resources are tilted
toward coal industries. This problem is framed as yimeiduda ( 一煤独大, coal is the only
significant).
157
The unsustainability of the coal-dependent economy comes from the finite
amount and availability of coal, and more importantly, the fundamental illusion of taking nature
under complete control of human beings armed by machines and technologies.
From the social perspective, community members’ daily lives have been organized by the
factory-yard model. Social relationships are mainly between acquaintance in work and
community blocks. Within the coal communities, people’s connection can be close with each
other. However, coal communities may face stereotypes and stigmatization from outside. In
other words, the coal industry has enlarged the differences of relation-organization between
resource-based places and non-resource-based places. Coal communities are very easy to be
regarded as a homogeneous whole instead of diverse, complex, vibrant individuals. One example
is “coal boss,” regarded as “tuhao” (nouveau riche) – vulgar, arrogant, and corrupted. Stories of
their buying whole buildings instead of a single apartment in Beijing, where real estate prices are
higher than Los Angeles, are common. The “coal boss” marks others’ impression of Shanxi.
When I went to another province for college and introduced myself as from Shanxi, I was asked,
jokingly, if I am the daughter of a coal boss. Many Yangquan community members shared

59

similar stereotypes that they experienced. Even within Yangquan, coal separated people in the
city and mining district. Mrs. I
16
, who grew up in the mining district and later moved to the city
district, told me that even within Yangquan, people living in the city district would look down on
people living in mining district, regarding the latter as vulgar and uneducated. Moreover,
younger generations choose to leave their hometown for better education and to pursue a career,
being disembedded from close relationships in the small coal town. Parents not only support but
also encourage their children to leave, many buying housing properties outside Yangquan, for
instance in Hainan Island, for retirement life. The population in Yangquan declined from 1.37
million to 1.32 million in the past 10 years.
158
Compared with previous generations of coal
miners whose families were generations of miners as well, more and more miners do not want
their children to work in the mines.
In terms of identity disembeddedness, what I found in my hometown differed from
Nash’s study, We Eat the Mines and the Mines Eat Us.
159
From my understanding, there is
something bigger than individuals, suggested in the book by tin miners in Bolivia. They
acknowledged the agency of mines, and at least treated them as equal, demonstrated by this
statement. The coal miners I talked to in my hometown did not regard mines’ agency, but dealing
with their work in a “disenchanted” way—work is work; I work for money so I can support
myself and my family. There was not a “bigger whole” than individuals or humans—even coal
was “planted” by a Daoism deity to reward humans’ virtue and kindness. I wonder if this one-
sided “domination” comes from machine use in mining, or China’s fast but concentrated
industrialization process.

16
Pseudonym.

60

I propose a fourth kind of disembeddedness from the environmental perspective.
Environmental disembeddedness is not to argue a break of culture from nature. Instead,
environmental here refers to the physical, spatial environment of nature-culture—the
environment where communities dwell. Miners hate mines but love mountains where they could
chase rabbits, collect fruits, and work for themselves. The underground world forced multimodal
deprivation of senses and agency. Coal communities are also disembedded from the basic living
environment, starting with water. Yangquan and Shanxi Province used to have abundant water
resources, yet coal mining drastically changed the landscape, making the region lack of water.
160

Besides, environmental problems and pollutions have changed the landscape a lot. An officer
working for the local environmental protection bureau introduced Yangquan’s situation: mining
damages the ecological environment surrounding the mine and threatening the habitat of
organisms, which mainly includes damage to the surface, movement of rock formations, acid
drainage of mines, coal gangue accumulation, and coal bed methane emissions. Burning coal
produces pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, and
mercury, which cause air pollution and acid rain. Coal consumption also emits greenhouse gases,
causing climate change. Moreover, since Yangquan is in a narrow valley between two
mountains, and pollutants tend to accumulate in urban areas and not dissipate easily, worsening
the environment. Mrs. M shared her experiences of coughing a lot during winter, which has
stopped since leaving Yangquan for Hainan (a southern island) in winter. The impact of climate
change is also tangible to local communities, especially agricultures. A previous coal miner
starting beekeeping, Mr. B
17
expressed his observations that extreme weather and irregular
temperature change reduced honey production significantly.

17
Pseudonym.

61

Economic, social, identity, and environmental disembeddedness are intertwined with
each other in coal communities’ lives. Tensions between lifeworld and systems embedded in
these perspectives make coal-dependence fundamentally unsustainable. Human beings taking
full control over environment was a delusion formulated by industrialization in the form of
taking control over machines. Coal communities directly felt and struggle with these tensions at
the frontier. As climate change, environmental problems, and the global pandemic urge humans
to remap the relation with nonhumans, coal transitions are initiated, bringing new waves of
disembeddedness.
New Disembeddedness in Coal Transition
Since 2013, China accelerated decarbonization and climate change mitigation, following
Xi Jinping’s initiative to build an “ecological civilization.”
161
Transforming the coal-dependent
economy to sustainable development is the goal both nationally and regionally. The coal sector
started the “de-capacity” process.
162
Many regions including Yangquan aim to shift away from
coal-dependent economies. This was not the first time my hometown wanted to transition away
from coal. As early as the turn of the millennium, even before the “golden decade” of coal
industry (2002-2012), the leaders of Yangquan and Shanxi Province have put coal transition on
the table. However, when the price of coal went up, transition was set aside.
Compared with the previous one, which was more of a market-driven strategy, the
current transition has more substantial influences. Coal mines were shut down and the remaining
mines are making mining cleaner and safer. Yet community members are facing another
economic, social, environmental, and perhaps identity disembeddedness from the coal-
dependence model. Due to shutting down coal mines and resource depletion, coal miners are
relocated to other mines farther and farther away from home. Although the company provided

62

some training opportunities for post-mining careers, these small-scale trainings have limited
availability to the large number of miners. The disembeddedness, this time, is from the rather
stable factory-yard life “where everybody knows your name,” into the unknown precarities of a
post-mining life.
Current coal transition itself remains ambiguous. China’s electricity generation is still
roughly 60% dependent on coal.
163
Challenged by the energy crisis since the pandemic, and
exacerbated by climate change, energy security has been brought back to the table, emphasized
by the current national regime. For instance, this summer, without recovering from the
pandemic, southwest China was hit by heat and wildfires, earthquake, and energy shortages. The
current sentiment in the country and in Yangquan has tilted toward “guarantee energy security,”
without damaging the goal and the benefits of decarbonization. How will the country guarantee
energy security and continue the decarbonization? How will coal communities like Yangquan
live through the transition while navigating the uncertainty, precarity, and possibilities? Inter-
referencing to another context might be useful. The next chapter will lead us to Southeast
Kentucky, coal communities at the heartland of the U.S., the world’s second largest carbon
emitter and the largest economy.

63

Interlude: More than KFC, More than Coal
Where is the happiest place for children to spend the weekends, or celebrate birthdays
and festivals? In Los Angeles, the answer might be Disneyland. In a tier-five coal town in
northern China, it was Kentucky Fried Chicken. When KFC opened its first restaurant in my
hometown in 2003, near a shopping center, it became a mother-daughter destination almost
every Saturday afternoon. Later, when I was in high school, another branch opened near my
family’s neighborhood. It quickly became a spot for young people to hang out, do homework,
and play board games through the night during summer vacation.
So, when I decided on Kentucky for my inter-referencing fieldwork, I searched my whole
memory about the place. Kentucky Fried Chicken was the only point of reference, besides my
knowing the state’s association with coal and vaguely remembering from a high school textbook
that many rivers marked its geography. Interestingly, KFC’s Kentucky association has been
weakened in China; its brand was translated as ken de ji, a phonetic name where the reference to
Kentucky is mixed with reference to chicken. So before seeing KFC’s full name in the U.S., I did
not know the restaurant brand holding my childhood memories was developed in Kentucky. In
China, KFC’s fast-food characteristics have also been weakened, through localizing with
Chinese food culture. China-localized KFC is not only about eat-and-go fried chicken, but also
rice, barbeque, congee, and more importantly, a place to sit down and spend time with family
and friends.
Holding the childhood nostalgia with KFC in mind, I started the adventure in southeast
Kentucky. Culture travels and gets lost in translation, foregrounding the necessity of on-site
fieldwork. Not surprising, my initial understanding of Kentucky was narrow and shallow. The
place is not only more than KFC, but also more than coal. Still, I met Colonel Sanders (a

64

gentleman playing Colonel Sanders many times in Corbin and also in other places), and shared
my childhood experiences of visiting KFC in my hometown. The Colonel was pleased to hear
that KFC is a fun and popular place for Chinese teenagers but walked away when he heard that
Chinese KFCs also served rice with fried chicken. As this chapter will show, Kentucky is proud
of its natural beauty, heritage, the spirit of self-reliance and hard work, and the close relationship
between local communities.

65

Chapter Three: Look Homeward from Southeast Kentucky
The last chapter is organized roughly by chronology of the coal industries’ evolution in
my hometown. I grew up there and lived through some of these developments. My family and
upbringing are part and parcel of this town. This chapter offers a geographic complement to
time, a spatial chorography of travels and research over mountains and through several towns of
Southeast Kentucky mainly in Pike County, Johnson County, Floyd County, and Harlan County.
I initiated ethnographic fieldwork while moving across these many roads and paths. I stopped
at—small places—topias, and visually “cut images”
164
out of the flow of communities’
transition. Changes are happening here in Appalachia where people live amid mountains,
valleys, and towns. They work at mines, businesses, farms, and factories. In these places, local
communities create ingenuity, fight stigmatization, honor pride, plan business and memorialize
heritages. My ethnography pursued the choreograph of place. I was interested in mapping this
region’s nature-culture cut of Appalachia’s energized topias.
A topia is a local area of the planet. It is the root of topic, a term that denotes an item of
discussion as well as a node of a network program. Like the classical travelers and traders of the
ancient Mediterranean, at each place of visit I found myself a stranger in an unfamiliar land.
Discussions with all kinds of Kentuckians seemed to share a tone of empathy. We would both
marvel at the task of learning about places so far apart and so rich in contrasts and surprising
similarities among coal communities the world over. Active empathy became a feature of travels.
The vertices of comparison in this chapter are spatial. Mountains, media, mines, and museums
are placial topias; ingenuity, de-stigmatization, pride, and heritage energize rhetorical topias.
Each visit brought to the surface distinctive descriptions of the spaces shared.

66

Mountains: Ingenuity
Company Y
18
is a contemporary software-developing company that hires previous coal
miners in southeast Kentucky. In its introduction, a term popped up and well summarized my
experiences on this land: Appalachian ingenuity. Admittedly, Appalachia has long been labeled
as unfortunate for its poverty, environmental problems, and attributed backwardness.
Communities with coal dependent economies often suffered from “internal colonialism.” As coal
flowed out of states so did the profits of its central industry. Laboring families represent
“sacrifice zones” living upon “uneven ground” and “cursed by abundance.”
165
One local
conversation partner commented that Kentucky generally seemed to be trapped in a number of
vicious cycles of dependence: horse, tobacco, hemp, and coal. One after another, businesses
would come to the state and either decline or close altogether. Environmental problems
intertwined with social issues such as patriarchy make changes difficult.
166

Figure 5. and Figure 6. The Beautiful Land of Kentucky (Photos by Junyi Lv)

18
Pseudonym.

67

American research into the mountain regions is on-going and rich. Journalists and media
portrayals have discussed Appalachia’s problems, over time, with varied narratives. Oral
histories and public stories resonate in discussing mining disasters, labor strikes, diseases, and
turns to poverty with market changes. But the lives of coal communities are much more
complicated than the precariousness.
167
The focus of my research is not the darker side of
Appalachian experience. The field notes I gathered capture a tone that works toward a
deliberated future. The patchworks waved through my fieldwork tell stories of Appalachia and
difference. I saw a land of natural beauty, entrepreneurship, self-reliance, and community
members counting on each other; a land of hope. The agency of local communities speaks
loudly. A powerful sense of agency requires acknowledgement, instead of the oversimplified
portraits as a doomed “precariat” or “victims of circumstance.”
168

Admittedly, I am biased taking this standpoint. My value is shaped by being a coal
community member myself, seeing “us” being treated as a suffering “them” with universally
vague faces disregarding each heterogenous life experience. But just like rhetoricians say, “we
argue from where we stand,”
169
our studies are directed by our values, of which we are often
unaware.
170
Joel Robbins argued “toward an anthropology of the good,” focusing beyond the
suffering subject, but instead suggests that one must “spot a number of lines of inquiry that,
while each still somewhat small or even marginal in themselves, may be poised to come together
in a new focus on how people living in different societies strive to create the good in their
lives.”
171
He further defined “the good” as an orientation, something one strives for, a
“becoming,” instead of a universalized ideal—the “towardness”:

68

The point of this kind of work is not to define what might universally count as
good and its practitioners are neither so Panglossian as to claim that any given
society has in fact achieved the capital G Good, nor so Pollyannaish as to imagine
that societies might achieve it on a regular basis if only, we could identify what it
is. Their more modest aim is to explore the different ways people organize their
personal and collective lives in order to foster what they think of as good, and to
study what it is like to live at least some of the time in light of such a project.
172

The ingenuity I spotted in the mountains comes from local people striving to live a good
life as individuals and as community members, based on their best judgement. The focus on
ingenuity creating the good is not to deny the importance of studying the suffering, but to
explore more possible lines of inquiry. Moreover, it relinquishes the judgmental implication of
the suffering, “that there must be better ways to live than the ones it documents.”
173
Facing
drastic changes and disruptions, energy communities have no certain answer about what
comprises a good life, but instead figure out how to live through hard times in order to thrive.
Working against stereotypes requires thinking outside the box. Kentuckians are high on the idea
of ingenium—an agile, working imagination that makes possible living in a place.
Across the state, I found ingenuity to be rooted in local planning, programs, and outlooks.
A bottom-up way of doing things for oneself, family, and others is a matter of pride. People here
live in community-driven cultures, with deep attachment to the place. I recall after having dinner
with one local connector, Mrs. U
19
, we stood outside the restaurant door, facing the mountains.
She looked toward the mountains, took a deep breath, and smiled, “Mountain is like my security
blanket; when I drove into cities, I felt lost.” Considering we just ran into her familiar
acquaintance in the restaurant, I could tell the peaceful glow on her face when saying the words.
This is a place running on close relationships, just like my hometown, where “everybody knows
your name.” The place-based attachment resonated when another conversational partner, Mr.

19
Pseudonym.

69

Y
20
, a guru having deep knowledge about local history, culture, and communities—what Xiang
Biao called “xiangshen ( 乡绅)” told me, “There are two kinds of people in the world, place
based and nonplace based. I always know that I was the former.” Ingenuity is required as a
cleverness useful to thriving through appreciation of the indefinite ways of adaptation to place.
Shaping Our Appalachia Region
The Shaping Our Appalachia Region (SOAR) annual conference is a state-wide gathering
of leaders that I attended as my initial site of inquiry. SOAR is a regional NGO associated with
the Appalachian Regional Commission. SOAR “champions local projects, programs, and
advocacy for the 54 ARC-mandated counties in Eastern Kentucky,” and its mission is “to fill the
economic gaps left by the decline of the coal industry.”
174
The conference gathered people from
agriculture, food, tourism, education, religion, rehabilitation, medicine, technology, media,
programming, including intermediaries between companies and communities, connectors
between employers and employees, government, public and private sectors to showcase and
communicate their efforts in making eastern Kentucky a better place. In the year 2021, the
conference was moved to Corbin, a home rule city in southeast Kentucky. It was the first time
SOAR chose to move the conference venue outside Pikeville, where their headquarters is
located. According to my source at SOAR, who was also born and raised in Kentucky, the region
was running based on counties. Different counties, of course, are proud of their identities, and
can be competitive with each other. Therefore, choosing to go out, especially after the virtual
conference in 2020 due to the pandemic, was a strategy to engage broader community members.
The competitiveness reminds me of competition among cities in my home province, but usually
in the form of rankings such as economic development and air quality.

20
Pseudonym.

70

Looking around the conference venue, I suspect that I was the only foreigner. Yet, during
the intro of the conference, I was already surprised by how connected I felt with the place. The
connection was one-sided, since I was more of a listener and observer than presenter. Still the
intensity of the connection was beyond my expectation. Following, I detail the part that moved
me the most.
As an introduction to the second day of the official conference, a violist in a blue dress,
Kentucky’s color, played Old Kentucky Home. Then, the big screen featured a strong, bearded
man riding a motorcycle, crossing Kentucky’s roads. A monologue about Kentucky narrated the
history and identity of Kentucky, with words evoking energy, “power the country to victory,”
“fuel,” “Eastern Kentucky was the Silicon Valley before the golden state bridge was even built,”
and, “people get the job done.” The video called for actions to make Eastern Kentucky a better
place, stating, “the opportunities will not come to us so we must find them by ourselves,” and
“ignore the naysayers.” The video ends with a punchline, “Eastern Kentucky, let’s rise.” After
the video finished, the man riding motorcycle in the video on the screen entered the physical
arena, riding a real motorcycle together with his team—a motorsports-focused tourism NGO.
The roar of motorcycles contrasted the previous gentle melody of the violin. The crowds burst
into applause and cheered. The sound waves formed “force majeure,” bringing direct affective
and vibrational intensities.
175
I felt tears in my eyes. The tears came from the sudden shock of
gigantic sound waves. But after coming to my senses, I realized it was a kind of yearning, for my
hometown to also have something like this—an occasion to show its beauty and identity without
shame, a space for people to advocate and deliberate with positivity. Or has my hometown
already had this, but I was blinded by familiarity?

71

The two-day conference was scheduled around panels and speeches by stakeholders in
the region. It was a beehive of narrative spaces. Local community leaders, offices from
corporations, healthcare workers, homegrown entrepreneurs, and main street officials all
gathered up materials to host booths and to stroll through the presentations. The executive
director of SOAR, Colby Hall, enjoined the gathering at a meeting in the arena commons to “tell
stories that haven’t been told.” Speakers emphasized their deep connection with hometown and
Appalachia. For instance, the mayor of Corbin quoted her mother, “If you can make it in your
hometown, you can make it everywhere.” The region’s problems were recalled, such as the 2013
blizzard and coal job losses. Four spotlight panels addressed important topics for Eastern
Kentucky’s transition: grant funding, nursing shortages, main street revitalization, and remote
work and digital entrepreneurship. These were common themes. The tone for the panels was kept
upbeat, featuring new means to address old problems followed immediately by enthusiastic
advocacy for changes. The executive director, Mr. Hall, also rallied the community and urged
that we, “stand toe to toe with each other.” He quoted Winston Churchill: “The pessimists see
difficulty in opportunity; the optimist sees opportunity in difficulty.” Particularly he mentioned
local high school students’ participation in the conference, who comprise the hope and future for
the region. There was a strong sense of local identity expressed across panels. The Congressman
appealed to local pride, stating that “looking at big cities, they do not have a clue about what they
are missing.” The governor also announced, “This state will never be viewed as a fly-over state.”
Besides praising local identity, the speaker also spoke to deep political schism in Kentucky, a
border state where the Democratic Party was the minority but held the governorship. Indeed, the
Governor was on stage. He was the only official wearing a mask on stage (in 2021, still in
pandemic). He called for vaccination in the historical moment—that occurs about every 100

72

years—and reminded that the big pandemic was affecting numerous lives. He also emphasized
the key was to get things done, whether “red or blue.” A conference keynote speech uplifted
Kentucky horizons from the mountains to space. A former NASA astronaut told his stories of
dealing with crisis in space. The keynote speech was followed by an introduction of an aerospace
facilities project by the Space Science Center of Morehead State University. Kentucky’s efforts
to build and contribute to the communications and space industry was touted. Interestingly, my
hometown was also developing new material, aerogel, for the space industry. Rooted in the local,
yet aiming for the stars, seems to be a shared vision of the two mountainous places.
Stage panels drew crowds. Exhibits across arena concourses constituted, literally, a
“marketplace of ideas.” Entrepreneurs, educators, media, government officers, religious
organizations, and other actors in public and private sectors drove in that day from different
counties of eastern Kentucky. Some representatives staffed the tables and talked to guests; others
toured, visiting either different branches of development or getting acquainted with different
facilities across the region. Anyone could listen to detailed overviews of various projects and
browse brochures. They were also provided with contact information and souvenir tokens, such
as USB drives, cups, toys, masks, hand cleansers, and more. Conference meetings were to be
preserved in vivid and tangible memory. For instance, I received a coal miner small figure from a
technology-connectivity company producing drones. This occasion made possible my initial
contact with most of my conversation partners in Southeast Kentucky and opened a window for
further communication after the conference. The efforts to “shape our Appalachia region” aptly
illustrated “network pragmatics” of “agents (actors), agencies (private, state, mixed, and
grassroots), and operations (circulation and dissemination of materials, objects, experiences, and
affect) across China.”
176
Like everyone else, I was limited by my paths chosen through the

73

conference. Conference actors were limited by time and pandemic contingency. I concentrated
on selected sectors and visited booths that could serve as later references to my hometown. Coal
and energy transitions offered a key topos for inquiry.
Solar Energy and NGOs
Energy transition is not a linear process that moves neatly from fossil fuels to
renewables.
177
This holds true, even in southeast Kentucky, where coal transition is tied to the
fate of local communities with conflicting family and personal choices between staying or
leaving, the past, and its unknown futures. According to a government official with whom I had
conversations, some community members regard using renewable energy such as solar as a
betrayal to their roots. Many do not have trust in big companies and government programs that
promote any renewables. The challenge in Kentucky, like my hometown and many other
communities in transition from dirty fossil fuels, is to diversify energy resources from solely
depending on coal. NGOs are important intermediaries to build connections and trust with local
communities and promote renewable resources. Mountain Association is such a coordinator
providing business support, loan, trainings, and telling stories of Appalachia. The group engages
in advocacy for local communities. Its energy sector focuses on offering energy-saving advice
and planning, and facilitating transition in justice. Intermediaries like Mountain Association have
the advantage to engage in local communities. According to Ms. C
21
, who works for Mountain
Association, “communities trust us more because we are not selling them things, but work as a
community partner.” In terms of how viable solar energy is to Appalachia, Ms. C acknowledged
the concern that mountainous geography may block sunlight, but she explained, “We are at the
same latitude as Germany, which is one of the solar leaders. The only geographical limitation is

21
Pseudonym.

74

that it is in some places, if you are right against mountains and the mountain is like on your
western side, that’s going to keep you from having sunlight. But there is plenty of places where
there is solar.”
There are other NGOs across Kentucky becoming pillars of enhancing communities’
well-being and facilitating transition, providing entrepreneurship, health, and legal support for
local communities.
Community-based Agriculture and Entrepreneurship
In Kentucky, the state and agricultural communities refresh farming and generate civic
activities. The federal government intervenes in numerous ways into crop production and
maintenance. Southeast Kentucky has a temperate climate, but mountain topography prevents
large scale production. The close connection among local communities is valued in the biological
energy sector—food. Nurtured by the rich land, various agricultural and entrepreneurship efforts
surrounding local food are being developed. Grow Appalachia at Berea College is a strategic
initiative affiliated with a local university to connect with local communities and develop
community-based agriculture. According to Grow Appalachia’s founder, David Cooke,
developing community-based agriculture is a “wellness issue.” They were concerned that 95
percent of the food in this area was shipped from other parts of the country, with lots of sugar
and sodium. This was not the situation in the generation of his father, who was a coal miner in
West Virginia. Back then, they grew everything for themselves. Mr. Cooke has worked for the
college for seventeen years. He has witnessed the younger generations compelled to leave to get
jobs. Yet, Mr. Cooke said, “very little local food has been developed.” He felt that there was
something “deeply wrong about it.” To develop a “healthy, resilient, and economically viable
food system,” Grow Appalachia partners with local NGOs that reach out to farm families and

75

communities. The group provides financial support and training for farmers and strives to create
local jobs. The operation has various programs, fellowships, and resources for local communities
to offer farm training and development. A wonderful surprise popped up through talking with
Mr. Cooke. He had been to Shanxi, my home province, thirty years ago. He spent a month in
China, as a representative of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He traveled to five or six
provinces including Shanxi, visiting numerous ginseng production and research facilities. He
spotted many resemblances between Shanxi and Appalachia in terms of the landscapes and coal
dependence.
Grow Appalachia project also involves the state government. Together with local
intermediaries and NGOs, Kentucky Department of Agriculture strives to facilitate the
transitions of communities from a coal economy to alternative agricultural opportunities.
According to Mr. A
22
, who works for this department, the office has been focused on helping
tobacco farmers diversify production to other crops. When it comes to eastern Kentucky
specifically, they initiated several projects. These include farmers’ markets, where fruit and
vegetable producers bring products that are bought by local consumers and commercial kitchens,
where growers can add value to their produce by turning raw vegetables into sauces and
condiments. The Department of Agriculture also focuses on livestock processing capacity,
forestry, and advancing agricultural education.
The private food sector also stimulates entrepreneurship. Appalachian food and
hospitality are not well known nationally. Food and mountain culture mix into local restaurants
that will change minds through creating new tastes. I visited one enthusiastic family-based

22
Pseudonym.

76

enterprise. Company X
23
was founded to sell Appalachia food and the stories behind mountain
cuisine. “You are what you eat,” Mr. T
24
, the founder of Company X explained his motivation to
start entrepreneurship. He said, “food tells stories and Appalachia identities. People care more
about their identities because the world is making identities unstable and shaking.” Mr. and Mrs.
T
25
, having traveled to many places around the world exploring various food, selecting authentic
Appalachia dishes. They work with local farmers and suppliers and compare products to build
networks of tasty supply chains. They decided to settle down in Kentucky and enjoyed being
“big fish in small pond”—the advantage of sticking to small and local. I was privileged to be
invited to their house and tasted authentic Appalachia food with the family. From chow-chow
relish (which can be served as a topping for hotdogs or sandwiches, and varies in ingredients
based on what the household has), to apple butter, to wild ramp jelly, local communities create
various flavors to enrich their daily lives. Mrs. T was also a grant-writer, helping communities
and institutions apply for grants to support their projects. Visiting the family’s chicken coop and
seeing children riding MTR around roads on the hills, Mr. T introduced that the mountains were
a great place to raise children because community members look after each other. For instance,
he never worried that the children would get lost, because neighbors would keep an eye on them.
Mr. T teased about my newly bought boots for this trip “so clean,” when we drove into the
mountains to see elk, for the first time in my life. The mountains sustain life.
AppHarvest, a food company founded in 2017, also offers a novel opportunity in
Appalachia’s growing food system. AppHarvest aims for sustainability. This corporation has
developed high-tech indoor farms—using robotics and artificial intelligence to engineer

23
Pseudonym.
24
Pseudonym.
25
Pseudonyms.

77

conditions that facilitate predictable yields and high-end vegetables. According to Matthew
Gosnell, previous VP of Development at AppHarvest, the company is committed to the local and
connected with the global. The company collaborates with agriculture-tech firms in the
Netherlands for green technology and invention-oriented expertise. Yet the company has no
intention of competing with local farmers, instead it offers employment, training, and benefits to
local communities. Its major product, tomatoes, mainly compete with Mexican imports. Saving
long-distance transportation costs, local products are more environmentally friendly. Their
greenhouse farming uses rainwater and saves 90 percent of water compared with traditional
agriculture. The model can also preserve open land, generate less waste, and can run through all
seasons.
178
Currently, AppHarvest has four greenhouses across Kentucky. Two tomato
greenhouses (60 acres under glass each), one lettuce (15 acres), and one strawberry (30 acres)
were built. Mr. Gosnell elaborated AppHarvest’s vision and challenges:
As several of the founding team have roots in the region, it was important for
AppHarvest to focus its development on Appalachian Kentucky, a region that in
a single generation was left economically devastated as some 40,000 coal jobs
became less than 4,000. Kentucky’s advantage as a logistical hub worked to our
advantage, making it easy to transport produce to 70% of the country in a single
days’ drive. Energy usage and associated costs are critical to positive
economics. The high-tech greenhouses account for seasonal fluctuations,
supplementing LED and HPS lighting in lieu of sunlight, and provide heating
through natural gas fed boilers. Finding the right combinations and adjusting for
these fluctuations normal for this part of the country is an ongoing challenge.
AppHarvest explored development on reclaimed mine land in the eastern part of
the state, but found subsurface stabilization requirements, erosion, excess water
runoff, and lack of nearby utility connections made it economical infeasible.

Wasteland Reclamation
Mining is a process that sorts special elements from the surrounding elements that are
deemed not of value or interest. Mining work brings up elements that are hauled, stored, sorted
and processed. All mines produce unwanted products or waste. Who deals with the ecological

78

damage caused by material extractions? The norm in China is clear: “those who created pollution
shall clean it up ( 谁污染谁治理 shei wuran shei zhili)” policy.
179
In Kentucky, the issue of
waste disposal and ecological remediation is bounded by slippery legal reasoning and fluctuation
norms of state governance. The history of Kentucky mining is marked with indifference to
ecological damage. The norm of extraction is structured by capital demands to maximize return
on investment. The approach in Kentucky is to get the riches out quickly, efficiently, and move
on. Environmental clean-up laws modified such destructive activities as strip mining, but the
work of clean-up and restoration will be ongoing long into the foreseeable future. The Kentucky
Department of Natural Resources oversee mine safety and reclamation through its division of
Mine Permits, Mine Reclamation and Enforcement, and Mine Mapping Information Systems.
The problem of mine abandonment is large: “Now, there are more than 2,800 entries for
Kentucky in the national inventory of known-abandoned mine land, according to a Department
of Interior database, and much of it is located in the state’s eastern hill country.”
180
Team
Kentucky of the State Environmental Office is charged with oversight and enforcement of the
reclamation of historic mines that have left legacies of local damage. Damage spreads when
mine areas spread acidic materials under conditions of flooding that have become rather
continuous.
The state works on clean-up by hiring private groups to do the work. Mr. K and Ms. T
26

work at a government-affiliated office in charge of abandoned mine lands reclamation, explained
the bidding model for clean-up in detail:
Our process is very competitive. We advertise for bids, make all plans and
specifications available online. Contractors that feel they meet the qualifications
to complete a successful reclamation project bid on the project. Assuming all

26
Pseudonyms.

79

other required contract documents are completed and approved, the low bidder
will be awarded the contract.

Mr. K and Ms. T explained their working logic, revealing norms much different from the
Chinese pollute-clean-it-up expectation, “So here, if it’s a coal company has a violation, we do a
check for that. And we can’t pay them to fix something that they messed up, because they should
have already expected not to mess it up in the first place.” The bidding model aligns with U.S.’s
market-driven approach; while the “those who created pollution shall clean it up” is viable in
China because the government shoulders responsibility to assure the reclamation will be done by
those who made the mess. The informants were frank with me about the difficulties that they
encounter getting trustworthy repair companies. A government process can be slow. Persistence
is the key. Gentle pressure steadily applied is the norm. They said:
In lots of times, we do our best to be tolerant and to work with the citizens in the
way that most productively finishes aside, occasionally that it’s always the
personalities that’s the real challenge of the personalities. Occasionally a
contractor ends up not being able to meet the specifications that we have
required. But in all of those cases, I don’t know that we’ve quit on anything.
When the citizens are upset, we just continue to work with them and work with
them and work with them until we resolve something. If circumstances prohibit
a contractor to completely reclaim a site to specifications, we will take
appropriate action to ensure a completed project. Sometimes those steps are to
re-bid the site and offer a contract to a different entity for successful
completion.

Success is a matter of patience, repetition, and time.
A successful case of wasteland reclamation in eastern Kentucky is the Advanced
Manufacturing Institute (eKAMI). The job training center is a repurposed would-be pharmacy
school complex that was converted with a mix of state and private funds into a place to train
former coal workers into jobs of design and manufacturing. In fact, the parking lot and facilities,
themselves are built on a reclaimed abandoned coal mine. eKAMI is a non-profit organization
that provides training in a college-like environment for jobless coal miners and community

80

members who seek success through career transition. Training is free. Five-month courses on
robotic operation and high-technology manufacturing are routine. Youth classes with high school
students and adult classes are offered. eKAMI has trained several hundreds of local community
members and aided their students to secure employment in major manufacturing, automation,
and transport companies—like FedEx. Many of its students were from coal mining industries,
being laid off and looking for post-mining careers. It’s founder and CEO, Mrs. V
27
, who has 30-
years of experience working in coal industries, saw that mining skills are transferable to
manufacturing. Coal miners’ “hands on stuff” and the mindset of doing a good job and hard
work can be translated to making good products. Therefore, according to Mrs. V, eKAMI has
retrained “naturally skilled people of the region for 21
st
century industry.” It values providing
both hard skills such as computer-aided, manufacturing robotics, 3D printing, and soft skills such
as leadership, communication, persistence, and mental health.
Students appreciated the highly transferable and efficient learning model of eKAMI.
They could master the skillset in a relatively short period and the employment rate remained 100
percent when I visited. Moreover, some of its students became teachers after graduation, training
new students. Mr. L
28
, a previous trainee and now a trainer at eKAMI liked the job, which
allowed him to stay where he grew up and remain close to family. It moved me when he
described that every day after getting off work, he enjoyed playing soccer with children, which
his previous job did not allow. The lavish surroundings of a would-be pharmacy school were
recrafted into a beautiful center with classrooms and a well-equipped workstation and machine
training room with places for training at multiple workstations. The new surroundings, high tech

27
Pseudonym.
28
Pseudonym.

81

equipment, and hands on precision work refreshed skills needed to survive in the mine into work
in the bright lights. In the opening greeting area of the school was parked a new NASCAR
Automobile—a glowing example of a powered-up recipient of special machine parts. The school
resonated as part to the whole relationship restored. The continuation of a career from mine to
factory provided meaning and spoke to self-worth of the Appalachian workers.
eKAMI aims at benefitting communities not limited to coal miners. The recruiting
process balances applicants in different counties. During the pandemic, the institute used 3D
printing technology to print masks for local communities. It also recruited female students,
breaking the stereotype that women are not dexterous in machine operation. The institute’s
newly opened branch collaborates with the local prison and provides training opportunities for
those in jail to develop a skillset and help them better readapt to society.
Silicon Holler
Besides eKAMI, I came across other government-private players in Appalachia. There
was a lot of support and interest in digital technology and programming. “Connected,” was a
term that bubbled up across the landscape. Digital literacy has been an important focus of public
education. Ingenuity is key to these communication experiments. “Silicon Holler,” is the term for
the rising technology sector in eastern Kentucky.
181
Of course, the portmanteau brand is been
adapted from “silicon valley” joined with the vernacular of a local “hollow”—“a small sheltered
valley that usually but not necessarily has a watercourse”—pronounced as “holler.”
182
Company
Y
29
provides various database solutions, digital, mobile, and web development services to private
and public sectors.

29
Pseudonym.

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What moved me the most was the organization trains previous coal miners to do
programming, for free, and hires them as programmers to serve the communities. Local labor
development offers individual paths to renewal and is necessary to restore the heartbeat of a
community. Mr. Y
30
, the founder of Company Y spoke to me of his insight: “a coal miner is just a
tech worker that gets dirty.” Such a vision aligns with eKAMI’s bridging efforts in training coal
miners to become machine technology manufacturers—the skillset of coal mining, operation
machines, dealing with complex tasks, and on the spot problem negotiation is transferable. The
idea of program training won popularity among communities—with only ten positions open,
Company Y received 950 applications. The company’s various products aim to strengthen the
connection and well-being of the communities. For instance, they developed a mobile app for
citizens to report non-emergency issues to the municipal government; and Lend a Hand, a
mobile app for grades 4-12 students to report safety concerns, bullying, drugs, weapons, and
other threats in schools. I also admire how much a digital technology software development
company, mainly running in the virtual world, are deeply rooted and connected with the
mountains and local communities. They have another mobile application, an aid for residents to
discover and find events, food, accommodations, and to attend Kentucky’s annual Hillbilly Day
festival. Recently developed are several kinds of non-fungible tokens (NFT), named “Billies” for
the sense of irony—alluding to the stereotype of “hillbilly.” Mr. Y, and Mr. P
31
, who were in
charge of teaching previous coal miners to develop software, spoke candidly to their intent:
“Appalachia had a really negative portrayal, in media. So, we’ve tried to reclaim and redefine
what it means to be a hillbilly.” The rectification of names is an ancient tradition in China,
183
in

30
Pseudonym.
31
Pseudonyms.

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Appalachia I found an example of the Ciceronian rhetorical move of turning the tables
strategically used against those who stereotype.
Connectivity is important to the digital technologies sector, but connections also extend
to outlooks more generally on material communications infrastructures. Physical and internet
highways are equally emphasized when it comes to facilitating communications in Appalachia.
Highways, control of water, and turning abandoned coal lands into parks and recreation areas,
the material efforts of the state to craft networks of connection across mountains and valleys has
been a vast and a long time in the making. Digital services are the latest struggle to overcome the
dispersed population of the mountain regions. The internet and digital technology, according to
Colby Hall, the Executive Director of SOAR, is essential to people, especially younger
generations to stay in Appalachia. However, Southeast Kentucky, especially its rural areas, must
develop their own local connectivity services since big companies do not often serve small towns
where there are not large markets from which money can be made. Mr. I
32
, working for the
largest local connectivity service company, explained the reason behind the scarcity of large
telecom companies in the region:
I’ll give you my opinion on it. But I think—because me, just knowing how the business
works—it’s about money. If I’ve got $100 million, or whatever the number is, to be able
to go build infrastructure out, if I can go to Chicago or Houston or New York, I can, in a
square mile, do some upgrades that make the service better for 100,000 people. Or I can
go to Harlan County, Kentucky or Pike County, Kentucky, and I can serve a hundred and
fifty people. It’s different population density. It’s just about money.

To connect local households, public and private sectors, and southeast Kentucky, the Appalachia
region has developed its own telecommunication servers aiming to provide more accessible and
affordable services. Since the pandemic, remote work and distanced learning have become

32
Pseudonym.

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common. Mr. I spoke to the increasing demand for connectivity among the locals over the Covid
pandemic,
So, when it [the pandemic] came on, you had people having to adapt to really, really
quickly in order to adapt to that change, because you had no choice. Almost immediately
we had a lot of school systems contact us because their children lived in places where the
internet connectivity, either they didn’t have it because of poverty or just the ability to not
be able to afford it. Or it just wasn’t served properly or fast enough.

What was true across the United States, was especially urgent and problematic for mountain
peoples. Ingenuity was tested.
Tourism and Downtown Revitalization
Developing tourism is an appealing choice for Kentucky. The land is blessed by its
natural beauty, forestry and lakes, trails and parks, horse racing and various agriculture products,
art and heritage centers. According to Mr. A
33
at the agriculture department, there were a number
of agritourism venues throughout the state and some in eastern Kentucky consisting of pumpkin
patches, wineries, horse activities, orchards, trailer parks and more. Among various directions,
revitalizing downtown was placed with high importance since main streets can not only serve as
a tourism site, but also as community hubs for social and eventful gatherings. When developing
tourism projects, local communities’ participation is encouraged. For instance, based on the
introduction of Mrs. T
34
, the aforementioned founder of the local food company, who also writes
grant applications for local communities, the main street development initiative at Pikeville
involved local high school students’ participation and design. Students loved to see their
thoughts and efforts being valued and added to the final product of the local main street. The
participation provided a sense of belonging to them and thus, many of them decided to stay in or

33
Pseudonym.
34
Pseudonym.

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go back to their hometown instead of leaving for other places. Can my hometown also spark
students’ participation in building the community in its various efforts toward revitalization? A
small local town located at an old rail stop hosted the SOAR get together. Its few bars and hang
outs hosted the state-wide convention of local leaders. A slight rain dimmed participation that
evening, although attendance picked up when a country band began to boom away. Main streets
are an inheritance from pre-modern America. The charm of rehabilitation always confronts the
reluctance of capital to invest in the local. My travels took me through times of the pandemic
when life on local streets felt scarce and many local establishments were closed or shut down.

Figure 7. A Corner at Downtown Pikeville (Photo by Junyi Lv)
Telling Stories
Southeast Kentucky, from a sociological standpoint, appears to be defined by its network
of family relationships. Kentucky is a place to grow up, in which various stakeholders, actors,
church goers, and jobs are all interrelated. The country, rather than the town, appears to offer

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many of my informants a grounded place to live. Memories are handed down in many ways.
Recollections of good times and bad, the typical and the peculiar, the once there and the now
gone are woven into local ways of storytelling. The scrapbooks of memory are passed down
across families to the younger generations. Changes create waves of displacement and
opportunities for repurposing ambitions, not limited to the energy sector per se: wasteland
reclamation may bring employment; connectivity infrastructure development can lay foundations
for small-business owners and entrepreneurs. Community members, NGOs, government
officials, start-ups, and educators work independently and sometimes together to create the good
for individual and collective lives in hard times. According to a researcher at the Appalachian
Regional Commission, the transition “does not happen overnight;” to sustain projects is the key.
Storytelling is a rich tradition in the mountains. So, all these present projects shared the
feature of storytelling as well. The language of entrepreneurship, business, technology, energy,
and governance requires adherence to forms of identification, documentation calculation,
processing, and bureaucratic decision-making. Federal and state interventions are there to protect
and serve through legal process. Yet, at the same time, the experiences of engagement (or
withdrawal) each leave community member with their own, personal story to tell. Mr. Cooke
explained the importance of storytelling in the process of application articulation: “You have to
track data, you have to tell people what you did; you have to demonstrate your impact by
numbers and also by personal human stories. Because we are working with people.” The
storytelling constitutes an important aspect of ingenuity; it is not only about economic
development, making profits, but an administrator is coached to align with Appalachian ways of
identification. The storytelling complements energotopia with the rhetorical layer present to the
geographical chronography. Mr. Cooke also explained the importance of storytelling to

87

Appalachia communities: “People (in Appalachia) work really hard for generations; much of the
country simply did not realize how valuable these regions are.” Storytelling thus also plays an
important role in advocacy and activism, especially in terms of anti-stereotype and de-
stigmatization. The expression of pride in a shared counternarrative of patriotic contribution to
the nation occurs often. The lack of recognition of Kentucky’s value hurts. To be unvalued,
recognized only in stereotypes, produces a scarring dissonance that must find ways to heal. The
next section discusses de-stigmatization of traditional media topia stereotyping.
Media: De-stigmatization
Social problems and especially poverty is constructed as no less a social stigma than a
material condition in Appalachian region. Typical narratives of southeast Kentucky, often
portrayed by politicians, coal industry capitalists, and media projects, tend to blame local
communities to shy away from taking responsibility. Alternatively, dire portraits tend to over-
victimize Appalachians and then claim to discover ways to achieve salvation.
184
More than one
conversation partner quoted William Lynn Smith’s book describing lives in rural south as
comparable to the experiences of growing up in southeast Kentucky.
185
One of my
conversational partners said, “We never know we were poor until they told us. We have
everything and we were happy.” Another elaborated the historical situation of her parents’
generation:
When President Johnson at the time was sending a lot of people and a lot of
reporters were coming in, and they [parents] both have told me we didn’t
know that we were poor until we saw it on the news. So, that’s a narrative
that has only existed for 50, 60 years, but it’s really pervasive, and it’s
something that people still believe.

The Victims of Poverty narrative, as well as Its Your Own Fault stories, are narratives
that arouse the resistance of local communities and motivate Appalachia Studies scholars to

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document, articulate and change the stultifying negative portrait of the region. Much of the
narrative was fostered by the nascent movie industry who found bigoted portraits of rural life a
box office winner in films, for instance, Ma and Pa Kettle and Beverly Hillbillies.
186
Television
became a living room vehicle of gross stereotyping. Libraries and Appalachian studies have been
deploying ongoing multimodal media outlets to tell more complex stories of Appalachia and
counter the continuing merchandising of stereotypes. For instance, when the book Appalachian
Reckoning was published, scholars and community members directly responded to J. D. Vance’s
Hillbilly Elegy
187
narrative by conducting analysis, sharing personal stories and experiences, and
writing poetries. In the introduction, Harkins and McCarroll acknowledged Vance’s personal
experiences had some validity but pointed out that his book overlooked the “broader
socioeconomic and historical dynamics.”
188
The book provided a space for complex narratives
and diverse perspectives to flow. The contributors in this volume who disagree with Vance’s
narratives mainly disagree with the elegy framing. For instance, Ivy Brashear argued, “keep your
‘elegy’: the Appalachia I know is very much alive” with her growing up experiences and family
stories. William Turner, scholar and activist for African American communities in Appalachia,
directly addressed, “black hillbillies have no time for elegies,” and shared his experience
growing up in Lynch, Harlan County.
189
The history and stories of African American
communities in Appalachia were overlooked for a long time. In reaction, another book of Turner,
The Harlan Renaissance: Stories of Black Life in Appalachian Coal Towns told more detailed
stories of the community.
190
Similarly, Karida L. Brown’s Gone Home: Race and Roots through
Appalachia shared her stories of how African American communities lived in segregated coal
camps, and how they migrate in and out of the place.
191
These scholars have successfully
combined their personal experiences with research, engaging in both academia and advocacy.

89

Outside academia, community members also work on promoting racial justice. An
example is Sunup initiative at Corbin Kentucky.
192
Working together with Cumberland’s Chapter
of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (KFTC), University of Kentucky Appalachian Center and
the Laurel County African American Heritage Center (LCAAHC), Corbin Racial Justice
Initiative (CRJI) started with film screening and public meetings in 2018 to tell the stories of
Corbin, a sundown town since 1919. Ivy Brashear, a community member, activist, and the
previous Appalachia Transition director of the Mountain Association shared her thoughts with
me on the importance of storytelling to facilitating racial justice:
It [Corbin] was a sun downtown in the early 20th century. So, there was expulsion, there,
a racist expulsion where all the black people in town were forced to leave. And that
history is something that not a lot of folks have often wanted to talk about or address. But
the Sunup initiative really has made it their priority to uncover that history and to uncover
those stories. To really say, like, this is a part of who we are. This is a part of how we got
here to this. How do we address this and make sure that it doesn’t happen again?

Ms. Brashear also emphasized the importance of telling complex stories about Appalachia to
counter oversimplification, stereotype, and stigmatization of local community:
I think that when you start to see those complexities, and you start to really understand
that’s what this region is, just a region of contradictions, in a region of complexities, then
you can start to understand a little bit about how change can happen here and how people
want to be involved in that change and the kinds of change that people wanna see. And
it’s not always what you would expect.

She addressed the importance of “see people as people,” instead of judging them simply by
political opinions:
A key point that I always try to make about politics because it’s a minority of people who
are actually voting. And then it is a minority of that or a majority of that minority that is
actually voting republican. It’s not a representative example of what the people actually
feel and believe in how they vote with how they would vote if they did. A lot of the
reason why they aren't voting is just straight up disenfranchisement. It’s a lot of people
who are working 12-hour shift jobs, and so they can’t go to the polls between 6:00 am
and 6:00 pm and a lot of times people just don’t feel like it's worth it. They’re not seeing
any kind of benefit to voting, because they are of a lower economic class. It’s the middle
to higher income people who are seeing benefits from voting. So, it’s really complex like

90

anything else. And I think that’s lost in those stories that are told about this place. And
that lean on the stereotypes a little bit is just that it’s a lot more complex and multifaceted
than stories that they’re telling. That’s what gets lost as that nuance. And I think that
nuance is really where you start to see people as people and not as just a republican voter
or democrat voter, or somebody who believes in coal as the future.

Nuance and ingenuity appear as twins resisting the snaking entanglement of each emergence of
new stereotyping.
Ms. Brashear also speculated on several reasons that contribute to stultifying simplistic
press narratives. First, local media’s lack of money:
…a lot of news outlets don’t have the resources they used to have, to be able to do more
investigative reports and long form feature stories. They just don’t have the money for it
anymore. Local media is really suffering because they don’t have the money, they don’t
have the resources. They’re not able to do those stories either, because they just are on a
shoestring budget most of the time.

Local press was important to all areas. In Kentucky, the resources are no longer available to
actually do the news.
Second, an additional reason Ms. Brashear offered was that of vested interest pursuing
their own agenda in the press that remains available:
There historically has been a vested interest in the powers that be to tell those simplistic
stories and to say this is the place and these are the people, and they need us to exist here
to help them and to provide for them and to give them jobs and give them education. One
of the things I found in my research is that these stories that have been told about this
place really go back at least 300 years and maybe even longer…It’s like if you can make
it seem like this place isn’t worth it, and these people are simple and they don’t deserve
anything better, then it’s a whole lot easier to take their resources and take their wealth
and use their stories against them to be able to further those goals.

Telling stories can also liberate. How can Kentucky introduce and de-stigmatize
diversifying energy resources and especially renewable energy such as sustainable agriculture
and solar power? Ms. Brashear explained the storytelling’s importance to the Mountain
Association’s effort in facilitating transition:

91

We’ve really found that if people don’t have examples of something new and different
than they just cling to what it is. It’s a lot harder to get them to understand that we need to
do something new and different in this place. So that’s part of the work we’re doing is
really trying to present those examples to people.

Reflection on the power of media turns to strategic use of communication to take
advantage and undo older, unproductive narratives. Literally, oversimplification will bring about
even more misunderstanding and that is what the Mountain Association is trying to avoid:
We also talk to a lot of reporters and journalists and media makers about this work that
we do. And we see that as a key strategic. because when these stories go out there, we
really want them to have some historical context of how it is that we got to this point
where coal is really in decline.

Truthful storytelling is a slow burn process. Ms. Brashear was candid about the difficulties they
encounter—the established opinion about the region was too powerful to be countered with a
more balanced and complex view in short time:
It’s one of the reasons why our storytelling efforts are so difficult a lot of times, because
when we have reporters who come to us, they usually come to us with the with a story
already in their heads about this region and the people who live there.

Moreover, she elaborated that those stories backed by money, especially as political leverage can
spread a lot quicker than those that do not. Therefore, storytellers must slow down to explain the
history and the context, the details that stereotypical views are often missing.
Institutions and individuals join the efforts of telling Appalachia stories. Besides
Mountain Association, Appalshop is another actor in telling Appalachian stories. Founded in
1969 as a film workshop, the group provides support and training for local communities,
especially younger generations to make documentaries and films about the region.
193
Their aims
include “documenting and revitalizing the traditions and creativity of Appalachia,” and to “tell
stories that commercial industries don’t tell.”
194
Elon Justice is a filmmaker, writer, and
storyteller who grew up in southeast Kentucky. She used both legacy and digital media to tell

92

stories about unrepresented communities in Appalachia.
195
Judy Bussey, who grew up in David,
a coal camp in east Kentucky, shared stories and pictures about the experiences on her blog.
196

These efforts were either by people I directly interacted with during the fieldwork, or who were
recommended by my conversation partners. Despite the incomplete pool, I did find that most
storytellers engaged in webpage-based actions. Institutions and individuals usually created their
own websites to promote and archive their storytelling. Later, in my hometown, I found the
storytelling efforts are more social media platform based, facilitated by the wide use of mobile
phones rather than computers or laptops in China. Such affordances make a difference in telling
stories of coal communities.
Mines: Pride
In east Kentucky, coal industries have experienced a sharp downturn since 2011, despite
a tiny jump in production since 2021. My conversation partners, mostly coal miners who have
been laid off, mentioned that around 2008 they felt their first downturn and many got laid off.
Although mine work goes up and down, the shared consensus is that the coal industry in eastern
Kentucky is in decline. 2022 Q4 production was 3,078,369 tons, while the number for 2011 Q4
was 15,715,090 tons.
197
In China, however, around 60 percent of electricity generation still
comes from coal-powered plants, with Shanxi being the top coal production region in the
country.
198
By the end of 2022, the whole east Kentucky region has 3,178 coal industry
employees, plus western Kentucky’s 1,659 employees.
199
In my hometown, one mine from the
coal company has more employees than the whole state of Kentucky, despite the population
difference between the U.S. and China.
Although the two communities have unique conditions, I found Southeast Kentucky coal
miners share lots of experiences similar to those of coal miners in my hometown. The sensual

93

pressure underground is the same. The darkness of view and the extremely loud sound of
machine operations are constants. Coal dust flies, going onto and into miners’ bodies. Even
though nowadays miners’ usually have a mask and helmet for protection, they still breathe in
coal dust and endure the smell. Mr. N
35
, working in the coal industry for twenty-one years,
described coal mines’ distinctive ambiance in its aroma during our conversations, “It could be
the smell of coal, or rock, everything, I don’t know. But that’s what I missed more than anything
right there.” Mr. N used the word “miss” when referring to the working condition. Having
worked in both surface and underground mining, he preferred underground to surface,
particularly because of the smell, which can play an important role in building ones’ identity and
familiarity within an environment. What Mr. N did not miss was the time that he had to work in
tunnels that were only thirty inches high in his younger days. “I was a big dude, and it is just so
hard to do anything there, eat lunch, laying on your side. Most mines are like fifty to sixty
inches; you could maneuver around it.” Mr. N’s preferences to underground mining over surface
mining was shared by other miners. It is a preference, or even a hierarchy—underground mining
was regarded as superior to surface mining, given it requires more skill than rural work. Also, it
caused less damage than direct mountain top removal.
Coal miners work long hours underground—I kept hearing nine to twelve hours—
breathing in and out coal. Pneumoconiosis was not uncommon, with slight improvement
compared with their fathers’ and grandfathers’ generations. And yes, like my hometown, most
coal miners’ families were also generational miners. Some of their family members died of
mining accidents, which, according to coal miners, have become less common these days. They
attribute the decrease of accidents to the safety protocols they are required to follow according to

35
Pseudonym.

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company policies. There are also government funds and legal support available for some coal
miners, plus the coal company usually covers insurance and provides benefits for its employees,
similar to Yangquan’s coal company. Unions are important. I had little access to discussion of
labor management conflict. Yet, it was made clear that in Southeast Kentucky, the union served
as a solidarity and culture building unit for miners and their families.
200
The dwindling numbers
of miners and the uncertain future of coal rendered union activities are less vibrant in Southeast
Kentucky. In fact, according to the miners with whom I spoke, fewer miners listen to unions
these days. Mr. S and Mr. H,
36
both had decades of experiences in mines and thought unions
were not helpful because they went on strike often, which disrupted the working schedule. The
result of strikes was that the miners could not get paid and support their family. Mr. R
37
, working
in coal mining for thirty years said, “I think West Virginia, there’s a couple of union mines. I
don’t know of any here. The companies around here would pay better to keep miners from being
in.”
Markets reach across nations. Material, social, and cultural disruptions for laborers and
their families are overall similar, even if such highs and lows of markets cause distinct waves of
reverberation in local areas. Like my hometown’s experience, Kentucky’s nationalized coal
companies once organized not only mines but the complete living infrastructures for miners. In
the old days, the coal camp was the most typical way of how coal communities lived. Mr. U
38
,
grew up in a coal camp until it was closed in the 1960s. He shared his memories, “They call us
socialist; but we were really not…it’s just everyone has pretty much the same.” His comment
reminded me of the situation in my hometown, especially before China’s economic reform, when

36
Pseudonyms.
37
Pseudonyms.
38
Pseudonym.

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the wealth gap was little. I can see why this kind of life was appealing, as Confucius commented
two thousand years ago, “what one worries about is not poverty but uneven distribution ( 不患寡
而患不均 buhuan gua er huan bujun).”
201
Initially, coal mines needed labor to get resources out
of the ground and to feed growing coastal cities. Labor was invited. The more miners the better.
The mining camp maximized profit by providing full services including churches, schools,
hospitals, and jails. There were also money makers in its stores, consumer products, housing, and
status amenities for supervisors.
One thing that was special for coal communities here was scrip, which functioned as
money that could only be spent in coal company owned stores. Instead of paying miners with
money, companies in the old days paid with scrip, which afford miners to buy groceries and
living essentials in company stores. In this way, miners were locked in the regime built by the
company—receiving pay from the company and then paying their earnings back to the company.
Mr. U brought a scrip collection to our talk before I even asked, and generously sent me one of
his old value markers as a gift.
In leisure times, besides resting and sleeping, coal miners engaged in outdoor activities
such as BBQs, hunting, fishing, or camping in the mountains. Thus, they appreciated the beauty
of nature, and the provision of Appalachia’s rich land. Still. Mr. Y
39
, a knowledgeable local
storyteller whose family was rooted in Appalachia and mining for generations pointed out to me:
Coal miners are the biggest environmentalists. We’re practicing environmentalists,
whereas you would be told this other thing. So go look and see who got all the people
support the wildlife programs, the habitats and all that. Because they are the outdoor
people. They knew they should be steady learners; they don’t talk a lot. They do.

39
Pseudonym.

96

The tension between appreciating the richness of mountain heritage and not hesitating to blast
away below the surface reconciles a miners’ belief of the twin availability of the land. Mr. R
40

informed me, “I know a lot of people says the coal mining is destroying the mountains and stuff.
No, really, they and it’s making useful land before the wildlife to come in have a good place to
eat. You plant good grass seeds and stuff for the animals.”
I do not want to generalize coal miners’ worldview by simply referencing Mr. R’s beliefs.
I talked and interacted with several coal miners—mostly former mine workers who now must
shift to other jobs. Amongst these people in transition, I felt lots of tension and fissures across
the varied interpretations of change by different generations and individuals. For instance,
although coal mines are dirty and dangerous, when asked about feelings about coal, miners
usually have positive associations. Mr. L
41
associated the coal with family continuity and his
own childhood memories:
My grandfather worked for coal, then transferred to the railroad; my father worked for
coal industry and then to diesel; coal kept the house, the home warm; it provided for so
many; used for factory; it always been a provider. We used to have a big stove; in the
house, me and my brother carry two bucks of the coal.

This was also my childhood experience, observing my grandfather lighting up the stove. When
fires come up, the warmness and brightness on our faces were real.
In my hometown in China, coal miners are quite humble and even ashamed about their
mining jobs. Why not something better? Coal miners in Kentucky let you know that they are
proud of their jobs, for the hard work they have done, and the skills they have mastered, and for
what they have contributed to the success of operations. Mr. S
42
said, “Coal gets in your blood; it

40
Pseudonym.
41
Pseudonym.
42
Pseudonym.

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is a livelihood; If I had to back tomorrow, I can and I will never forget the skills.” My effort to
make sense of the incongruity between shame and pride prompted me to reflect on the
differences between lifeworld and system. American miners do work for a capitalist, industrial
system. The systems world brings great and varied risks, rewards, costs, and uncertainties. But
their ties to the land, positive associations with coal, and pride of hard work are all rooted in life
world experiences. For instance, one coal miner I chatted with supported Trump because he
promised the return of coal jobs. But at the same time, the miner has friends who have migrated
from India, despite Trump’s restriction on migrations. Similarly, when it comes to the attitude on
climate change: some coal miners said they “hate the climate stuff,” because they believe it is a
political leverage. Yet others said that they do not oppose all climate change policies, but hold
that “you got to have an alternative,” before eliminating coal jobs all at once and forcing people
into a corner. Mr. Y
43
commented, “there is right way and wrong way to do things. Instead of
killing all coal jobs, let’s figure out how to make it cleaner, safer; we need stable energy, solar is
not stable.” Right and wrong, good and bad, these are norms embedded through experience in
ways of living. The calculated business of market and governance manipulations are remote,
inaccessible, and not savory.
Mr. Y’s skepticism is worthy. Indeed, renewable energies do have stability and storage
problems, for which some effort in my hometown is being made. Energy transition is a slow
burn. The interim turbulence and disagreements are not likely to be resolved in a lifetime. I kept
hearing words echo to the effect that transition could not be accomplished overnight. But what
moved me the most while talking with coal miners in the U.S. and China, was the genuine
curiosity from both sides about each other’s experiences of change. Both groups asked me about

43
Pseudonym.

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the other’s working and living conditions, and not unsurprising, salary and payments. The mutual
curiosity and resonance create hope for international collaborations toward just transition.
Museums: Heritage
When industries are gone, life continues. Communities experiencing tremendous shifts
need continuity. When their lives, jobs, and identities are disrupted, memories of past
experiences anchor the capacity to cope with changes.
202
Memory is life.
203
To remember is to
live. Moreover, memories can be brought to life by communication—to create, preserve, and
circulate collective memories.
204
Having a rich history and experiencing change, Kentucky
communities value their collective memories as heritage. These memories are materialized in
different places as formal as museums, and as informal as the surface of power boxes at street
corners.
The mission of the Kentucky Heritage Council, an agency of the Tourism, Arts, and
Heritage Cabinet, is “to identify, preserve, and protect the cultural resources of Kentucky.”
205

Lois
44
working for the council introduced me to what heritage means for Kentucky communities.
Communities are loyal to family ties. Presently, there is a generational shift from attachment to
place. “My home is the world” seems an apt slogan to those leaving by choice for a better job or
by necessity because no opportunities remain available. New geo-location technology and
transportation development assure the return of the migrant. I was informed that many young
people still come back to visit and look for their family ties. Migration has always been
circular—a matter of maintaining contact by letters and infrequent voyages or travels. The pace
of communications always seems the subject of rapid change.

44
Pseudonym.

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Kentucky’s heritage project is vast. The movements are unique to the features,
landscapes, and institutions of the region. East and west, north and south, resources and efforts
vary a good deal. Yet, the outdoors and the mountains of the less traveled and less expensive
south are a draw. Indeed, the Appalachian trail, a federal project crossing state boundaries from
Maine down to Alabama constitutes a mega-project across which the great outdoors will thrive
along a colorful corridor with interesting places off the safe main highway.
The thinking of the Council is to yoke economic incentives with a developing heritage
project. The natural beauty of Appalachia, its home-grown veggies, churches, and gardening will
do the rest. Locally owned businesses and catering services, boutique café, arts, and music play a
key role in generating a literal taste for the area. More importantly, valuing heritage purifies the
interests of learning and justice. Native American and African American heritage sites educate
and communicate with the public about the rich culture and history of the communities. Heritage
is a broad concept, with sites ranging from community college to cemeteries to natural
landscapes such as mounds and river (“cross the river and you are free”). Heritages are essential
to correct the myth and misunderstanding about Native American and African American
communities’ history in Kentucky, to remember the injustice communities faced, and to
acknowledge their contribution to the diversity of the land.
206
Resisters may critique such
marriages between places of past injustice and present entertainment. New sites fester old
wounds and create new ones. The heritage program, on the other hand, offers places for the
transfer of meaning among older and younger generations.
Community Museums as Social Nexus
Museums are important heritage sites. Emplacing collective—and sometimes contested—
memories, museums and memorial spaces are closely associated with communities.
207
For coal

100

communities going through transitions, museums can serve as a nexus for memorial, social, and
sometimes contested space for both the old and new. Museums have changed from their original
function as knowledge and art curations limited to certain classes. Public museums emerge and
challenge the restricted purpose by encouraging not only visitation but also interactive,
multimodal engagement.
208

I visited three local museums in Southeast Kentucky: Van Lear Coal Miners’ Museum at
Van Lear Johnson County, Kentucky Coal Mining Museum at Benham, Harlan County, and the
nearby Portal 31 at Lynch, Harlan County. These museums are open to the public and operated
by collective efforts of local government, companies, education institutions, and community
members. However, compared with archetypical public museums—often gigantic, across time,
space, and culture—for instance, the British Museum and the Louvre, these museums are
community museums tied to the lifeworld and memories of local communities. A strong sense of
memory is present, even as more public spaces serve contemporary local meetings and staging
projects. None of these will ever set a new trend for spryly conceived innovative interactions
with visitors. But they do serve as community bounding and solidarity building spaces, in
addition to inviting the public to understand and engage in coal culture. Community museums
are often associated with the purpose of advocacy and activism, and thus can play an important
role in facilitating just transitions.
209
The three museums I visited share commonality as not only
public education and touring sites, but also relational and social space for community members
who identify with artifacts to engage with the slow burn of energy transitions. Among the three,
the Van Lear Coal Miners’ Museum is the most representative of devotion to local communities
and serving as a social nexus.

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Figure 8. Van Lear Coal Miners’ Museum (Photo by Junyi Lv)
The dark green and white Van Lear Museum building was relatively low profile and
blended into its neighborhood. It originally belonged to Dr. John W. Turner, who Lorretta Lynn
came to see. Lorretta Lynn is no doubt a pride for local communities. Her reputation as a
courageous coal miner’s daughter and talented country music singer are well known and
celebrated by Kentucky communities. The museum is now maintained by Van Lear Historical
Society by volunteers from local communities. The three-floor museum assembled dense
collections in various aspects of communities’ lives. Entering the first floor, a collection
representing the local postal service faced a display of a household kitchen. The post office was
the center of the community, an essential liaison connecting the local with the outside world. The
postal collection acknowledged postmasters’ names and photos, showcased the post officer’s
bags, and featured community members’ mailboxes. The kitchen was the center of the
community’s personal lives. A family’s daily life was centered around preparing for three meals.

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Moving inward, was a room honoring veterans, telling stories of soldiers at the battlefield or at a
Twist (dancing) Contest. Then came Dr. Turners’ office, where Lorretta Lynn found herself
pregnant in the exact room.
Several rooms displayed mining implements such as safety lamps, safety protocols,
headlights, mining and digging utensils, and blasting caps. Different kinds and shapes of coal,
some with sulfur, some in higher quality, were showcased for the public, who might not be
familiar with coal. A geological timeline and different seams of coal were shown together for the
goal of public education. Old pictures showed mining and community work and life back to the
first half of the 20
th
century. Van Lear was incorporated in 1912 and named after Van Lear
Black, a director of the Consolidation Coal Company, which opened five mines in Van Lear
Johnson County. Back to its heyday, the community accommodated more than 4,000 European
and Appalachian immigrants and local people.
210
On the second floor, a model of the town
illustrated its boom years, organized in several hollows. The curator, a local veteran, introduced
the class differentiation of residence in hollows separated by the railway. The upper-class
executives usually lived on the side near the river, where the land was flatter and more spatial,
while the working-class miners lived on the side of the mountain with limited space and
sometimes, in individual hollows (isolated houses in the mountains, common in Appalachia).

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Figure 9. The Model of the Town (Photo by Junyi Lv)
The rest of the second floor also displayed memories of local Van Lear High School,
showcasing its old classrooms, school uniforms, books, and pictures of its football team the
“Bankmules.” Besides the high school memorabilia, the second floor also curated pictures and
newspaper clippings of Lorretta Lynn and her families. Space was also made available to display
objects and pictures of two films made at the museum. One was an independent short film, Let It
Be War, featuring a fictional story in 1948 when several coal miners came back from World War
II and decided to strike against the company.
211
Another was a murder mystery TV movie about
missing teenagers and how the FBI solved the case.
212
The two movies captured the changing
image of Kentucky: the former tells an important historical period of unionization, the latter
somewhat fell into stereotyping the mountains as mysterious and remote.
Besides displays curated in loosely themed rooms, random spaces were in full use in this
small museum. For instance, in the hallway, a cabinet with glass doors displayed various
women’s hats, donated by community members. At the staircase corner, a barber’s chair was

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displayed, as the barbershop served as a place for communities to exchange information and
gossip (which I learned from the Kentucky Coal Mining Museum that also displayed a
barbershop). Miniatures of bankmules dragging a cart of coal appeared in several places at the
museum, emphasizing the old means of transportation. Old telephones, a refrigerator, ironing
board and other daily appliances were randomly placed, illustrating the mess of everyday life.
Although the museum is small, its featured facilities in coal camp are rather complete:
mining, doctor’s office, schools, post office, and a typical household. In the basement, there was
even an old-time prison in coal camp adapted from a bank’s safe. The museum gift shop was also
located at the basement level. Operated by Richard “Icky” Wetzel, the gift shop was a
restaurant/store, the Icky’s, in the basement level of the Consolidation Coal Company’s Miller’s
Creek Division Headquarters in the late 1940s. Miners, without a formal restaurant to visit, came
to dine at the store. The business is still in operation currently, together with some other local
retail businesses. The store kept the historic dining areas, the booth, the boardgames and
checkers that diners used to play. As a giftshop, it sold not only merchandise products with Van
Lear identities such as hats, T-shirts, coal sculptures and miniatures, but also cookbooks
featuring authentic Appalachia cuisine and cooking guidance. A world map displayed on the wall
showcased visitors coming from all over the world via red strings, demonstrating the local
connection to the global. The giftshop also displayed, The Bankmule, a journal made by the Van
Lear Historical Society, narrating the history and events of Van Lear. Some copies of the journal
were made available for visitors to take home and read closely.

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Figure 10. A World Map Marking Tourists Globally (Photo by Junyi Lv)
The Van Lear communities are active in holding various social gatherings to celebrate
festivals, culture and heritage, and Lorretta Lynn’s life. For instance, the Van Lear Town
Celebration happens every first Saturday of August annually, welcoming tourists to join. Besides
celebration, communities also acknowledge sacrifices by recording local coal mine accidents in
detail on the museum’s webpage and physical display. The memorialization of sacrifice was a
common theme across southeast Kentucky coal museums, and I was often moved by the honesty
to reveal the “dark side” of coal mining. Thinking about how my hometown might plan to adapt
a coal mine into a museum, I see it as more necessary to memorialize the sacrifice of the
communities and individual lives, rather than celebrate the industry’s great regime.
From Van Lear Coal Miners’ Museum, we can tell what the local communities value: birth,
death, honor, the messiness of daily lives, and the people deeply attached to their roots even after
becoming famous. When coal communities experienced tremendous change, these aspects of life
were materialized and thus, anchor generations of coal community members to continue living.

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Currently, Van Lear has no active mining, although some of its community members still work
in mines in nearby towns. Its population also decreased to 500 people.
213
Among the mining
implements display, a brochure briefly addressing climate change resonates with the transition.
Like the Van Lear Museum, Kentucky Coal Mining Museums and Portal 31 also featured
particular traces of coal transition. For instance, Kentucky Coal Mining Museum installed solar
panels on their rooftop, powering a fossil fuel themed museum with renewable energy.
214
But
experiencing transition, another common narrative of Kentucky communities, caught my
attention. In some cases, the museums used a paranormal framing of the site to attract tourists.
On Van Lear Museum’s webpage, an overview with pictures is provided about paranormal cases
that reportedly happened at the site. Similarly, a museum adapted from an old coal mine, Portal
31 was also associated with ghosts and hauntings through films telling its ghost stories. Haunting
is “a cultural condition that promised future no longer seems possible.”
215
These community
museums not only accommodate collective memories, but also demonstrate local communities’
ambiguities facing uncertain futures.

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Interlude: Return to Nanshan Park
My grandparents used to walk us through a nearby park called Nanshan (South Hill). I
still remember our route, which passed a pond with lotus blossoms surrounded by long corridors
and gazebos in traditional Chinese style. It was my favorite spot in the park, especially during
summer. The small pond filled with blooming flowers and giant, round, green leaves that held
dewdrops the whole summer. We often took a break from walking and sat in the corridors. I
could gaze at the pond until Grandma or Grandpa reminded me it was time for lunch.
Returning home after three years, I revisited the park alone. After a long walk, I stopped
at the lotus pond. Summer again. But this time, instead of just admiring the blossoms and leaves,
I looked toward the corridor’s other side, to the walls. Black wooden boards with carved
calligraphies and paintings hung upon mottled walls, telling Yangquan’s stories. Not
surprisingly, coal emerged as a theme expressing the city’s history and identity. A mural
depicted coal being used by the primordial goddess, Nüwa, to mend the sky. As detailed in
Chapter Two, the mythology demonstrated the place’s long interwoven history with coal.
Another inscription featured Sun Yat-sen’s calligraphy, “Use coal in Pingding to cast iron at
Taihang.” Pingding was Yangquan’s old name. Later I learned that Sun visited Shanxi in 1912,
passed by Yangquan, and placed his hope for developing national industries ( 民族工业 minzu
gongye) against colonial powers.

108

Figure 11. At Nanshan Park, Inscription featuring Sun Yat-sen’s Calligraphy: “Use Coal
in Pingding to Cast iron at Taihang” (Photo by Junyi Lv)

My new discoveries in an old spot which I traversed many times, reveals my ignorance
about my own hometown. It prompted me to dive into its Republican era, discussed in Chapter
Two. Returning home is also to re-turn to the same place in a different temporality, with different
goals, perspectives, attention spans, and knowledge, to look at “the other side of the corridor.”
Meanwhile, Nanshan Park itself is changing. During this visit, I detected small signs scattered
across the park, introducing different spots and scenes. Stepping out of the corridor, I saw one
describing the lotus pond, highlighting the Nüwa painting, Sun Yat-sen’s inscription, and the
city’s coal history. The new signs, although a small change, are aligned with the city building a
“high quality park system” for residents and tourists in an effort to transform a coal-dependent
city. The park is the starting point of my return to my hometown, and an example of
energotopia’s changes. The upcoming chapter discusses the various directions of energy
transition in governance, industry, and communities, with both ambiguity and possibility.

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Chapter Four: Return Home, Re-Turning Energotopia
Energy Transition
I returned to my hometown in summer 2022, my first visit in three years. The whole
world had been in the middle of an energy crisis since 2021. Global conditions were influenced
by the economic rebound since the pandemic, the Ukraine war, and volatile weather in many
places.
216
China was experiencing record heatwaves and droughts that affected seventeen
provinces and 900 million people.
217
An electricity generation crisis spread. Such circumstances
complicate China’s decarbonization and energy reform. On the one hand, guaranteeing “energy
security” involved building more coal-power plants. On the other, the nation was still committed
to meeting the “dual carbon” goal—peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and carbon
neutrality before 2060.
218
Changes happen rapidly in contemporary China. Changes in energy
governance is a product of central state leadership. China continued its energy transitions in
many ways even amidst these contradictions. In the long run, increasing reliance on fossil fuels
may lead more quickly to vicious circles of climate warming and extreme weather events. So,
decarbonization still aligns with the interests of China (and the world).
The well-being of local and planetary communities is placed at stake with every large
nation’s decision. Indeed, the 2021 and 2022 electricity crisis demonstrated that coal power was
not the most economical choice in southeast China, a heavily impacted region in 2022.
219

China’s energy reform does not follow a linear path from coal to renewables. Rather, energy
transitions remain a slow burn. The central government’s 2022 Government Work Report
announced:

110

To advance China’s energy revolution and ensure energy supply, we will, based on our
resource endowment, push forward the transformation toward low-carbon development,
in accordance with overall planning and the principle of establishing the new before
abolishing the old. We will work harder to make coal usage cleaner and more efficient,
while reducing the use of coal and replacing it with alternative energy sources in a well-
ordered way. We will work to upgrade coal-fired power plants to conserve resources,
reduce carbon emissions, make operations more flexible, and upgrade heating
facilities.
220

The Work Report takes the dilemma by the horns and finds a median path. Coal’s impact is to be
halted by decommissioning old plants and building new ones. Clean coal found its way from the
United States to China.
221

How does such a national policy impact transformation of single-resource dependent
regions? Specifically, how were new formulations to be implemented as yet another transition in
an ancient mining town? In our conversations, Professor O
45
in a municipal-level government-
affiliated think tank introduced the central policies regarding Shanxi and Yangquan’s energy
transition. Shanxi was recognized as a “resource-based economic transformation and
development comprehensive compatible reform pilot zone” ( 资源型经济转型发展综合配套改
革试验区) by the central government in 2010.
222
In 2017, central policies endorsed further
transformation of Shanxi’s resource-based economy. In 2019, the central government published
“Opinions on the Pilot Program of Shanxi’s Comprehensive Reform of Energy Revolution,”
( 《关于山西开展能源革命综合改革试点意见》).
223
Xi Jinping visited Shanxi multiple times
for inspection, calling Shanxi to serve as “the vanguard of national energy revolution.”
224

Professor O said that Yangquan has been recognized as a resource-based city in the “mature
phase,” the right conditions to initiate transition. New policies require new organizations and
modified management schemes.

45
Pseudonym.

111

Energy Policies and Management System Adjustment
China’s energy transition works mainly through a top-down model. Yangquan, therefore,
followed the central and provincial governments’ directives, an executive working for
Yangquan’s Energy Bureau explained. Although decarbonization initiatives were slowed down
for energy security, the imperative to reduce carbon emissions remains unchanged. Since the
pandemic, Yangquan’s energy demands bounced back. All coal miners I talked with during
fieldwork said that the mines did not stop—not even for a single day. Even during the Spring
Festival, the major holiday in China, no one took time off. Energy consumption peaked locally
and in northern China as well. Regarding climate goals, China and Yangquan focused on greater
efficiency through eliminating “backward production capacity.” This required two things: first,
work causing “serious waste of resources, serious pollution of the environment” was to be
eliminated; second, problems with “safe production conditions, product quality [and] not up to
standard production capacity” were to be rooted out.
225
Coal mines in Yangquan were
categorized into losers with “backward production capacity” and winners with “advanced
production capacity,” with the former to be gradually eliminated.
226

The coal industry’s management systems play an important role in crafting local policies
and supervising work to implement transitions. Previously, the Yangquan Coal Industry Bureau
managed, evaluated, and supervised coal industries. To separate and balance functions and
powers, Shanxi and Yangquan reformed and re-distributed responsibilities across several newly
established bureaus. The Examining and Approving Bureau oversees evaluation of mine
practices, the Energy Bureau supervises management, and the Emergency Bureau covers mining
safety. The previous Yangquan City Land Bureau formed Yangquan City Planning and Natural

112

Resources. Yangquan City Environmental Protection Bureau changed its name to the Yangquan
City Ecology and Environment Bureau. The name change demonstrated a governance shift—
from mere containment of end pollution to prevention and control across the whole process.
227

Moreover, the entire management system is directed to become “smarter”—to improve creativity
and satisfaction. The previous single approach evolved to local mixes of “smart management”
with “automatized management.”
228
The management system awaits developments in China’s
energy law. Legal reform is currently in the phase of soliciting opinions to then be published so
that the state’s work can be supported by clear principles.
229
In top-down management with
latitude for decision-making, leadership is called on to produce high-level work.
Shanxi Coal Companies’ Integration and Reorganization
China’s energy management requires sharing among governance entities. The central
government strives to increase interregional exchanges and cooperation, “to ensure a coordinated
national response like playing a game of chess together” (quanguo yipan qi 全国一盘棋).
230

Sharing of means and results occur within coal work sites and across the region. The recent
reform efforts aimed to “expand grid-level transmission links for trading electricity and updating
dispatch and contracting rules for interprovincial power exchanges,” and to weaken “provincial
protectionist incentives.”
231
So, major coal companies in Shanxi Province initiated integration
and reorganization, which also aligned with a wave of China’s state-owned enterprises’
integration and reorganization generally. These initiatives further integrated coal industries into
China’s economic policy of building a “dual circulation” (shuang xunhuan 双循环). This
concept refers to development patterns in which domestic economic cycles play a leading role
while international economic cycles remain an extension and supplement.
232

113

In modern times, Shanxi developed seven provincial coal enterprises: (1) Jin Coal Group,
(2) Jin Energy Group, (3) Datong Coal Mine Group, (4) Shao’an Group, (5) Shanxi Coking Coal
Group, (6) Shanxi Coal Group, and (7) Yangquan Coal Group. Reforms consolidated these into
enterprise clusters. Together with Shanxi Guoxin Energy Corporation, these seven coal
companies became five large-scale enterprises including Coking Coal Group, Jinneng Holding
Group, Huayang New Materials, Lu’an Chemical Industry, and Huaxin Gas. The companies
formed two industrial clusters of coking coal and thermal coal, and three emerging industrial
clusters of new materials, gas, and coal chemical industry.
233
Such structural changes and their
impact were interpreted by several people that I interviewed.
An executive in Yangquan Coal Company, Mr. M
46
, told me that the reorganization and
integration could build advantages for Shanxi by consolidating resources. The provincial
governments planned based on the strengths unique to each Shanxi city. Strengths were
determined by resources available or lacking. But Mr. M noted that such determination tended to
weaken the “provincial power.” However, Shanxi might benefit because its coal companies had
worked together as one and had the “right to speak” and “pricing power.” He pointed to Hebei
and Shandong provinces, each with one consolidated coal company that held decision making
authority. Yangquan Coal Group now became Huayang New Material group. The new direction
was based on local advantage, but it also raised new challenges. Diversifying with fossil
materials is not easy, regardless of the management scheme.
Renewables and Diversification
Currently, Yangquan aims to diversify its energy sources, focusing on renewables. The
Investment in renewables increased, while coal decreased. Besides coal, other energy sources

46
Pseudonym.

114

include recovery of coal-bed methane, waste heat, and waste gas, as well as solar, wind, biomass,
and hydro. The renewables face the problem of instability. Mr. G
47
, an executive in Yangquan’s
local bureau in charge of supervising and managing the energy sector explained to me:
Although the surface area of wind power and photovoltaic is relatively large, its rate of
curtailment of wind and light is relatively high, and it depends on the weather. Sometimes
when the weather is good, the power generation may be higher. If the weather is bad, it’s
not very stable, compared with coal power.

To mitigate instability surrounding renewables, Yangquan strives to develop the “source-
network-load-storage” (yuan wang he chu 源网荷储) model, aligning with China’s broader
energy initiatives. According to Mr. G, the model focuses on various sources’ interactions such
as building power grids and networks, lowering consumption and load, and capturing wind and
solar through storage. In principle, an energy basket maximizes efficient usage.
Energy baskets mix resources when calculating production and use. Currently Yangquan
focused on wind and solar development. Most of these projects collaborate with companies
outside of Shanxi. For instance, the wind turbines on Liu Bei Mountain in Yangquan’s suburbs
were built by Qingdao Tianneng Heavy Industry, a wind turbines specialist. In Pingding County,
a 100,000-kilowatt wind project (Phase I) has produced 339.09 million-kilowatt-hours of clean
power since it started operating at the end of 2020. Wind power produces win-win results by
maximizing ecological, economic, and social benefits. In the next step, the county will promote
follow-up construction of the second phase and strive to realize full-capacity grid-connected
power generation before 2023. After Pingding’s Phase II is fully operational and connected to
the grid, it is expected to save 62,800 tons of standard coal, 40.91 tons of sulfur dioxide, 38.86
tons of nitrogen oxides, and 15.82 tons of carbon dioxide per year.
234
The Huayang New

47
Pseudonym.

115

Material Company also transitioned toward renewables. It produced not only solar panels, but
developed a “fly wheel” ( 飞轮) storage system. The system can store energy of subway trains
braking while entering stations, and then release energy when the train moves again from a
stationary start. The flywheel has been used in Shenzhen. Additionally, Huayang also developed
sodium-ion batteries, widely used in new energy vehicles.
235
New energies are important, but so
is cleaning up the waste from older means of production.

Figure 12. The Renewable and the Reclamation (Photo by Junyi Lv)
48

Environmental Protection
Coal mining causes serious damage to the land, water, and air surrounding the area in
which the industry extracts. Kentucky cleans up damaged ecologies through accepting bids from
companies, awarding contracts, and overseeing the final outcomes. China’s norm is different:

48
I took this photo in my hometown. Wind turbines were established on the mountains and
trucks on the ground were cleaning coal gangue.

116

“Those who created pollution shall clean it up ( 谁污染谁治理 shei wuran shei zhili).”
236
Coal
industries are responsible for cleanup and reclamation. Therefore, a local mining company also
engages in coal gangue hill management and reclamation, replacing trees uprooted for lumber,
and replanting hillsides spoiled by mining. The gangues (disposable rock, sand or dirt) can be
reused for construction or landfills. In addition, the company must limit mine water run off for
minimal water pollution and to support clean air. Companies need to manage sinking landscapes.
“Green Mines” (lüse kuangshan 绿色矿山) built parks and gardens in the formerly mined and
constructed areas. The impact has been visible. An executive in government department in
charge of environmental protection told me: since 2016, Yangquan’s air quality has improved
from ranking in the bottom three to the top ten in the cities ranking system in the Beijing-
Tianjin-Hebei area. It is also the only city in Shanxi with excellent water quality in relation to the
provincial and national levels.
The Ecology and Environmental Bureau (formerly Environmental Protection Bureau) is
now responsible for every aspect, from prevention to management to clean-up. Planning to limit
and redress damage is no longer an afterthought to rapid and careless extraction. The bureau is
organized around specialized departments such as air, water, and soil, and an enforcement team
acts whenever a violation occurs. One executive introduced to me the Air Pollution Hotspot
Network and Grid-based Supervision Platform, using Internet of Things (IoT), artificial
intelligence, and satellite remote sensing technologies. Data monitoring detects pollutant
concentrations and measures air quality. When the platform reports abnormal data, the bureau
sends a team to investigate on the spot; violators will be fined. The platform ranks cities around
the province and country based on air quality. Lower rankings draw undesirable attention.
Publicity provides incentives for more active climate mitigation work.

117

Energy transition policies impact families’ lives, too. The government banned burning
coal in city-surrounding villages, with notices visible everywhere. Central heating systems were
not available in rural areas, unlike in cities. I visited my god mother’s old village home. Some
houses are like those in the Kentucky hollers. Many are empty nowadays. The households now
burn ethanol instead of coal, a cleaner source with less dangerous indoor pollution. Some
households use solar panels as the main energy source. According to my god mother, solar
panels have become one way to detect whether a household is still inhabited by neighbors. The
central government plans to renew and build ecologically livable villages. “Rural Revitalization”
(xiangcun zhenxing 乡村振兴) has been initiated since 2017. A teacher and researcher (in
Yangquan Municipal Party School) told me that the key to new vitality is motivation of the
villagers to act and participate. It is not easy, admitted the teacher, because, in general, people—
not limited to the villagers—are often driven by short-term benefits rather than long-term well-
being. Transitions are difficult and slow. The decline of an area entices some who see in decay
new opportunities. How does a city prepare for such changes?

Figure 13. Banning Coal Notice (Photo by Junyi Lv) Figure 14. Solar Panel (Photo by Junyi Lv)

118

New Periphery of Jingjinji Metropolitan Region?
Yangquan has seen changes come and go over time. Each one has distinctive features
both within the geographical biome and across the political economy and trade partners. Energy
transition is bringing about the citywide transformation of a coal community. Of course, the city
is scrambling. It is seeking and trying out ways of transformation in multiple directions. But
when it comes to its relation and position with other cities and the varied regions of China, the
efforts are directed and measured within a centralized regime. Yangquan goes it alone in some
respects, but it also participates in the capital economic circle (Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei). The city
supports especially the building of Xiong’an New Area, which is a state constructed regional
new area of administration and investment. Researchers in and outside Yangquan have suggested
increasing the clean energy supply to the capital area, transferring from transporting coal to
transporting electricity, and exploring the transport of electricity to southern China such as
Zhejiang. They also suggested undertaking the transferred industries looking for market
expansion in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, with a focus on science and technology, energy, high-tech
manufacture equipment, and smart distribution.
237

Coal’s Transfiguration
The industrial and economic transition in Yangquan has not fully detached from coal.
Indeed, the local coal company has shifted its direction toward new materials. But its
development and production are still based on coal. At the early phase, new industrial projects do
not make profit on a shift in energy resources; thus, Yangquan must rely on the profits and
residues of coal mining. True, the integration and reorganization of coal companies in Shanxi did
change the focus of Yangquan Coal Company to renewables; but policy change did not fully
remove Yangquan’s coal mining operations. The coal company still owns several active mines.

119

Moreover, some of its previous mines have been transferred to other coal companies, with
headquarters based in cities in Shanxi. Currently, Yangquan Coal Company must implement plan
“127.” Under the title 127, “1” means “one building”—building a high-quality modern enterprise
system; “2” means “two toward”—from finite resource mining toward infinite resource usage,
and from heavy industries toward new service industries; “7” represents “seven industry
modules—coal, chemistry, aluminum electricity, modern industries in new phase, modern
Internet of Things and Big Data, modern smart service industries, and modern finance.”
238
The
policy mandates a set of complex goals, within which there is latitude to mix and match. The
competing directions of each goal, however, also open grounds for criticism. Energy is made
from materials, but not all material projects are energy generators.
New Materials
The new material blueprint is based on “a city” and “a valley” –Aerogel Science and
Technology Innovation City and Na Valley. During the fieldwork I learned: the city and valley,
together with the old mining section, aim to build seven modules that can support each other:
aerogel green and energy-saving building new materials, functional fiber new materials, new
energy storage new materials, graphene new materials, aluminum-magnesium alloy new
materials, big data Internet of Things, and 5G smart mines.
The Aerogel City project focuses on developing aerogel in three kinds: silicon dioxide
aerogel, graphite aerogel, and ceramic aerogel. These porous materials have the advantage of
being lightweight, resilient, and strong insulators. They can be used widely in architecture,
special uniforms such as firefighters’, and space industries. The company designed an aerogel-
covered room for COVID-testing professionals to use during the pandemic, which can keep the
room cool or warm. During our conversations, a company’s researcher introduced how aerogel

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saves energy, “The aerogel can keep the temperature in a rather stable level; unless it is in an
extreme weather—too hot or too cold, you do not need to turn on the air condition inside the
aerogel room.”

Figure 15. Aerogel COVID Testing Workstation (Photo by Junyi Lv)
Besides aerogel, the valley also developed other new materials such as carbon-based new
materials—graphene, carbon fiber, artificial diamond, sodium-ion battery and solar energy
systems (introduced in the previous section), Lithium-ion battery, aluminum-magnesium alloy,
and nanotechnology. The new materials are supposed to be useful in green architecture, clothing,
household, and other industry- and life-related areas. The company developed a model for a
“zero energy consumption room,” using aerogel and graphene combined with recycled waste,
solar panels, and rainwater collection systems, which ideally consume zero energy.

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Figure 16. and Figure 17. Zero Energy Consumption Room Model (Photos by Junyi Lv)
Some new directions such as nanotechnology can benefit from mining work. Mask
products made of nanofiber filter material, with higher filtration efficiency, lower resistance to
breathing, more stable federation ability in high temperature and humidity, and anti-bacteria
function, can better protect coal miners along with essential works in other professions.

Figure 18. Masks’ Functions Illustration (Photo by Junyi Lv)
Currently the new material industries are not viable without the financial support from
the mining section of the company. But the researchers who introduced the new material section
won popularity in the stock market—an expansion bringing hope to the company’s future. A coal
miner, however, raised the question of aerogel not being as “new” as it has been represented.
After all, the product has been used in other places in southern China. In fact, the city’s aerogel

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also collaborated with a company from southern China. Moreover, the new materials are also
partially based on carbon—transfigurations of coal. How far can Yangquan step away from coal?
With a complete removal of coal in the short-term not viable, the future of new materials remains
to be seen. The below slogan of Na Valley reflected the company’s vision: from being rooted in
coal to go beyond coal. New materials are attractive. Underground problems persist.

Figure 19. “Rooted in Coal, Strengthen Coal (Industry), Extend Coal, Go Beyond Coal”
(Photo by Junyi Lv)

Technology Advancement of Mining
Mining is a dangerous occupation for humans and animals. The associated disasters are
heartbreaking. It is challenging to break the flow of energy upon which modern societies have
depended since the imperial time to the Republican era, to the establishment of PRC. Coal
mining has experienced tremendous technological advancement, in which human labor has been
replaced by machines in many aspects. Presently, mining intersects with digitization and

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computer science. One change is 5G network connections and artificial intelligence
management. These mining measures facilitate machine operation, automatic processing, and
communications underground. Such technologies can reduce human labor, communication
latency (untimely delays), and increase safety and efficiency. Moreover, information and
communication technologies are not only used in the underground world. Rather,
communications are dispersed widely throughout all coal company’s management and operation
systems. The finance system is connected to underground supervising and visualization. Data is
gathered and geological conditions are analyzed abstractly. However, human resources
information and underground visualization are shared. 5G and artificial intelligence lay
technological foundations for building “smart mines” and “digital mines” in Shanxi. Coal
companies collaborate in the province.
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The Internet of Things (IoT) is a construct that imagines information processing and
technologies connected to party, institution, and human decision making. IoT is still to be
absorbed fully into management practices, but it has been a hot trend in China, and in the United
States to a lesser degree. A coal company’s expert in developing IoT and smart mine talked to
me about his understanding:
The so-called Internet of Things is the things that are connected. For instance, here is a
cup, which is definitely not part of IoT, because it does not connect to anything. But if we
put a chip inside the cup, and connect it with other things, it becomes IoT. Things must
have been loaded with chips, in the mode of sensing designations.

However, some miners do not think technologies can fully replace human labor. For
instance, the artificial intelligence used for selecting and washing coal on an assembly line was
not advanced enough to select coal quickly and accurately from cinder. Therefore, the process
still needs to rely on human eyes, hands, and discernment to assist. Another example is the GPS
system widely used by individual coal miners—instead of counting headlights to count who was

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on duty, GPS easily detects who is underground and efficiently saves time to locate miners when
accidents happen. Yet, I was informed by a coal miner that the technology can also serve as a
surveillance tool. Because coal miners have to demonstrate through GPS that they worked
enough hours underground to earn the daily credits, which are later translated as salary. Control
customs are time tested and legitimate; new systems produce friction with labor and generate
unanticipated consequences.
I visited a local coal mine. It had the reputation of being modern, clean, and a “garden-
like” mine. Entering its ground, I could not distinguish if it was a mine or a park. The mine area
included the working and living facilities. The area was covered by trees, plants, grassland, and
even a water pond with golden fish. The mine was “enclosed”—only the underground contained
coal dust and waste, reflected on the miners’ faces and clothes. Miners lived in newly built
apartments, with three to four people per room. The mine built special apartments for employees
with a bachelor’s degree to attract more talent. The mine used an intelligent comprehensive
management and control platform, consisting of a production control center, the safety
production center, digital visualization center, and production decision-making center. The four
parts can integrate data in different systems and realize real-time monitoring and control.
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Figure 20. and Figure 21. Garden-like Mine (Photos by Junyi Lv)

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Figure 22. and Figure 23. Garden-like Mine and Headlight Charging System
(Photos by Junyi Lv)

Figure 24. and Figure 25. Bathing and Living (Photos by Junyi Lv)
Besides mining, coal industries also want to be “cleaner” in the burning process.
Collaborating with Tsinghua University, Shanxi Clean Energy Research Institute, the Jinhua
Furnace ( 晋华炉 Jinhualu) was invented to support this goal.
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The burner is especially suitable
for “three high” coal gasification with high ash, high sulfur, and a high melting point, which
often just went to waste using traditional gasifier technology. The furnace improved the
efficiency of gasifying and saved coal resources to a large degree. But like other previously
mentioned technological advances, it did escape the coal regime and solve the fundamental

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question of burning fossil fuels.
242
The fundamental logic is still to dig more coal. In this context,
technologies cannot directly lead mining industries to structural change. Rather, mining and
burning innovations tend to reinforce the regime. Coal miners working conditions are enhanced
by progress.
The coal mining population has been declining worldwide for some time. The highest
number of miners were brought to work during the First World War, a fossil fueled global
confrontation. China’s coal company recruits fewer, too. But new miners are valued, even while
the numbers are fewer, and training is distinctive. Mr. Q
49
became a coal miner in his 30s. With a
child who just entered primary school, Mr. Q chose to shift to a mining job from his rather safe
accounting position to better support his family. Going through the pandemic, he saw people lose
their jobs. Mr. Q valued the stability of coal mining work as an official contracted employee in a
state-owned company. However, Mr. Q quickly experienced the unbearable working
environment, exhausting jobs (newcomers would often be assigned with more tasks), and
constant worry about safety. He and his family must put up with such circumstances every day.
Mrs. Q expressed her concerns. She revealed to me that her husband had obtained his coal job,
without letting her know, “If I knew he’s becoming a coal miner, I would never let him go and
sign the contract.” It turned out that Mr. Q had seen the coal company’s recruiting video on
Douyin (Chinese version of Tik Tok) and then decided to change careers. He had jumped out of
the frying pan into the fire. Mr. Q is just one case. Social media and communication technology
do play a big role in coal town transitions. Meanwhile, coal companies have started to sell coal
on Douyin when coal prices dropped.
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An industry integration with social media is happening.

49
Pseudonym.

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Societal Transformation
Social Media and Creator Culture
Coal companies use social media to recruit coal miners. Miners, too, use social media to
share their daily lives and underground experiences. According to Newzoo, the smartphone
usage rate in China was 68.4 percent in 2022, the highest around the world.
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Most miners can
afford smartphones. China’s miners operate their social media from social media platform-based
communications, unlike in Kentucky where a website-based model is the standard. Miners use
multiple platforms to engage in different communities. Typically, a creator connects with
communities to maximize a revenue stream.
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Douyin (Tik Tok), Red, Bilibili, Weibo, and even YouTube are used. Views may be
lower for most videos targeting Chinese-speaking communities, but the price for a single view is
higher on Chinese platforms. Short videos and livestreaming are the most common formats of
coal-miner-generated content. Short videos often show underground working conditions and
especially the “unexpected” details of mining life. For instance, miners show themselves feeding
mice when they are approached during miners’ meal breaks. These underground creatures are
useful to the miners, as first-responders to gas leaks, but they are also living creatures, keeping
company in an isolated environment. Livestreaming, not surprisingly, can be combined with e-
commerce.
246
Coal miners can collaborate with brands and products and start online stores on
platforms. Today, platforms such as Red have their own “mall.” Users thus do not need to switch
to another platform, but can buy directly on the platform, saving time and increasing the
conversion rate from viewers to consumers. What impresses me the most are the products that
coal miners are hawking. Besides snacks and other daily treats, they sell bath scrubbing towels
and soap. Cleaning after work is always a problem for coal miners; coal can be greasy and sticks

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to the skin.
247
Coal miners often post videos and livestreams explaining how difficult it is to be
completely clean. Lots of times they must use dishwashing detergent and shoe brushes because
regular soaps do not work, which can hurt skin. Their selling of rubbing towels and soaps thus
become more persuasive than ordinary people because they bring personal testimonies to the
need. Those who follow miners’ videos likely do not have access to the underground and are
curious. Perhaps other coal miners and their families share and compare experiences.
It is possible that social media can aid some miners to seek and find a post-mining career.
Mr. B
50
started a bee keeping business after he retired from coal mining work. He organized an
agricultural cooperative in the village. He had help from his friend, also a former leader in the
coal company. The collective invited villagers to join. Besides selling honey, the cooperative
also develops honey-related products such as wines and toothpaste. To reach wider audiences
and potential consumers, Mr. B livestreamed on Kuaishou, a Chinese livestreaming platform on
which users are mainly from rural areas or small cities in China. Kuaishou affords Mr. B
connections with local and international audiences. He explained, with pride, that once a Brazil
student studying in Beijing entered his livestreaming room interested in honey products.
Some coal miners’ families and coal community members also become creators to
introduce their daily lives and the community. Their content is not direct advocacy but can build
more understanding and appreciation from the general public about coal communities’ and their
contributions to modern culture. Since 2022, many Chinese social media platforms such as
Weibo, Douyin, and Red show users’ geographical locations based on their IP addresses.
248
The
new feature imposes censorship at the price of users’ partial privacy. It also creates further
divisions between different geographically based users, especially between those in China and

50
Pseudonym.

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those living overseas, which may be accused as traitors when expressing opinions on public
issues. On the other hand, exposing geographical locations may increase the possibility to verify
information’s validity. Users can easily verify the credibility of those posting, especially when
users post local content.
Climate change events intervene in social media projects in unanticipated ways.
Displaying IP addresses further facilitated the localization of social media on the foundation laid
by location-based recommendations from the algorithm, which can suggest content from the
same cities, towns, or even as accurate as community blocks. Catalyzed by the pandemic, climate
change-generated disasters, and energy crises, waves of local activism emerged in Shanxi and
Yangquan. Since the beginning of October 2021, China’s National Holiday, Shanxi has had
unprecedented precipitation. Many places in the province experienced flooding and geological
disasters. Yet it was not until October 6 that the “Shanxi rainstorm” went on Weibo’s hot
searches list. Many people from Shanxi expressed their disappointment that the public paid too
little attention to their hometown.
249
On top of that, Shanxi was just ordered by the central
government in the end of September to take the responsibility of “baogong” ( 保供 guarantee
supply) for fourteen provinces and regions in reaction to a power shortage since the end of
August.
250
The contrast was so sharp that Shanxi netizens created a topic “The furnace of
fourteen provinces burns my homeland” (shisi sheng de huolu, shaode shi wo de gutu; 十四省的
火炉，烧的是我的故土).
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The topic went viral not only on Weibo, but also Douyin, Red, and
other social media platforms. People’s multimodal posts demonstrated the accumulated anger
and sense of unfairness. Some emphasized Shanxi’s sacrifice to the country, especially to those
developed regions. Some attributed the unusual rainstorm and flooding to local environmental
damage caused by coal mining, questioning, “Will the digging continue?” The tension between

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local and national was always there, despite China’s authoritarian regime, but further engendered
by crisis. Social media provided a bottom-up channel for the “local public” to express their
voices and document their feelings.
Unanticipated events related to the climate crisis sometimes evoke activism and chaos. At
other times, activism transitions toward solutions. In November 2022, during the last stay-at-
home order before China stopped the zero-dynamic policy in January, a local coal mine in
Yangquan had positive cases of COVID-19. However, miners were ordered to stay inside the
mining area in their dormitory, lacking food and daily necessities. The leader reported the
situation, but no one answered. Because of the reorganization of multiple coal companies in
Shanxi, the mine was at a transition phase of shifting management between two companies,
resulting in slower response from the leadership. Pressed by the living conditions, coal miners
posted their situations on social media. The social media activism prompted the leadership to act,
transferring people positive for COVID-19 to hospitals and stopped the lockdown. Social media
and the mining community is an evolving topic. In the past, mines were isolated, away from the
city, and its workers were kept together. Communication was difficult. Miners were not visible
to the public. The public was not addressed by those who were at the base of the energy system.
Presently, miners in China have access to and resonance with local communities. The online
presence of miners is only one strain of community discourse, but the presence of miners adds
voices that are distinct from the bureaucracy of those in other lines of work. In addition, the mine
itself can be a site of disaster or a product of times where climate change impacts (such as
floods) exceed expectations. In addition to articulation of bad events, social media brings about
connections in the good times as well.

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Tourism and Wanghongnization of the City
Local communities in Yangquan use social media not only to advocate and lend voice to
coal miners and others of the coal community, but also to share their daily life in a tier five city
(one tier above villages in Chinese city-ranking system). Yangquan attracts more tourists to its
ancient mountains, valley, and river. Community talks glisten. Entrepreneurs are there to make
money from tourists looking for something different. Wanghong (literal translation “internet
red,” meaning content creators in Chinese) promoters share visions of sights, talk, and ratings for
fun and sometimes cost.
252
Yangquan-based content can show off the uniqueness of the city,
promoting the city image as a brand. Social media presentability was embraced by urban space
designers, planners, and residents. In my hometown, many new cafés, restaurants, book shops,
and museums lead rich, presentable lives on social media.
Chinese urban study scholars call social-media chatting up a place the
“wanghongnization of the city” ( 城市网红化 chengshi wanghonghua, like media-tized). This is
not a “rigid academic concept,” but “I know it when I see it” (the scholar I cited borrowed Potter
Stewart’s comments on hardcore pornography).
253
On the one hand, wanghongnization of urban
space can add a viral quality to city life, especially a small city, striving to diversify its economy
and develop events to attend and places to tour. The comparative advantage is that the place is
not as crowded or dense, even though the town has not gotten the exposure, nor does it have the
resources of a big city. Upbeat talk or wanghongnizing the city may overemphasize the
presentability over its possibly multiple functions, and thus, becomes a space only for “check in”
( 打卡, daka).
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Urban space becomes attractive when there is a “there” to visit. Recently, the outside
walls of Niangzi Pass (also called the Ladies’ Pass) Power Plant were repainted. The mural took

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its illustration from the plot of the sci-fi, The Three Body Problem. Cixin Liu wrote the book
when he worked as an electrician at the power plant. The power plant, fired by coal, was built in
1965 and shut down in 2009. Yet as “the birthplace of The Three Body Problem,” it had become
a site for fandom pilgrimage from all over the country,
255
especially after the book was made into
a TV series (Netflix also has its own version). Many other works of Liu, for instance, the
Wandering Earth, were also adapted into multimodal content. Moreover, the city strove to
combine the avant-garde sci-fi with historical cultural resources in Niangzi Pass, giving the place
is the ninth pass of the Great Wall, which was initially built during the Warring State Period. The
wall there was garrisoned by Princess Pingyang, the daughter of Li Yuan, Tang Dynasty’s first
emperor, and so attractions grow.

Figure 26. and Figure 27. A Local Bookstore Promoting Yangquan Identity
(Photos by Junyi Lv)

Historical resources and cultural relics were one of the major focuses of Yangquan to
develop its tourism. In 2019, the city opened its museum after ten years of construction. Yu
County of Yangquan was the capital of Qiuyou, a small country in the Spring and Autumn

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Period over 2,000 years ago. Cang Mountain in Yu County was also where the Orphan of Zhao,
a Chinese play in Yuan Dynasty adapted from The Records of the Grand Historian by Han
Dynasty historian Sima Qian, happened. Thus, the museum curated historical stories and objects,
with an emphasis on these histories, together with a section on coal’s usage and the industry’s
development, as well as colonialized history in imperial time. The whole Shanxi Province
maintained the most historical and cultural relics around the country, especially Tang Dynasty’s
architectures, going all the way through the cultural revolution—the so-called “cultural relics
above the ground, go look Shanxi ( 地上文物看山西 dishang wenwu kan Shanxi); (while
cultural relics underground, go look Shaanxi, 地下文物看陕西 dixia wenwu kan Shannxi).”
256

Aligning with Shanxi’s effort of integrating culture and tourism,
257
Yangquan’s developing
tourism is facilitated by the construction of Taihang No. 1 Highway, connecting major tourism
spots and resources across Shanxi.
The museum economy boomed in China, backed by government planning to become a
“museum power” by 2035.
258
Yangquan Memory 1947 museum was opened in May 2022.
Different from Yangquan Museum, dedicated to history and cultural relics, the 1947 museum
focused on contemporary Yangquan since 1947, when the Communist Party founded the city.
The museum was adapted from a factory producing water pumps that was shut down in 2020. It
kept the main five workshops of the factory and adapted them into three themed exhibition halls,
a library, and a theater.

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Figure 28. Yangquan Memory 1947 Museum (Photo by Junyi Lv)
This museum is a collective effort by the government, a professional design team, and
community members. The government invited a design team working for the Shanghai 2010
expo and a local design team in Shanxi Province. The team collected archives, exhibits, and
stories from local communities. The museum strives to attract and identify many visitors with
diverse interests. I visited the museum myself and talked with several visitors with different
backgrounds. Varied generations take away different museum experiences. For the older
generations, my generation or older, we have experienced at least some parts of the narrative
about the city from 1947. Therefore, the museum provides a chance for us to relive the
experiences by imitating the physical landscapes. For instance, an imitation display of the old
train station in Yangquan stands in memory of the city transporting coal during the Republican
era. Another exhibit shows factories and different industries that have mostly disappeared. The
coal economy drove out other ventures, it seems. Another display shows the old community hubs
like the city movie theater and local worker cultural center. Previous workers at the water pump
factory may be particularly moved by the old machines and the maintenance of the factory space,

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which is well-used for the displays. Thus, water pump factory workers might feel that their hard
work is remembered and validated. The exhibits of workers and industry depart from elite
displays of art at traditional museums.

Figure 29. Imitation Old Train Station Figure 30. Yangquan’s Industrial Systems
(Photo by Junyi Lv) (Photo by Junyi Lv)

Figure 31. and Figure 32. Old Machines Being Reused for Displays (Photos by Junyi Lv)
The younger generations may be interested in the history of the place, listening to their
parents’ telling their stories. Children visit, but to them, the museum is not only an experiential
landscape, but it also lives in the virtual landscape. The museum experiences generate stories that

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are presentable on social media platforms. Aligning with the wanghongnization of the city, the
1947 museum also caters to younger generations’ needs. For instance, the wei’erkang model, a
locally produced drink, was represented by a big bottle. The museum created its own photo
opportunity. There are also some spots that are not necessarily Yangquan specific but made
photo friendly. For instance, the running track allows people to take photos. Museums are for
memories, exhibits that prompt recollection of old times, and photo opportunities that preserve
and share the experiences of new travels to a historical place.

Figure 33. Giant Weierkang (Photo by Junyi Lv) Figure 34. Running Track (Photo by Junyi Lv)
Southeast Kentucky mid-century museums were old-fashioned hubs for hosting
community events, exhibits of life in a coal community, and a popular tourist stop. The
contemporary 1947 museum wants to be more than just displays and an indoor visitor center.
The museum part is free to the public, despite investing about 50 million USD to build the

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museum. To generate viable revenue streams, the museum project developed its second phase, in
which the outdoor areas will include a night market selling street food, a café, many stores, and a
green space which can be used for shooting wedding photos. Moreover, the theatre and the
conventional hall can be rented out for events and conferences. The development aligns with
China’s initiatives in developing a “night economy” ( 夜间经济, yejian jingji), creating a place
that can accommodate local communities hanging out in summer evenings.
259
On the other hand,
over commercialization may hurt the local heterogeneity. The museum needs not to let the
commercial part overwhelm the exhibits that speak about local culture and history. As a newly
built museum, its future is still undetermined.

Figure 35. Local Communities Hanging Out Outside the Museum in the Evening
(Photo by Junyi Lv)

Developing tourism is also associated with Yangquan’s goal of developing the healthcare
and senior care industries by combining the local resources such as hot springs with the
relatively pleasant climate in the valley compared to neighboring regions to attract clients. The
direction is still under exploration, aligning with the trends of China as an aging society and its
initiatives in developing a “silver hair economy.”
260
Successful transformation depends upon

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developing a good reputation for services from locals and visitors. Services in the mountain area
have a host of unique challenges. An energy extracting biome changes the environment through
material extraction, processing, and labor. The re-rendering of space for maintaining the current
population and attracting visitors requires taking full advantage of communications that are
available to the planning and monitoring of work across state and market enterprises that make
up an ancient city on the cusp of modern times.
Technology and “Smart City” Planning
The communities in my hometown feel the sense of urgency attached to the fluctuation of
national energy commitments, its coal dependency, and shrinking population. Various projects
and initiatives are tested to revitalize business and to generate jobs and diversity from a coal-
dependent economy. Such explorations are ongoing. They are never completely random but
follow the typical way of doing things in a small Chinese city. Social relationships are valued
more than formal procedures. Similar to Kentucky’s bet on technology and connectivity, my
hometown is on track toward “smart city” planning. The town has relations with Baidu, a search
engine and now artificial intelligence company. CEO Robin Li was born and raised in Yangquan.
Thus, the city collaborates with Baidu on a series of projects that are supposed to bring
resources, employment, and revenue to the city.
Baidu Cloud Computing has a Yangquan Center. This is a data storage and computing
complex powered by solar and wind energy. It has a wastewater recycling system, saving 60
percent water.
261
Connecting with the computing center, the city-built Yun ( 云 cloud) Valley was
built at the Economy and Technology Development Zone in Yangquan. The zone was misnamed
because real estate, not technology, has been its chief target. Currently, the major companies that
comprise Yun Valley come from industries such as pharmaceutical, information technology

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equipment, environmental protection material development, and food. The valley offered support
benefits to new material and technology companies. Yangquan also became an experimental site
to test driverless cars, but only within the territory of the Economy and Technology
Development Zone. Building a “smart automobile” city has been a dream. The city hopes to
connect the network of automobiles and other information platforms to better serve citizens’
daily lives. Baidu developed an electric driverless car, Apollo, “robotaxi” that connects with
passengers through its own mobile App.
262
The service is available in eleven large cities in China
currently. Besides, Baidu also collaborated with Xinshiqi Company and developed a driverless
car (below) selling breakfast. Customers can order via the big screen.

Figure 36. A Driverless Car Selling Breakfast (Photo by Junyi Lv)
The projects mentioned show promise, but the effort in transitioning to a smart city is still
in its initial stages. At the early stage, the development is focused on building physical
architecture, hardware, and equipment. It still needs to update old infrastructure to make services
with cutting edge projects. For instance, the employees of the computing center were mainly
hired from outside Yangquan. Its taxies do not go to Yangquan either—so the benefits it can

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bring to the local economy are limited. Driverless cars, too, are at the experimental and small-
scale development stages. Each Apollo still has a driver, whose hands may be off the steering
wheel. I did not see customers buying from the breakfast car either. Mr. J
51
, a former coal truck
driver, got the opportunity to drive behind a driverless car as a “guardian” during a “leaders’
study and inspection” event. He eventually lost patience and abandoned the car, going back to
his workplace alone, “Too slow. I couldn’t stand it.” Entrepreneurial efforts may constitute a
good start. Yet, it is a long way to go for technologies to actually enhance local well-being. The
“smart city” is a workable public image, but presently it exists mostly as a shadow of reality.
Transience: Participatory Engagement and a New Museum
Coal transitions are not smooth. Sometimes, projects fail for economic or political
reasons. Over the long run, many factors grind away and erode hopes for sustainable renewal.
The push and pull of unanticipated policy outcomes, town rivalries, and global market forces
transfigure work and generate societal movement. As efforts accumulate, transient anthropocene
transient projects are worth attention. They appear to reflect a different style of thinking and may
lay a foundation for the future transformation of energy culture. The transient existence of my
coal town is marked by the turning of a local coal mine into a new museum. To gain insights into
this experience, I worked to gather reflections from locals who were asked about building the
museum. My experiment with participatory engagement produced an unexpected not-as
participatory design activity.
Adapting The Third Coal Mine into a Museum
In fifth grade, my classmates and I were given a project-based learning class—different
from our regular exam-oriented subjects. We were encouraged to work on a group project with

51
Pseudonym.

141

schoolmates not limited to our own class. During the first class, a schoolmate from the next-door
class reached out to a few students including me. Ideas were shared concerning the
transformation of an old coal mine into a new museum. My peer asked, “Could visitors usefully
explore the underground world?” Her idea won immediate support, based on the then common
expectation that coal in our hometown would soon deplete. We needed ways to sustain the
economy.
Our primary school group spent a great semester searching for history and information
about the coal community and coal mining. We designed visitor routes, displays, and activities.
The mine-turned-museum was illustrated with paintings and paper cuttings. We named our
project “Black Gold Tour.” Coal was referred as black gold in our hometown (as it has been
named in many places). Although the project was presented and well-received, it never went
beyond our classroom. Nor did coal mining in my hometown stop. Even so, during the years
building up to the Paris accords, we kept hearing that coal was about to run out. Could two-
thousand years of mining strip a mountain of its wealth? Twenty-five years later, when I heard
that my hometown had decided to turn its Third Coal Mine into a museum, I flashed back to my
childhood project.
The Third Coal Mine, with a 111-year history, was the largest underground mine in Asia
in the 1990s. Since the establishment of PRC, the mine produced 240 million tons of coal in
total.
263
The mine started to close in 2018 and was completely closed in 2019. It still had 6,600
miners when it closed.
264
The municipal government took the lead in transforming the mine into
a museum. Tsinghua University collaborated.
265
The mine was recognized as a national industrial
heritage site in 2018. Its above ground housing and facilities were kept together. This industrial
heritage preservation was not unique to the Chinese context. Across the globe, historical coal

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mines have been transformed into industrial heritage sites.
266
For example, in Rhur, Germany
(which Yangquan intended to imitate) the UNESCO world heritage site of Zeche Zollverein is
part of the European Route of Industrial Heritage (ERIH).
267
Scholars have paid attention to
waves of industrial nostalgia often associated with an industrial heritage site. Nostalgia
originates from the Greek word, nostos (the return home) and algos (grief, pain, sorrow).
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Although nostalgia had its pathological associations and may be regarded as a symptom that can
hinder progress, its meaning is ambiguous and contextual.
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At the point I entered this project, it had not been decided what would be saved, crafted,
and displayed. I wondered how the fault lines of nostalgia would weigh down the project and
how progressive thinking might emerge from the grass roots of residents, workers, and
managers. The Ruhr example was instructive to me. Berger disentangled the seven layers of
industrial nostalgia embedded in the Ruhr industrial heritage site:
First, regional identity; second, the national significance of the region; third, its
ongoing modernity; fourth, its cultures of solidarity; fifth, its alleged peculiar
openness and tolerance that is connected to a deep history of migration; sixth; the
theme of nature and both its destruction and its regeneration; and, finally, the theme
of lived experience.
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These layers seemed to contextualize thinking about our Third Coal Mine as an industrial
heritage site, with nuances. When returning to my hometown in 2022, I learned that the museum-
transforming project was halted. It would cost more than the coal company expected, given the
hazardous underground geological and geographical condition of the complex.
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Moreover, the
1947 Yangquan Memory Museum, dedicated not only to local mining communities but the
whole city (discussed in the previous section) had already been built. Thus, the locals decided
that the adaptation of the Third Coal Mine project would cease. Still, I visited the closed Third

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Coal Mine, now a quiet wasteland. Similar with Kentucky’s coal museums, the mine exhibits
strong local identity; but it demonstrated even stronger national identity.

Figure 37. Closed Mine Shaft (Photo by Junyi Lv)
The local identity of the mine was recognized by public testimony to its national
significance. National leaders and authorities had been among its visitors. On the walls, signs
welcoming leaders to visit looked much newer and more well-maintained than the rusty coal
tipples and mine carts, although the mine is currently closed to the public. In Chinese cultural
nostalgia, local and national are often closely connected, and even refers to family and country as
one ( 家国一体, jiaguoyiti). Legends are intimate. An example is the renown Memorial to
Yueyang Tower, written by Fan Zhongyan, a writer and minister in the Northern Song
Dynasty.
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In this essay, the poet describes the possible feelings after climbing to the Yueyang

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Tower (climbing high and engaging in nostalgic feelings is a typical activity of ancient writers
and poets). Fan describes leaving and missing my country and hometown, using country and
hometown interchangeably ( 去国怀乡, quguohuaixiang). Nostalgia is sometimes transcended by
art into alluring memories.
Interestingly, the local and national do not reject the international. On the contrary, the
mine seeks international recognition to demonstrate its value in modernity. A local guide, who
worked for the mine previously, spoke to me about the French experts who had visited the site
recently. They wanted to collaborate in developing means to turn mine spaces into an exhibit of
industrial heritage, “They have heritages in their own country, yet they say our mine is better
than theirs for its well-kept, complete mining and living facilities.” Many old machines were
imported internationally to the Third Mine. Things that belonged to the mine brought together
international collaborators and new visitors, including locals and tourists. Solidarity is
everywhere. Slogans, comics, and signs promoting the party’s ideologies, the importance of
safety production, the introduction to the company’s culture, and the spirit of work hard and
work together have been posted, too.
Compared with Rhur’s regeneration of destructed nature, the Third Coal Mine did not put
intentional efforts into the rehabilitation of nature. Yet the place was no longer mastered by busy
machines and workers. Entering the gate of the mine-factory area, I was immediately greeted by
wild dogs running carefree across old mine cart trails. We had to trudge through tall grass to get
close to the old entrances of the mine shafts. Compared with European Green Belt’s
juxtaposition of nonhuman nature and technology,
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the unkempt artificial facilities blended in
with nature.

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Figure 38. and Figure 39. Nonhumans inside the Third Coal Mine (Photos by Junyi Lv)
Unlike the pathological tradition, in China, nostalgia appears in the term huaijiu ( 怀旧),
which means missing the old days in Chinese. Such affect does not have negative connotations.
In fact, huaijiu is promoted by artists and poets—traditionally in relation to ancient times. What
people miss is not necessarily the once prosperous industry or the risky, dangerous work, but the
close relations with colleagues and families, and a stable factory-yard life. Besides gigantic
machines, the surrounding living facilities made the workers life-spaces more home like—
indeed, once it was home for 60,000 miners and their families. The cafeteria remains named
“The Third Coal Mine In-Between-Work Meals” ( 三矿班中餐). Tens of thousands of meals
were fetched from here to be taken to the underground world. Like the Kentucky coal mine I
visited, its bathhouse was also an important feature of the living facility, with a giant golden
label: “Employees’ Bathhouse.” Suddenly, a loudspeaker conveying an anonymous voice passed
through the wall. Sound broke the quietness and absence, “Anyone who hasn’t done the COVID
test please do it ASAP.” The inner inactiveness of a once vital center was amplified in this place

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of my return. This contrasted with the external activities, a nearby neighborhood community on a
block affiliated with a mine still in operation. This return to the living broke my reverie.
The Third Coal Mine Museum project has become transient, just like the primary-school
group project I participated in so many years ago. Still, the initiator of the museum-adaptation
project expressed his will to continue working toward the project’s actualization. He described
multiple possibilities for a mine-turned-museum that could fire up local tourism, fine dining, and
even the sports industry. I was mostly moved by his idea for building a coal miner monument.
Coal miner monuments have been established in many coal communities to remember miners’
sacrifice.
52
The director introduced his blueprint of the monument. The director spoke of
continuity and respect, “Despite where they were come from, the coal miners made great
contribution. The monument will have miners’ names carved on.” He compared the monument
with the Hundred Regiments Offensive Monument (in memory of soldiers who participated in
Hundred Regiment Offensive) at Yangquan, “We need to keep up the pace with our times—care
for humanities, which means each individual matters,” he claimed.
The initiator’s sentiments resonate with Boyer’s and Berger’s concepts of memory and
nostalgia. The past is never static. Decisions to remember the past, made by communities, are
relevant according to meanings upon which the present and the future are built.
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Of course
romantic and melancholy attachments to an industrial past are problematic. It was not all
employment and progress. Nor should the working class be buried in a coffin. Laborers are not to
be boxed as “passive, hapless victims of impersonal structural forces.”
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It is necessary to build

52
For instance, in the U.S. memorials are not limited to The Coal Miner’s Canary and Coal
Miners Monument in Trinidad, Colorado; Coal Miner Statue in Springfield, Illinois and Indiana
State House in Indianapolis; Richlands Coal Miners' Memorial in Virginia. In China, a coal
miner memorial wall stands at Jinhuagong National Mine Park in Datong, Shanxi Province.

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a place to emplace working-class memory when professions, careers, and lives are presented in
their experiences of transition, continuities, and transformations.
The complete living and mining facilities at the Third Mine were evocative. It prompted
me to think about what is more important, a common space for coal miners’ stories and voices.
After the visit, I thought: How will their experiences be circulated? The industrial heritage
project is too costly, and it may erase local heterogeneity. Perhaps a smaller museum dedicated
to local communities could constitute a symbol of the associated mine? Perhaps a collection of
local community voices could serve as dimensions of exhibits, which could differentiate itself
from the 1947 Yangquan Memory displays. A museum of voices does not need require a large
public museum. Rather, it could accommodate the mainstream memory of citizens from the
mining districts in Yangquan with its localities, cultural treasures, and ruins. A community-
voiced museum, compared with public museums and industrial heritage sites, may connect
visitors even closer to the experiences that weave local energy communities together.
Participatory Design of Coal Museum
The visit to the mine and reflections readied me for an extended community activity. I
carried out the participatory design (PD) activity. The PD group was originally planned to
facilitate the Third Coal Mine adaptation. The group sought to draw bottom-up insights and
agency and integrate these with the top-down agenda. Initiated in Scandinavia as a method for
democratizing workplaces, PD has gradually been used to “engage a wide range of groups such
as elderly, immigrants, and indigenous populations.”
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Through co-design, the designer can gain
better understanding of communities’ needs. As an ethnographer, I thought that joining such an
activity would afford me a better understanding of the junctures of bringing the miners’
community contributions to local and nation to view. To encourage non-expert public

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participation and empower local communities in the design, the activities focused on imagination
instead of the “strictly practical or feasible designs,” framed by previous research as
“infrastructure of imagination.”
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Originally, I planned three PD activities featuring between six and ten members. The
members would be organized into three activities consisting of a local coal company with coal
miners and their family members; a college with their students; and a nursing home with elderly
residents. During the PD process, participants would 1) share stories and memories of Yangquan
in relation to coal, and brainstorm solutions to transition from problems toward ideas for
infrastructure and paths to facilitate transformation; 2) share previous experiences of visiting
museums and coal museums, and be introduced to existing coal museums then invited to
comment; 3) imagine and deliberate coal museum displays such as what should be included and
what should not, and designing display arrangements to form coherent narratives by talking,
writing, painting, and crafting. In retrospect, the aims were ambitious.
Specifically, the community-based research aimed to answer these questions: What roles
do museums and memory play in a coal city’s transition? How are facilities and exhibits to be
designed that can reconcile different vested interests and work toward change with justice? Can
community memory turn toward public deliberation and participation, and tell stories of coal
communities to future generations? How can we build a sustainable infrastructure of imagination
and civic engagement to facilitate the community’s transition from coal? The results of the PD
were to be recorded visually with the permission of the participants and shared with local
museum planning stake holders.
Recruiting participants was much more difficult than I had expected. Affected by the
pandemic and the no-gathering policy, people were not available to me. Residents were not

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allowed to go out except for required Covid-19 tests and essential grocery shopping. I could not
get access to local senior houses or schools to hold such PD activities. Interviews would be
considered social gatherings. Further, I could not use a random selection strategy, for instance,
recruiting participants from the streets. Thus, I compromised by gathering a group of senior
community members, through a local agent. Although I explicitly highlighted that this activity
would not require any expertise in museum design, the senior participants who showed up were
all retired cadres with expertise in arts, culture, and policymaking. Moreover, finding a common
available time for some coal miners I interviewed without disrupting their regular work and rest
schedule was more difficult than I had expected. The coal miner group eventually consisted of
junior and senior coal company executives who all had underground working experiences, but
none had current underground work obligations. The college student group consisted of graduate
students and new college graduates under thirty years old. They all came from Yangquan and
were female. This countered the gender imbalance in the aforementioned two groups, which only
had one female.
Although group constitution did not align with the plan to include more ground-up
voices, the participatory design activity did yield many useful takeaways. All participants,
despite their ages, genders, or backgrounds, agreed that building a coal museum would emplace
local communities’ memory. The mine museum would be a fitting place to memorialize coal
miners’ sacrifice and their contributions to town and nation. Interestingly, the necessity was not
tied with the survival of coal industries. Even company executives held that coal, as a
nonrenewable energy resource, would probably disappear in, say, 200 years. Coal industries
would eventually be replaced by cleaner and renewable energies such as wind and solar. One
executive pointed out coal’s important role in modernity and thus, the historical value for

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building such a museum: “It is like showing people how human beings evolve from monkeys;
without a museum like this, when coal industries no longer exist, there will be pieces missing
from the big picture.”
When it comes to the specific design of the museum, the three groups demonstrated
different approaches to illustrate their ideas. The under-30 group were comfortable using
multimodal tools and painting the blueprints in their minds. The retired cadre and coal executive
group preferred to talk about things. Only one in each of the two groups drew a sketch of the
imagined museum. These differences are likely shaped by class or gender differences, or perhaps
different generations’ habits in information consumption and creation. The difference also
mutually shaped their divergent focuses: the under-30 group paid more attention on the
appearance and architecture of the museum. For instance, one designed a coal museum in the
shape of diamond. She wanted to emphasize the association between coal and diamonds as both
carbon, and also used the diamond shape to demonstrate the value of coal as a nonrenewable
resource for us to use and cherish. Another designed the museum in golden hues, imitating the
color of sunshine to demonstrate its value. This design immediately reminded me of Shellen
Wu’s comment—coal is buried sunshine.
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Members of the young group also expressed
dissatisfaction with existing museums and tourist places in Yangquan. One person said, “They
really lack interaction. We don’t have interactive experiences when visiting; all we saw are dead
objects…We want to interact with someone who really knows coal and history.” Another
confessed that she does not visit museums often, but since watching the CCTV’s show on
“National Treasure,” she became more interested. It seems that the fate of public museums
depends in part on strategies of attraction. Shows and merchandise products augment displays
and exhibit specific films. “Like what the Forbidden Palace did; They sell lipsticks with their

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brand.” Another young adult emphasized the importance of novelty: “The coal museum should
show things that are commonly inaccessible to us, instead of ordinary stuff. We hardly have
experience to go underground and see the working conditions of coal miners.”
The cadre and executive groups were of a different mind. Their comments were focused
more on logistics, the big picture, and clever projects. For instance, one emphasized that the
implementation of a sustainable revenue model was vital. The museum should not be the only
stop for tourists in Yangquan. Instead, it should be associated with other tourism spots to make
visitors stay and consume more. But another asserted that money should not be the only goal of
building the museum, “We need renwen qinghuai ( 人文情怀, a kind of humanitarian feeling or
devotion.” The museum need not be a money maker to be a success. One participant was critical
of the 1947 Yangquan Memory’s model. The need to make an appointment online and queuing
for access were off-putting. Coal history should be completely open to the public. Another also
pointed out the museum should not only have internal spaces and exhibits. Rather, transportation
should be provided. Existing infrastructures, such as train tracks, could pay an important homage
to Yangquan’s history. This idea aligns with and updates Portal 31’s design in Kentucky. Some
participants also mentioned adding interactive performance to the museum display, referring to
their touring Pingyao, a UNESCO Cultural Heritage site and an ancient city in Shanxi with a
2,000-year history, “The Youjian Pingyao ( 《又见平遥》, Seeing Pingyao Again) immersive
performance was really impressive.” As the talks flowed, participants also came up with some
ideas to adapt the coal mine into a museum, such as holding an underground marathon utilizing
the long tunnels, accommodating gigantic computational machines collaborating with Baidu
Cloud Computing center, holding e-sports and competitive gaming tournaments to develop e-

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sports tourism, and building an underground training base of practicing first aid and safety
measures for coal mining.
The participatory design activity was less participatory than I had planned. Of course,
lingering pandemic policies were an obstacle. But I encountered, also, hinderance from different
beliefs and habits. The creation of anything dedicated to coal communities itself was
controversial. Hometown communities were all very supportive with good intentions. Yet, some
participants insisted that ordinary people, especially miners, would not pay much attention to the
museum or have knowledge relevant to designing a museum. I had emphasized that expert
knowledge was not required in this activity. Through interacting with miners in Kentucky and
my hometown, I found that stereotypical, demeaning attributions to miners do not hold true.
Even though it is probably true that tired of working long-hours, miners do often sleep and rest
during their spare time, rather than thinking about museums. But when the occasion arose, they
shared great insights and firsthand knowledge. They are experts who can speak to coal heritage.
The participatory design activity was held in the last two weeks before I left my
hometown, with the intention of selecting participants from amongst the people I had
interviewed already. However, it ended up consisting of new encounters with fresh, divergent
insights. The gathering of hometown grassroots attitudes is a project for later completion. My cut
off for this research was unexpected. Had I left my hometown twelve hours later, because of
newly imposed COVID-19 regulations, I would have been locked down again long-term,
possibly up until the zero-dynamic policy was cancelled on January 8
th
, 2023. Thus, the
ethnography evolved into a study in transience. Research in times of transition must retain
flexibility and adaptability. Knowledge communities do assemble, but under the stresses of a

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community in transition. The museum project remains unfinished. Its transient life, thus far,
contains seeds that imagine future occasions of participatory and community-based construction.

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Interlude: Where Are We From?
Born and raised in Yangquan, I never questioned my family’s origin. I do not speak
Yangquan dialect. My mom is not from Yangquan, and at home she and my dad talked in
standard Mandarin, so I lacked immersion into the local dialect. However, the dialect once
slipped from my tongue naturally. On a typical school morning, while walking to school, I was
startled with a neighbor’s dog, and shouted out in dialect, “I’m frightened to death!” It was an
awakening. Since then, I consciously created opportunities to learn Yangquan dialect, which
helped in my hometown fieldwork. On my father’s side, his family all spoke Yangquan dialects,
except my grandparents—they spoke Mandarin with Hebei accent. I learned that grandpa
migrated from Beijing during the war, following his mentor who founded the city’s first
photography studio. However, I thought at least grandma was born and raised in Yangquan, like
I was, and had picked up her accent from her parents. I vaguely recall my parents, aunts, and
uncles talking about how grandpa and grandma met when living at the same yard and then
decided to marry. They shared how my grandma went to the same primary school as I did but
didn’t finish third grade.
It was not until my recent return home that I confirmed both of my grandparents migrated
to Yangquan. Grandma was born and raised in a railway family. Her father’s work brought his
two daughters to Yangquan, where they settled. The migrant history contrasts sharply with my
encounters in Southeast Kentucky, where family histories often date back generations. Moreover,
many coal miners in my hometown came from other places as well, although they all speak
Yangquan dialect now. This finding also upset my assumption that a small town is rather
stagnated with its flow of people. The journey of returning, demonstrated by the last chapter, was
also to re-turn my understanding of my hometown and family. Energotopia is never a fixed

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entity, but ever-changing topos accommodating movements of people, materials, and
relationships. This dissertation is about to come to an end, but the inquiry continues as energy
transitions advance.

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Chapter Five: From Coal Dependence to Coexistence
In Yanquan, energy transitions appear to accelerate, as China emerges from the pandemic
lockdown. The picture is not clear, however. Just in the last week of May 2023, a local coal mine
moved onto the list of Coal Mine Closing and Exiting in 2023 (First Batch);
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Meanwhile,
“smart mine,” “green mine,” solar, and wind power projects continue. Several young miners who
went underground with Mr. Q
53
could not tolerate the working conditions. They left. Transitions
carry on in friction.
This dissertation has developed an orientation that enables scholars to inquire into how
changes for energotopias integrate into ways of being, institutions of governance, modes of
technology, and relations among human and nonhuman communities at the local level. The study
portrays the unfolding of change through inter-referencing descriptions, analyses, and
commentaries of documents, landscapes, and conversations. The orientation of this study is
constituted by a personal journey to acquire the capacity to listen to local voices, distanced in
time and space, but united in a struggle to adjust to coal transition and communication
transformations. This dissertation should be of interest to those studying the workings of
communication infrastructure, the anthropological study of agency in “coal town” regional
contexts, and the construction of museums, monuments, and displays of collective
memory. More broadly, this dissertation expands uniquely the energy humanities into studies of
rhetoric, anthropology, and ethnography of everyday life and energy, rooted in local diversity
and cross-cultural contexts.
This chapter coalesces discoveries, speaks to the limits of this inquiry, and imagines
future horizons for work associated with the communities visited for conversation and

53
Pseudonym.

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investigation. Initially, the results of inter-referencing two areas are presented. The discovery of
voices as rhetorical resources for dispersed energotopias generally, and two coal regions in
particular, are discussed. The second section reflects on the orientation of the study or
methodology. The orientation that I took was to design and pursue a journey that permitted me to
move from my memory of growing up, to travels in being and being met as a stranger, to a return
home—to the same town, but with a wider point of view. The orientation is important for the
knowledge yielded through this inquiry. However, the pursuit of research itself, I feel, spurs the
growth, deepens insights, and matures a researcher. This is an important discovery of the
dissertation. The last two sections of this chapter move from comment on the dissertation and its
yield to speculation regarding the felicitous connections among communication, rhetoric, and
anthropology. Energy transitions accelerate. Indeed, since the discovery of fire, human beings
may be said to have been energy dependent and constantly searching for novel ways and uses.
Energy dependencies are changing across the globe. Finally, the resonance between places in
energy transition and the humanities are brought to mind. King Coal does dominate from the
beginning of the industrial revolution. Petro-chemicals now have their day. Every town is an
energotopia these days, crossed by changes, frictions, and possibilities. How do the
contemporary humanities create a body of teaching and research that discover the voices
necessary to work through these times?
The Discovery of Voices: Inter-referencing Two Coal Dependent Areas
Energotopias are small places experiencing energy transition where people collectively
make meanings through material activities. Energy transition invites the address of multiple
streams of understanding. As demonstrated in previous chapters, the transition away from coal
dependent economies brings complex, multi-faceted societal transformations, and may involve

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incomplete transfiguration within the established coal regime, as well as transient trials. These
“meanings” of transition were not discussed in advance by any experts or communities, but were
gradually extracted and refined by specific practices and actions of communities, often in various
directions with multiple vectors. By calling attention to topia, the study foregrounds the
“messiness” of energy transition’s practice and rhetoric, in which communities are discovering
and living in the ways that are considered available and best—for the time being.
The inter-referencing research between Yangquan and southeast Kentucky may seem to
invite comparison, but it offers a somewhat distinct point of view. Inter-referencing does not
mean comparison. Inter-referencing is not interested in finding similarities and differences
between places or “elevating ourselves to a transcendental position of A+B.”
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Firmly grounded
in the local, an inter-referencing approach is to reveal various possibilities of transition and
diverse practices of living. Rooted in local heterogeneity and common problems, similarities and
differences are granted in the two regions. The key to inter-referencing research is to reveal that
no matter whether it takes place within a more top-down or ground-up context, energy transition
is possible to be initiated, prompted, and make a difference, despite the bumpy road ahead.
Communities deeply locked in the coal regime must still strive for transition. Inevitably,
the historic, emplaced social relations among people, and between humans and nonhumans, have
changed from a misguided unilateral dominance to a more egalitarian entanglement. However,
the egalitarian may manifest, in its early stages, as confusion, disturbance, and concern. Humans’
species-centrism—that humans are the universal center— is internalized since infancy. Humans
need a reorientation to imagine alternatives in which “we” and the broader world are in constant
negotiation. Energy transitions are relational changes as human beings realize, admit, and come
to terms with the facts and facets of those beyond one’s habits and control. Gigantic mines,

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machines, markets, and institutions are built with ever advancing technologies. These
accomplishments have uneven and unpredictable consequences for sustaining the lifeworld of an
individual, residence, or town.
The initial reflections on my hometown identified the pervasiveness of attaching the
place and activities of a community to a single commodity, in this case, coal. Human beings are
the dominant subject of a lifeworld and coal becomes the absolute object. Terms like coal
“plant,” “trade,” “protect,” “cut,” and “drive” illustrate the standing of coal to a community. The
landscape, transportation system, the arrangement of the town—all these geographical features
strengthen the coal-regime’s integration into the community. Away from home, I began to see
coal towns unfold in a more horizontal fashion. Rather than becoming further entrenched in their
dependency, Kentucky communities in transition diversified from coal. Mines were closed. Little
downtown saw ebbs and flows. But I did witness various bottom-up and top-down projects and
initiatives, including a state-philanthropy sponsored site for job retraining. Diversification was
beginning to be a feature of my hometown, too—albeit in different ways. Yet, in each setting the
ambiguity and multiplicity of the meaning of transition were evident. Everyone seemed to agree
that change was on the way. Past changes could be pointed out. Yet, no one knew quite what to
expect for the future.
Inter-referencing undertakes the work of examining alternative futures that appear to be
coming to two distinctive areas where coal is central to community well-being and
replenishment. Referring to Kentucky, I found China, mainly relying on coal as its primary
energy resource, has a long way to go in transition away from coal; coal transition is much more
ambiguous than the original meaning of the word. As a place that is used to a top-down,
centralized way of getting things done, Yangquan can learn from southeast Kentucky to

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stimulate ground-up agency and self-help efforts in private sectors by entrepreneurs, NGOs, and
common community members. Particularly, coal miners’ outlooks resonate with one another
about work, the dark, the sound, the experience of the underground. However, miners in each
place were the most knowledgeable about the black dust, and rock, and atmosphere, but among
the least involved in actual initiatives and policy making for coal transition. Segregation between
the old fossil fuel sector and renewable energy, as well as high-technology sector coal cleaning,
do not adapt easily to China’s current, post-pandemic conditions of low birth rates, labor
shortages, and an aging society.
Coal miners of both regions appear to have talent and skills that should not be wasted and
can be transferred to other jobs and lifestyles that are more sustainable, as particularly
demonstrated by southeast Kentucky’s efforts. Furthermore, instead of positioning Yangquan as
a participant of a higher regional initiative, such as taking over industries that Beijing-Tianjin-
Hebei do not want anymore, the place needs to further spark imagination and ingenuity based on
its emergent local conditions. In addition to governments and experts, possibility lies in ordinary
people as creators, entrepreneurs, advocates, community leaders, and participants.
Yangquan’s future is tied to the central energy administration in Beijing. The area is
doing well, comparatively. Kentucky and other energy communities in the U.S., perhaps, could
learn from China’s coal commitments. For one thing, the top-down approach can be efficient in
allocating resources across regions and connecting local topias, despite the communication gap
between the central and the local. A federal approach is deployed in Appalachia, but there seems
to be less direction and more open participation through processes of biddings for contracts and
grant competition for local development. The commitment to coal transition is not easy to make
by a country and a town mainly relying on coal. A slow burn is a common feature of energy

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transition in the two cases studied. Although frictions exist, Yangquan, in the context of national
initiatives, has been on its way to transition. The region explores various energy alternatives. In
the United States, the federal and local levels need to consider how to increase the consistency of
decarbonization policies and initiatives against the polarization, division, and political instability.
Energotopias on the planet deserve extended research. Inquiry suggests that Yangquan
and southeast Kentucky, in coal transitions, exhibit features common to all energy dependent
communities: vulnerability, vitality, and vibrance.
1) Vulnerability. Coal towns are vulnerable to different systems of change. Communities
must address how to deal with vulnerability in the past, present, and future. Memory and local
thinking vary. Vulnerability includes the damage done by extraction industries and the failure to
take care of waste from energy production. Vulnerability also includes the unpredictability of
international markets. Finally, the sustainability policies pursued by the United States and China
are different. These are likely to be frictions as alternatives advance, technologies exhibit varied
trade-offs, and climate change continues.
2) Vitality. Coal towns face boom and bust cycles. The question of what sustains vitality
of forms of living is important in the reproduction of local society and the integration of new
members or treatment of transients. The study uncovered a variety of projects, initiatives, and
efforts, aimed at renewal, such as community-based agriculture, entrepreneurship, high-tech
manufacturing, museum and tourism, connectivity and programming, media content creation and
advocacy. Vitality requires a bet on an expanded number of alternatives that take advantage of
unnoticed values of the region. These possible orientations are for energy communities in
transition to consider, to become-informed, and to learn selectively, adapting available resources
to refreshed projects, making the best uses of specific local conditions.

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3) Vibrance. Vibrance appears to be a necessary feature of renewal. People interviewed
had been through hard times and good. The question of what comes next prevails. The question
of future appeared to be carried by a certain vibrance in response to challenges—a spark in
imagination. Coal towns discover their own manners of thriving. The communication of
constrains and transformation aims need to be appreciated and shared among communities with
common precarities and possibilities.
Vulnerability, vitality, and vibrance were evident in different ways among the many
voices I heard on my travels. I conclude that the qualities of voice shape rhetorical resources that
add to the cultures, materials, actions, and events of an energotopia. The demonstration of joint
material and symbolic forces in different rhetorical and place-based topias resonate together as a
particular biome or (critical) zone of the planet. The inter-referencing of voices reveals diverse,
productive possibilities for humanistic inquiry. Studies need to find ways to record (remember)
voices at a great distance, then call these to attention in a timely manner during times of flux,
disruption, and change.
Vitality, vulnerability, and vibrance are qualities of the chora (town, space giving place
for beings) or voices that resonate with one another across national, cultural, and linguistic
differences.
281
The “coal town” experience is held in memory. The necessity of transition is a
matter of resignation, not to the inevitable, but to the vast uncertainty that the flux of energy
transitions bring. Rhetorical topoi are gathered and thus bundled into a source of cognitive and
imaginative energy. The voices of those whom I interviewed during the COVID-19 pandemic
punctuate the landscape of government, market, transportation, and extraction vectors of mining
communities. A chora is a communal rhetoric in the narrow sense of those living together over
time in a common space. In a wider sense, a human sense, a chora sings a song that crosses

163

localities to harmonize across time and space. The curiosity about my project, that I experienced
on both sides of the Pacific Ocean (a world apart), speaks to the will to communicate, to make
common, and to share experiences in ways that bring home the possibilities of transformation
and make possible the development of a newly thriving place on the map.
Methodological Value
The mix of biographical experiences and an analytical lens created an ongoing
negotiation in writing and thinking about coal dependencies. For example, my status as the
daughter of a coal town in China and as a stranger in Kentucky placed me in distinctive roles and
thus, my questions were tilted in different directions. This approach is in many ways
fundamentally intuitive, using self-experiences as sources of observation and thinking, as well as
starting points to compare and reference others’ experiences. This is what Biao Xiang called,
“self as method,”—to problematize personal experiences and connect with bigger questions.
282

The words “problem” and “question” translated from Chinese as “ 问题 (wenti),” which may
have a broader connotation than a problem (indicating a solution) or a question (pending an
answer). Connecting with Xiang’s other work on “common concern,”
283
wenti here can be a
concern shared collectively by a group, a community, or a generation. Compared with a problem
or a question, a concern may be vaguer. People are concerned, worried, or anxious because they
do not have solutions, answers, and sometimes not even clear questions or definitions of the
problem.
284

Growing up in a coal town in need of transition, I have many personal problems,
questions, and concerns also shared by these communities. Generations of young people have
left my area for a better education and careers in big cities. Generations of parents have spared
no effort to support their children’s departures. Generations of coal miners suffered from

164

pneumoconiosis, yet, continued working so their children need not to work underground.
Personal experiences resonate with one another across time, forming the motivation for this
research. Self-experience is only a starting point, although a very important one; but to step out
of the self’s barrier and connecting with the broader world of practice is to travel with subjects of
inquiry who are engaged in the processes of formation.
Chinese philosophy also emphasizes “balancing self-transformation with consciousness
of duty within a series of concentric circles consisting of self, family, community, society,
nation, world, and cosmos.”
285
The self harmonizes with community-society, nature, and heaven,
“Self as a center of relationships establishes its identity by interacting with community variously
understood, from the family to the global village and beyond.”
286
This anthropocosmic view,
which suggests that, “humanity forms one body with Heaven, Earth, and myriad things”
287
could
also be a source for human beings to overcome the anthropocentric self and pursue harmonious
co-existence with nonhumans.
Limitations and Future Possibilities
The limits of this dissertation may serve as references for future studies. First, major parts
of the journey were undertaken during the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic. The research was
therefore, limited by ever-changing social distancing and lockdown policies, and had to
compromise sometimes to shorten interactions or shift them online. The limits in time and
imposed policies affected the participatory design activities, for which I expected to have more
ground-up participation. Still, the unexpected findings hold value. Second, the research duration
spans my lifetime as youth, student, and researcher. As energy transition proceeds, different
times may bring different results. Third, the results about local differences are suggestive but not
definitive. There are many regions across the world under stress, not limited to China or the U.S.;

165

the research therefore is limited in its generalization of results. Nevertheless, this inquiry’s aim
was never universalization. Ambition to universalize results require other research with physical,
natural, and social science approaches through computational modeling. This study’s strength,
instead, lies in its commitment to bring the local to life. Indeed, this logic of personal movement
enables inquiry, from my home, to being a stranger, to returning home with a fuller pallet of
experiences and openness. Local experiences have concrete, generative arcs of making. The
process of realizing a fuller vocabulary of inquiry is enabled by travel in the interest of a timely
comparison amidst change. While the study has limited claims about universal findings, the
limits are intentional. What is returned is an ongoing challenge to anthropological inquiry,
ethnological method, and spatial and temporal entanglements, as people must work to sustain
energy and create paths to resilience during waves of catastrophe and recovery, good times and
bad.
Inquiry into an energotopia and slow burn is limited by time, place, and circumstances
available to the research. Even more focus requires working through certain topoi, while leaving
others to future inquiry. I would like to mention four. First, listening to the stories of coal miners,
I discussed the labor issue from a phenomenological perspective, but not so much from an
organized labor point of view. Southeast Kentucky is the place of legendary strikes. Organized
strikes are rare these days in both my hometown and southeast Kentucky according to my
conversation partners. But previous studies provided valuable historical records of the labor
movements and various resistance efforts by coal miners.
288
Labor has always been a topos of the
capitalist, industrialized system, and will continue to be central to understanding human
condition in the context of modernity, post-industrialization, and (de)globalization. Second,
taking a material turn into rhetorical inquiry, I mainly focused on the relations between coal and

166

communities. Religions play an important role in coal miners’ life, which I addressed a bit when
talking about Yangquan communities’ but not so much for southeast Kentucky communities.
During the conversations, community members in southeast Kentucky did express that going to
church was a regular activity. In some cases, church can also serve as a local nexus for mutual
support and connection when disasters, like floods, happen. Understanding coal communities’
spiritual world is equally important to understanding the material conditions. For this line of
inquiry on religious communities, I point to Emma Bloomfield’s research on Christianity and
climate skepticism,
289
as well as inviting future studies to engage this topic. Third, transition in
justice is entangled with racial justice. My research spotted the effort by African American
communities in Appalachia to engage in activism, storytelling, and heritage preservation, which
can be centralized in further research. For this research direction, I acknowledge previous
academic and popular works,
290
upon which future studies can build. Fourth, the connections
between coal communities and the rich folk history and culture in Appalachia requires deeper
exploration. The folk history and culture are soil from which efforts grow to facilitate social
justice.
291

For the next phases, I hope to remain in motion, into and with localities, and extend to
translocal relations and mobilities. During the research, I found many families in Yangquan, my
hometown, including mine, were migrants following coal jobs or transportation development.
Within coal jobs, “hierarchies” exist in mining labor. For instance, many coal miners mentioned
their colleagues from Sichuan in southwest China tend to do the most dangerous work and
without official contracts with the company, thus, without insurance and benefits. In Southeast
Kentucky, although most miners I communicated with lived on the land for generations, people
migrated to work in coal mines from the U.S. and internationally. For instance, Lynch, Harlan

167

County used to accommodate coal miners from thirty-eight nationalities at its heyday.
292
What
were their stories? Why do people leave their hometown and work in mines, or oil fields and
other energy sectors? How do their lives change as working conditions change and as energy
transition happens? The experiences of migration also resonate with communities more than
miners and energy workers. Through the pandemic, living in a flux of technological change, and
ecological vulnerability, we are all migrants, “who have ‘migrated’ from one type of life to
another, and can quite never return to the life left behind.”
293
The everchanging life experiences
require further attention, exploration, and care. The joining of rhetoric and anthropology offers a
strong contemporary orientation to conduct further research into energy transition and
transformation.
The Anthropology of Communication
This dissertation brings communication and rhetoric into conversation with anthropology,
through a relational view. In The Anthropology of Argument, Tindale “shift[s] the focus away
from the purely propositional element of arguments and onto how they emerge from the
experiences of peoples with diverse backgrounds, demonstrating how argumentation can be
understood as a means of expression and a gathering place of ideas and styles.”
294
Instead of
taking a simple cause and effect or transmission model of communication, this inquiry about
energy transition focuses on people’s diverse life experiences amidst systematic changes and
challenges.
Communication in Chinese is often translated as “ 传播 (chuanbo),” which means
broadcasting. The translation may be influenced by early mass communication studies in the
West, coinciding with the establishment of communication as a discipline in China. The accurate
translation of communication may be “ 交通 (jiaotong),” which is the same word as

168

“transportation” in Chinese.
295
Of course, transportation and communication have many
connections and intersections, as early communication scholars have pointed out.
296
But in
ancient Chinese, 交通, jiaotong, was two words, meaning “ 交错相通 (jiaocuo xiangtong)”—
which translate to intertwined and connected. Thus, communication is largely interactive,
aligning with the major focus of anthropological ethnographic studies—relations.
297

My research was largely based on relations. The process of research is also a process of
building, maintaining, and revisiting relationships with local community members, ranging from
family members to local government officials. The relationship-driven perspective views coal
communities as entangled relationships, instead of an entity with clear boundaries. In
Transcending Boundaries, Biao Xiang introduced a “guanxi ( 关系, meaning relations)”
perspective to study Zhejiang Village migrant communities in suburban Beijing. Following the
process, he offered rich analyses of how various social relationships in Zhejiang Village extend,
shrink, and change.
298
Xiaotong Fei also coined the concept “differential mode of association” to
describe relationships in rural China which is demonstrated through a metaphor because
everyone forms a network centered around self—just like throwing a stone into a lake, ripples
emerge. The rings of water ripples mark the closeness of social relations.
299
Emphasizing the
importance of guanxi in Chinese society is not new in academia or daily conversations,
300
but
guanxi in this context, is often regarded as a social and cultural capital to “get things done.”
Xiang and perhaps also Fei’s guanxi, on the other hand, is a way of expression,
301
and a way of
observation—identifying key nexuses in communities and then everyone’s position in social
networks, to describe lived experiences of communities.
My research expresses the guanxi perspective. But instead of focusing merely on social
relationships, I found the most important guanxi in coal communities is between coal and

169

communities. Although people-to-people interactions remain the most “vocal” and may not
directly address coal, they are also largely shaped by the material conditions of coal towns. To
this point, I extend the guanxi perspective from social realms to the nature-culture coexistence of
humans and nonhumans. The role of nonhumans in ethnography has been showcased in different
contexts. Things are “mediums, meeting grounds, apogees of communities.”
302
Anna Tsing’s
work about mushrooms followed material supply chains in U.S., China, Japan, and Europe to
study community-mushroom entanglement somewhat independently from capitalist systems.
303

Sugar as a commodity also influences capitalism, industries, and people’s daily lives.
304
To
individual lives, a thing can be “a pivot for reflexivity and introspection, a tool for
autobiographic elaboration, a way of knowing oneself.”
305
In my research, coal has become a
conversation starter, a nexus of relations, and an anchor of walks and talks.
In today’s world, with rapid development of artificial intelligence and big data, the
relational focus, the guanxi perspective, is the key to make ethnographic fieldwork irreplaceable.
Through relational fieldwork, we find our positions as researchers and as community members
on this planet. Moreover, through building relations, we build mutual understanding, feel
empathetic joy, discover shared experiences, and portend collaborative actions. Communication
matters to our way toward transition and resilience. Along the way, communication is not only
exchanged information, mined data, or smart machines, but a relational resonance that inspires,
incentivizes, and ignites.
For Future Energy Studies and China Studies
Energy transition is like “crossing the river by touching the stones.”
54
Life experiences
resonated with the “shattering” of the old fossil fuel regime. In the past three years the world has

54
A Chinese idiom.

170

experienced and witnessed drastic change and uncertainty, increasing isolation and division, and
entrenched distrust and misinformation. The world’s two largest carbon emitters and economic
entities had many moments of conflict and tension. Climate change mitigation became a leverage
for power and domination. However, the resonance I felt along the way to Kentucky and back to
my hometown portends further possibilities to build mutual understanding and collaboration.
From the mountains in Appalachia to mountains in Taihang, such communities have shared
common and mutual curiosity with each other. Like Kentucky coal miners asking me about the
working conditions of Yangquan miners, my hometown folks also asked, “Is the U.S. really that
messy like what they said on media?” or “What is the major energy resource in the U.S.?” or
“What is the coal museum like?” Energy transition brought together local communities in a
possible topos of communication. In this topos, China, the U.S., or any country, are not an
abstract whole, but life experiences of resonance. Here also lies the value of inter-referencing
research, in which China is a rapidly changing “laboratory” and “paradigm” in the global
context.
306
As the world’s biggest coal miner and consumer,
307
and “the undisputable global
leader of renewable energy expansion worldwide,”
308
what happens in China concerning energy
transition is of global significance.
Energotopia is a way of looking at all localities on the planet. Communities, whether
resource-dependent or not, are in different stages of energy development, mixes of energy use,
and intersections of power dependencies. Modern living hinges on energy infrastructures, that in
the United States are a hundred years old, and in China were built mainly over the last half-
century. As crises and opportunities coexist, energy is a common topos of geographical bounds
and rhetorical resonance, an inescapable topos for human beings to learn, adapt to, and make
changes for the best of our own survival and coexistence with the more-than-human world.

171

Coda: The Energy of Resonance
“Above the blue sky, white clouds are floating.
Under the white clouds, horses are running.”
55

These two lines are from a song that my grandma used to sing to me when I was a small
child. I stood at the open front window of her apartment. We faced the mountains. Their horizon
was far away, on the other side of my hometown. She helped me stand on the windowsill and
held my shoulders in her arms, singing and overlooking the sky in the distance. Over the years, I
grew too big to stand on the windowsill, but the song continued to be sung, until I could
memorize it myself. Later, I learned that the song was created by a musician growing up in
nomadic pastoralism cultures in inner Mongolia. I have never visited Inner Mongolia, missing
out on a vast, poetic landscape. Yet, I did travel from north to southeastern Kentucky. From
Lexington, I passed by massive green spaces, on which horses were eating, resting, and strolling
under the blue sky and white clouds. Along this drive, the tune returned, humming in my head.
Two distant and distinctive cultures appeared to me as nurtured, similar because of the beautiful,
enduring landscapes. The memory refreshed; the green rolling pastures seemed to shoot all the
way to my heart. Through this resonance, I felt a shared commonality among two groups of
people on this planet—to love the blue sky and white clouds, and the vitality to gather and live
harmoniously.
This harmony of nature, work, and renewal is what struck me the most during the
exploration of energy transition—the resonance of life, ordinary people’s lives in the age of

55
The song is called The Never-Setting Sun Rises Over the Prairie ( 《草原上升起不落的太
阳》Caoyuan shang shengqi buluode taiyang). The first part of the song depicts pastoral life in
the prairie; the second part expresses admiration to the Communist Party and Mao Zedong,
which was typical in the 1950s when the song was first created. I don’t think my grandma sang
this song with any ideological intention, given she often only sang the first two sentences.

172

transition. Similar feelings emerged when I received warm letters in holiday seasons from
eKAMI communities, introducing me further to their lives and expressing appreciation for my
visit. (The appreciation is on me!) I was welcomed like a member to join Mr. T
56
’s family’s daily
routine. I found Mr. U’s description of life in coal camps shared structure and social relations
akin to the factory-yard life in my hometown. And the stories go on and on. Perhaps, hope is a
resource that rebounds, communicatively, against the slings of uncertainty, capital flight, and
harsh futures thrown at local worlds.
Meanwhile, this journey is also to familiarize me with speaking to people whose lives
face necessary transition and so many possibilities of transformation. The compelling textures of
communication—often relationships in the making—have beauty of their own. Through address
or neglect, energy communities now transition from the dangerous and frustrating, rewarding,
and reproductive modern lifeworlds to face the novel needs of the possibilities of
transformations. A look at the local, at the multitudes of topoi that constitute a situated place of
energy use and extraction is important. The younger generations scatter, prompted to leave
home, become educated, and participate in the many vectors of energy and communications.
Younger generations do come back to Kentucky for heritage and a visit nowadays, resonating
with China’s younger generations rethinking where to settle their lives and some engage in a
return to the local. Big cities are alluring, but big city life is not the only answer.
During this research, I also found that my parents’ and grandparents’ generations are
actually powerful storytellers; although in our conversations, they were often incredibly humble
in their manner of expression. My family, the adults closest to me, may not be used to talking

56
Pseudonym.

173

about life changes a lot; but when asked, they created a telling narrative. A “handle”
57
that
affords sharing is necessary so that resonance can be generated. Likewise, most of my interviews
showed how local voices can be used to express common ideas about local necessities and
uncertainties, needs for change and new possibilities. These conversations added to my growth
as a researcher, as a student of rhetoric and anthropology, and as a daughter from a coal town.
Now this dissertation journey of return and re-turn is about to end. Of course, there is a
growing, robust literature on the history, technology, business, and uses of coal. Future work will
join and advance these ongoing lines of impactful analytical work. This dissertation, however,
initiates a move away from traditional analyses to aerate experiences, to release voices, and to
build the resonance necessary for public memory. No matter whether you are also from a coal
town, an oil city, a nuclear-powered area, or a renewable based energy circuit, we all inhabit an
energy community in transitions. Thus, humans enact as common members in planetary
communities, persisting their way of life through times of disruption and flux. Shared inquiry
continues and resonates among all of us to discover and create paths to sustainable, resilient, and
prosperous ways of living.

57
Biao Xiang talked about the idea of “handle” in his talk at Annenberg School for
Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California, April 14, 2023.

174

Endnotes
1
Dominic Boyer, No More Fossils (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2023).

2
“Coal 2022,” International Energy Agency, accessed July 3, 2023,
https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-2022.

3
Philip G. Lewin, “Coal Is Not Just a Job, It’s a Way of Life: The Cultural Politics of
Coal Production in Central Appalachia,” Social Problems 66, no. 1 (2019): 51.

4
Shellen Xiao Wu, Empires of Coal: Fueling China’s Entry into the Modern World
Order, 1860-1920 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015), 1-266.

5
Timothy Mitchell, Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil (New York:
Verso, 2013), 1-271.

6
Danielle E. Endres, Brian Cozen, Joshua Trey Barnett, Megan O’Byrne, and Tarla Rai
Peterson, “Communicating Energy in a Climate (of) Crisis,” Annals of the International
Communication Association 40, no. 1 (2016): 419.

7
Ibid.

8
Hans Blumenberg, “An Anthropological Approach to the Contemporary Significance of
Rhetoric,” in History, Metaphors, Fables: A Hans Blumenberg Reader, eds. Hans Blumenberg,
Hannes Bajohr, Florian Fuchs, and Joe Paul Kroll (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2020), 177-
208.

9
Muyu Xu, and Gavin Maguire, “China Coal Surge Puts Supply Record, Power Jump
Within Reach,” Reuters, October 22, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-coal-
surge-puts-supply-record-power-jump-within-reach-2021-10-
22/#:~:text=Coal%2Dfired%20power%20accounts%20for,as%20coronavirus%20pandemic%20r
estrictions%20eased.

10
Bin Zhang, Pingdingzhou zhi [Annals of Pingding Prefecture] (Taiyuan: Shanxi
Library, 1882).

11
Junfeng Zhang, Quanyu shehui: dui mingqing Shanxi huanjingshi de yizhong
jiedu[Spring Sphere Society: An Interpretation of the Environmental History of Shanxi in the
Ming and Qing Dynasties] (Hong Kong: The Commercial Press, 2018), 1-307.

12
Victor Seow, Carbon Technocracy: Energy Regimes in Modern East Asia (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2022), 10.

13
“Yangquanshi renmin zhengfu guanyu gaijin jiguan zuofeng youhua zhengwu huanjing
quanmian tigao zhengfu gongxinli he zhixingli de jueding [Decision of the Yangquan Municipal
People’s Government on Improving the Work Style of the Organs, Optimizing the Government

175

Affairs Environment, and Comprehensively Improving the Government’s Credibility and
Execution],” Yangquan Government, accessed July 3, 2023.
https://www.lawlawing.com/community/255177.

14
Ronald D Eller, Uneven Ground: Appalachia Since 1945 (Lexington: University Press
of Kentucky, 2008), 5.

15
A. O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms,
Organizations, and States (London: Harvard University Press, 1970), 1-162.

16
Biao Xiang, Brenda S. A. Yeoh, and Mika Toyota, Return: Nationalizing
Transnational Mobility in Asia (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013), 1-240.

17
“Yangquanshi renmin zhengfu guanyu gaijin jiguan zuofeng youhua zhengwu huanjing
quanmian tigao zhengfu gongxinli he zhixingli de jueding [Decision of the Yangquan Municipal
People’s Government on Improving the Work Style of the Organs, Optimizing the Government
Affairs Environment, and Comprehensively Improving the Government’s Credibility and
Execution].”

18
Imre Szeman and Dominic Boyer ed., Energy Humanities: An Anthology (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017), 1-595.

19
Justin Mando, Fracking and the Rhetoric of Place: How We Argue from Where We
Stand (London: Lexington Books, 2021), 1-175.

20
Yi-Fu Tuan, Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perceptions, Attitudes, and Values
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 1-260.

21
Szeman and Boyer, Energy Humanities, 1-595. Dominic Boyer, “Energopower: An
Introduction,” Anthropological Quarterly 87, no. 2 (2014): 309–333.

22
“Use Cixin Liu Celebrity Effect, Build Shanxi Sci-fi City,” Shanxi Evening News,
January 29, 2019, https://www.cdstm.cn/theme/khsj/khzx/khcb/201801/t20180129_695898.html.

23
Bruno Latour, After Lockdown: A Metamorphosis (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2021), 52.

24
Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society rev. ed. (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell,
2009), 1-597.

25
Bruno Latour, Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime (Cambridge: Polity
Press, 2018), 1-140.

26
For specific definition of “lifeworld” distinct from “system,” see Jürgen Habermas, The
Theory of Communicative Action (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984), 1-419.

176

27
Yi-fu Tuan, Cosmos and Hearth: A Cosmopolite’s Viewpoint rev. ed. (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 1-224.

28
Yi-fu Tuan, Cosmos and Hearth: A Cosmopolite’s Viewpoint rev. ed. (University of
Minnesota Press, 1999).

29
Ibid, 187.

30
Latour, Down to Earth, 1-140.

31
Eller, Uneven Ground, 1-343.

32
Jeff Young, Appalachian Fall: Dispatches from Coal Country on What’s Ailing
America (New York: S&S/Simon Element, 2020), 1-256.

33
Seow, Carbon Technocracy, 26.

34
David A. Palmer and Elijah Siegler, Dream Trippers: Global Daoism and the
Predicament of Modern Spirituality (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2017), 19; Cara
New Daggett, The Birth of Energy: Fossil Fuels, Thermodynamics, and the Politics of Work
(Duke University Press, 2019), 19.

35
Palmer and Siegler, Dream Trippers, 34.

36
Zhaozhe Wang, “Activist Rhetoric in Transnational Cyber-Public Spaces: Toward a
Comparative Materialist Approach,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 50, no. 4 (2020): 246.

37
Chris Ingraham, “Energy: Rhetoric’s Vitality,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 48, no. 3
(2018): 260.

38
Cara New Daggett, The Birth of Energy: Fossil Fuels, Thermodynamics, and the
Politics of Work (Duke University Press, 2019), 3

39
Ibid.

40
Thomas B. Farrell and G. Thomas Goodnight, “Accidental Rhetoric: The Root
Metaphors of Three Mile Island,” Communication Monographs 48, no. 4 (1981): 275.

41
Brian Cozen, “Stabilizing Energies: Intersections Between Energy Promotion Texts
and Rhetorical Theory,” In Tracing Rhetoric and Material Life, ed. by Bridie, McGreavy, Justine
Wells, George F. McHendry, and Samantha Senda-Cook (Switzerland: Springer International
Publishing AG, 2017), 315-342; David Tyfield, “‘King Coal Is Dead! Long Live the King!’: The
Paradoxes of Coal’s Resurgence in the Emergence of Global Low-Carbon Societies,” Theory,
Culture & Society 31, no. 5 (2014): 59–81; Shellen Xiao Wu, Empires of Coal, 8; Energy
Utopia: “a set of rhetorical appeals that position a particular energy source as the key to
providing a “good life” that transcends the conflicts of environment, justice, and politics.” See:

177

Jen Schneider, Steve Schwarze, Peter K. Bsumek & Jennifer Peeples, Energy Utopia. In Under
Pressure: Coal Industry Rhetoric and Neoliberalism (Palgrave Macmillan UK: London, 2016).
135-165; Szeman and Boyer, “Energy and Modernity: Histories and Futures,”, 27; Emma
Frances Bloomfield, “The Rhetoric of Energy Darwinism: Neoliberal Piety and Market
Autonomy in Economic Discourse,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 49, no. 4 (2019): 320–341; Sibo
Chen and Shane Gunster, “‘Ethereal Carbon’: Legitimizing Liquefied Natural Gas in British
Columbia,” Environmental Communication 10, no. 3 (2016): 305–321.

42
Steven J. Schwarze, Jennifer Peeples, Jen Schneider and Pete Bsumek, “Environmental
melodrama, coal, and the politics of sustainable energy in The Last Mountain,” Communication
Studies Faculty Publications (2014): 15; Catalina de Onis, Energy Islands: Metaphors of Power,
Extractivism, and Justice in Puerto Rico (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2021), 1-300.

43
Endres, Cozen, Barnett, O’Byrne, and Peterson, “Communicating Energy in a Climate
(of) Crisis,” 419-448.

44
Sean Cubitt, Finite Media: Environmental Implications of Digital Technologies
(Durham: Duke University Press, 2017), 1-179.

45
Barbara Freese, Coal: A Human History (Cambridge: Perseus Publishing, 2003), 1-
385; Wu, Empires of Coal, 1-266; Tai-Wei Lim, Energy Transitions in Japan and China: Mine
Closures, Rail Developments, and Energy Narratives (Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2016), 1-
247.

46
Stephanie LeMenager, Living Oil: Petroleum Culture in the American Century (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 1-289; Daggett, The Birth of Energy, 1-192; Dominic
Boyer, Energopolitics: Wind and Power in the Anthropocene (Durham: Duke University Press,
2019), 1-280; Dominic Boyer, “Energopower: An Introduction,” Anthropological Quarterly 87,
no. 2 (2014): 309–333; Seow, Carbon Technocracy, 1-413.

47
Shannon Elizabeth Bell, Fighting King Coal: The Challenges to Micromobilization in
Central Appalachia (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2016), 1-341; Karida L. Brown, Gone
Home: Race and Roots Through Appalachia (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina
Press, 2018), 1-265; William H. Turner, The Harlan Renaissance: Stories of Black Life in
Appalachian Coal Towns (Toronto: West Virginia University Press, 2021), 1-390.

48
Farrell and Goodnight, “Accidental Rhetoric,” 298.

49
Declan Fahy, “Energy Humanities: Insights for Environmental Communication,”
Environmental Communication 14, no. 5 (2020): 715.

50
de Onis, Energy Islands, 9.

51
S. L. Star, “The Ethnography of Infrastructure,” American Behavioral Scientist 43, no.
3 (November/December 1999): 377– 91.

178

52
Monica Westin, “Aristotle’s rhetorical Energeia: An Extended Note,” Advances in the
History of Rhetoric 20, no. 3 (2017): 255; Carlos Iglesias-Crespo, “Energeia as
Defamiliarization: Reading Aristotle with Shklovsky’s Eyes,” Journal for the History of Rhetoric
24, no. 3, (2021): 274-289.

53
Aristotle, On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse 2nd ed. trans. G. Kennedy,
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 198; Iglesias-Crespo, “Energeia as Defamiliarization,”
275.

54
Aristotle, On Rhetoric, 1-335; Brian L. Ott and Greg Dickinson, “Redefining Rhetoric:
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55
Martin Heidegger, “Building Dwelling Thinking,” In Poetry, Language, Thought,
trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York, NY: Harper Colophon Books, 1971), 141-60.

56
Thomas Rickert, Ambient Rhetoric: The Attunements of Rhetorical Being (Pittsburgh:
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57
Timothy Morton, Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), 1-232.

58
Szeman and Boyer ed., Energy Humanities, 1-595.

59
Boyer, Energopolitics, 1-280.

60
de Onis, Energy Islands, 1-300.

61
Boyer, Energopolitics, 1-280; Cymene Howe, Ecologics: Wind and Power in the
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62
Veronica della Dora, “Topia: Landscape before linear perspective,” Annals of the
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63
Biao Xiang and Qi Wu, Self as Method (Singapore: Springer Nature, 2023), 168.

64
Daggett, The Birth of Energy

65
Xiang and Wu, Self as Method,168.

66
della Dora, “Topia,” 688-709.

67
Andrew Wood, City Ubiquitous: Place, Communication, and the Rise of Omnitopia
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179

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69
Carsten Meiner, “The Double Topology: Reflections on the Function and History of
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70
Carsten Meiner, “The Double Topology,” 53–77.

71
Aristotle, Rhetoric, trans. W. Rhy Roberts (New York: Dover Publications, 2004), 6.

72
Carsten Meiner, “The Double Topology,” 53–77; Aristotle, The “Art” of Rhetoric,
trans. John Henry Freese (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982): 23; Alexander
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73
Carsten Meiner, “The Double Topology,” 56.

74
Ibid.

75
Boyer, “Energopower,” 309–33.

76
Jen Schneider, Steve Schwarze, Peter K. Bsumek & Jennifer Peeples, Energy Utopia,
135-165.

77
Tuan, Topophilia, 1-260.

78
Matthew Steven Richards, “Mountaintop Removal, Activism, and the Commitment to
Progress in Industrial Sacrifice Zones: The Socialization of Class in West Virginia” (PhD diss.,
University of Utah, 2016), 1-257; James Milner, “Sacrifice Zones and Community: Global
Capital and the Case of the Flint Water Crisis” (PhD diss., University of Southern California,
2020), 1-298.

79
Crandall A. Shifflett, Coal Towns Life Work and Culture in Company Towns of
Southern Appalachia, 1880-1960 (The University of Tennessee Press, 1995), 1-280.

80
Yi-fu Tuan, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (Minneapolis, MN:
University of Minnesota Press, 2001), 1-250.

81
Ibid.

82
Aristotle, Rhetoric, trans. W. Rhy Roberts (New York: Dover Publications, 2004), 139.

83
Paloma Gay y Blasco and Huon Wardle, How to Read Ethnography 2nd ed. (London:
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84
de Onis, Energy Islands, 3.

180

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Brown, Gone Home, 53. Tuan, Topophilia, 1-260.

88
Elizabeth M. Melton, “Hometown Ethnography: Race, Place, and Reflexivity,” The
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89
Ibid.

90
Ibid, 300.

91
Milner, “Sacrifice Zones and Community,” 1-298.

92
Melton, “Hometown Ethnography,” 300.

93
Milner, “Sacrifice Zones and Community,” 1-298.

94
Karen Barad, “Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter
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95
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96
Ibid, 387; G. A. Hauser, Vernacular voices: The rhetoric of publics and public spheres
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Endres, Cozen, Barnett, O’Byrne, and Peterson, “Communicating Energy in a Climate
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98
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181

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103
Middleton, Senda-Cook, and Endres, “Articulating Rhetorical Field Methods,” 386.

104
Endres, Cozen, Barnett, O’Byrne, and Peterson, “Communicating Energy in a Climate
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Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the
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120
Ibid.

121
Wu, Empires of Coal, 1-266.

122
Ibid, 62-63.

123
Ibid, 8.

124
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Roger R. Thompson, “‘If Shanxi’s Coal is Lost, Then Shanxi is Lost!’: Shanxi’s Coal
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127
Yangquan Coal Company Party Committee, Yangquan Coal Company 70 Years
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183

128
Thompson, “‘If Shanxi’s Coal is Lost, Then Shanxi is Lost!’,” 1261-88.

129
Thompson, “‘If Shanxi’s Coal is Lost, Then Shanxi is Lost!’,” 1261-88. Yangquan
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131
Yangquan Coal Company Party Committee, Yangquan Coal Company 70 Years
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132
Ibid.

133
Ibid, 219-28.

134
Ibid, 1.

135
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Yangquan Coal Company Party Committee, Yangquan Coal Company 70 Years
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137
Yangquan Coal Company Party Committee, Yangquan Coal Company 70 Years
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Yangquan Coal Company Party Committee, Yangquan Coal Company 70 Years
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141
Seow, Carbon Technocracy, 321.

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184

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144
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160
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166
Bell, Fighting King Coal, 1-341.

167
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168
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169
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170
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171
Joel Robbins, “Beyond the Suffering Subject: Toward an Anthropology of the Good,”
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172
Ibid.

173
Ibid, 458.

174
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191
Brown, Gone Home, 1-265.

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194
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203
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205
Tressa Townes Brown, “Teaching About American Indians Stereotypes and
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206
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208
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209
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215
James Mark OMara, “Rupturing the Good Life: Poudre Valley Mobile Home Park’s
Suburban Haunting,” Presentation at Being (Un)Well in Place: Analyzing Materiality within the
(Im)possibilities of Well-Being, Western States Communication Association Conference, 2023;
Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx: The State of Debt, The Work of Mourning and the
New International (New York: Routledge, 1994), 1-222.

216
“Global Energy Crisis,” International Energy Agency, last accessed, July 03, 2023,
https://www.iea.org/topics/global-energy-crisis; Euronews, “‘Not a one off’: Scientists confirm
2022 was Europe’s second warmest year and hottest summer ever,” AP, April 20, 2023,
https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/04/20/frightening-scientists-confirm-2022-was-europes-
second-warmest-year-and-hottest-summer-
eve#:~:text=in%20the%20City-,'Not%20a%20one%20off'%3A%20Scientists%20confirm%2020
22%20was%20Europe's,year%20and%20hottest%20summer%20ever&text=Europe's%20leadin
g%20scientists%20on%20%22alarming,in%20every%20season%20in%202022.

217
Dennis Wong and Han Huang, “China’s Record Heatwave, Worst Drought in
Decades,” South China Morning Post, August 31, 2022,
https://multimedia.scmp.com/infographics/news/china/article/3190803/china-
drought/index.html; Edmund Downie, “China Had Another Hot Summer — and Another
Electricity Crisis,” September 2, 2022, The Washington Post,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/02/china-electricity-crisis-sichuan/.

218
“Innovative Financial Solutions Help China Meet its Dual Carbon Goal,” Industrial
Bank Co., last accessed, July 03, 2023, https://www.ft.com/partnercontent/industrial-bank-
co/innovative-financial-solutions-help-china-meet-its-dual-carbon-
goal.html#:~:text=As%20one%20of%20the%20world's,achieve%20carbon%20neutrality%20bef
ore%202060; Downie, “China Had Another Hot Summer.”

219
Downie, “China Had Another Hot Summer.”

220
“Government Work Report, Properly handle the relationship between development
and emission reduction, orderly promote carbon peak carbon neutrality work [Zhengfu gongzuo
baogao: chulihao fazhan he jianpai guanxi, youxu tuijin tandafeng tanzhonghe gongzuo],
National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China, http://www.nhc.gov.cn/cms-
search/xxgk/getManuscriptXxgk.htm?id=4eb9fee01b10478da8575cb838a3d99e.

221
Brad Plumer, “What ‘Clean Coal’ Is — and Isn’t,” The New York Times, August 23,
2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/23/climate/what-clean-coal-is-and-isnt.html.

190

222
Shanxi Daily, “Shanxi Provincial Transformation Comprehensive Supporting Reform
Pilot Overall Plan [Shanxisheng zhuanxing zonghe peitao gaige shiyan zongti fang’an],”
September 14, 2012, https://www.gov.cn/gzdt/2012-09/14/content_2224589.htm.

223
China Internet Information Center, “The Information Office held a press conference
on Shanxi Province's “Strive to be the vanguard of the energy revolution and create a new
situation for transformation and development” [Xinwenban jiu Shanxisheng “zhengdang
nengyuan geming paitoubing kaichuang zhuanxing fazhan xinjumian” juxing fabu hui],”
September 05, 2019, https://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2019-09/05/content_5428273.htm.

224
Ibid.

225
“Gansu Promotes Backward Production Capacity Withdrawal Work Plan: Iron and
Steel, Electrolytic Aluminum and Other Industries As The focus of Research,” SMM, May 17,
2018, https://news.metal.com/newscontent/100897024/Gansu-promotes-backward-production-
capacity-withdrawal-work-Plan:-iron-and-Steel-Electrolytic-Aluminum-and-other-Industries-as-
the-focus-of-Research/.

226
“Yangquan Initiated Five Policies to Adjust Energy Structure,” Sohu, July 18, 2022,
https://www.sohu.com/a/568692136_100237853.

227
Weifang Jia, “Research on the Reform of Coal Management System in Resource-
based Cities: Taking Yangquan as an Example [Ziyuanxing chengshi meitan guanli tizhi gaige
yanjiu: yi yangquanshi weili],” (Master Thesis, Shanxi University, 2021), 12.

228
Ibid, 19.

229
Ibid, 3.

230
Pingjian Yang and Jun Ma, “To achieve “dual carbon” goal need to ensure a
coordinated national response like playing a game of chess together [Shixian “shuangtan”
mubiao bixu quanguo yipanqi],” People’s Daily, April 11, 2023.
http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrbhwb/html/2023-04/11/content_25975048.htm.

231
Downie, “China Had Another Hot Summer.”

232
Kevin Yao, “What we know about China's ‘dual circulation’ economic strategy,”
Reuters, September 15, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/china-economy-transformation-
explainer/what-we-know-about-chinas-dual-circulation-economic-strategy-idUSKBN2600B5.

233
“Shanxi Province Seven Coal Companies Finished Integration and
Reorganization[Shanxi shengfu qida meiqi chongzu wancheng],” National Energy Information
Platform, December 03, 2020,
https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1685053999083744420&wfr=spider&for=pc.

191

234
“Pingding 100,000-kilowatt Wind Power Project (Phase II) First Batch of Wind
Turbines Connected to the Grid for Power Generation [Pingding 10wan qianwa fengdian
xiangmu (erqi) shoupi fengji bingwang fadian],” Sohu, October 11, 2022,
https://www.sohu.com/a/591727282_100237853.

235
“New Energy and New Materials Have Become the New Engine of Huayang Group's
Transformation and Development [Xinnengyuan xincailiao cheng huayang jituan zhuanxing
fazhan xin yinqing],” Xinhua News, June 8, 2021, http://m.xinhuanet.com/sx/2021-
06/08/c_1127540374.htm.

236
Environmental Protection Website, “Ministry of Environmental Protection: Adhere to
Whoever Pollutes Should Be Treated, and Implement a Lifelong Responsibility System
[Huanjing baohubu: jianchi shei wuran shei zhili, shixing zhongshen zerenzhi],”

237
Insider anonymous sources: Research done by Yangquan local think tanks.

238
Yangquan Coal Company Party Committee, Yangquan Coal Company 70 Years
[Yangmei Qishinian], 152-6.

239
Haibin Wang, “The Country’s First 5G Coal Mine Was Completed in Shanxi
Yangmei Group,” Science and Technology Daily, June 19, 2020,
http://stdaily.com/index/kejixinwen/2020-06/19/content_958501.shtml.

240
“Chinese New Year Walking at the Grassroots: Feel the sweetness of the mine’s
“clairvoyance + wind ear + invisible hand [Xinchun zoujiceng, ganshou kuangshan
“qianliyan+shunfenger+wuxingshou de tiantou”],” Sohu, January 28, 2023,
https://www.sohu.com/a/634889665_121117451.

241
“Yue Guangxi: A 20-year story with ‘Jinhua Furnace,’” Tsinghua University News,
November 6, 2019, https://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/info/1182/50426.htm.

242
Ibid.

243
Caini Yang, “On Douyin, Chinese Companies Sell Coal at Rock-Bottom Prices,” Six
Tone, June 20, 2023, https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1013151.

244
“Top Countries/Markets by Smartphone Users,” Newzoo, last accessed, July 03, 2023,
https://newzoo.com/resources/rankings/top-countries-by-smartphone-penetration-and-users.

245
David Craig, Jian Lin, and Stuart Cunningham, Wanghong as Social Media
Entertainment in China (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), 1-204; Stuart Cunningham and
David Craig, Social Media Entertainment: The New Intersection of Hollywood and Silicon
Valley (New York: NYU Press, 2019), 1-364; Stuart Cunningham and David Craig, ed. Creator
Culture: An Introduction to Global Social Media Entertainment (New York: NYU Press, 2021),
1-425.

192

246
Ibid.

247
“After Graduating From University, He Worked as a Miner For 11 Years, and Now
He Has to Report Safety to More Than 10,000 People Every Time He Goes Up [Daxue biye
dang 11nian kuanggong, rujing ta meici shengjing yao gei 1wan duoren baoping’an],” Sohu,
December 14, 2022, https://www.sohu.com/a/617203721_161795.

248
Coco Feng, “Chinese Social Media to Display User Locations Based on IP Address,
Including Platforms From ByteDance and Zhihu,” South China Morning Post, April 17, 2022,
https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3174487/chinese-social-media-display-user-
locations-based-ip-address.

249
“Shanxi Rainstorm[Shanxi Baoyu],” Weibo, October 2021.
https://s.weibo.com/weibo?q=%23%E5%B1%B1%E8%A5%BF%E6%9A%B4%E9%9B%A8%
23

250
“Rainstorm in Shanxi ｜The furnace of fourteen provinces burns my homeland
[Shanxi Baoyu | Shisige sheng de huolu, shaode shi wode gutu],” Sohu, October 8, 2021,
https://www.sohu.com/a/493959300_121226204.

251
Ibid; The furnace of fourteen provinces burns my homeland [Shanxi Baoyu Shisige
sheng de huolu, shaode shi wode gutu], Douyin,
https://www.douyin.com/zhuanti/7182341998030931968

252
Craig, Lin, and Cunningham, “Wanghong as Social Media Entertainment in China.”

253
Guo Cui, “Urban Renewal Wanghongnize [Chengshi gengxin wanghonghua],” Urban
Research, March 15, 2022, http://www.urbanchina.org/content/content_8199273.html.

254
Ibid.

255
Shanxi News, “It is about 1000 meters long and has a total area of 1400 square
meters! ‘The Three-Body Problem’ Theme Mural ‘Ignite’ Niangziguan Power Plant,” Sina,
January 29, 2023. https://finance.sina.com.cn/jjxw/2023-01-29/doc-imycwkpm0389126.shtml

256
Shanxi Culture and Tourism, “Cultural relics underground, go look Shaanxi; Cultural
relics above the ground, go look Shanxi [dixia wenwu kan Shannxi; dishang wenwu kan
Shanxi],” Tencent, March 27, 2021. https://new.qq.com/rain/a/20210327A07UUL00

257
Shenggao Yuan, “Integration of culture and tourism crucial for growth,” China Daily,
November 15, 2021,
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202111/05/WS61847783a310cdd39bc7373f.html.

258
“China Says it Will be a “Museum Power” by 2035,” The Economist,
https://www.economist.com/china/2021/06/10/china-says-it-will-be-a-museum-power-by-2035.

193

259
People’s Daily, “Promote the high-quality development of the night economy [tuidong
yejian jingji gaozhiliang fazhan],” September 30, 2022. https://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2022-
09/30/content_5713967.htm

260
Ji Zhang and Pengchong Zhuang, “High-quality development of silver-haired
economy [Gaozhiliang fazhan yinfa jingji],” Economy Daily, June 29, 2023.
http://theory.people.com.cn/n1/2023/0629/c40531-40023716.html

261
“The Reporter Walked Into ‘Baidu Cloud Computing (Yangquan) Center’: See How
Baidu Built a Low-Energy Data Center,” Economy Daily, July 4, 2017,
http://www.ce.cn/xwzx/gnsz/gdxw/201707/04/t20170704_24003871.shtml.

262
China News, “Driverless Driving, vehicle-road coordination, Shanxi Yangquan
promotes intelligent transportation to create a ‘smart car city’,” July 22, 2023,
https://www.chinanews.com.cn/cj/2022/07-22/9809780.shtml

263
“Yangquan No. 3 Coal Mine | The first ‘National Industrial Heritage’ Coal Mine in
Shanxi, a New Business Card for Industrial Tourism [Yangquan Sankuang | Shanxi shouzuo
“guojia gongye yichan” meikuang, caliang gongye lvyou xinmingpian],” Yangquan Culture and
Tourism Bureau, May 13, 2022,
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzAwODcyMzE3Mg==&mid=2650264235&idx=4&sn=51
d88c18fd2fe8176aa5cc9ce8f7565e&chksm=8369fd20b41e7436a86a94dd24ab4e93967e6defd04
f914b645597d167b2e63fe43cfa885e40&scene=27.

264
YouTube, “Sankuang [The Third Coal Mine].”

265
Ibid.

266
Mary Beth Gouthro and Catherine Palmer, “Pilgrimage in Heritage Tourism: Finding
Meaning and Identity in the Industrial Past,” in Mining Heritage and Tourism a Global
Synthesis, ed. Michael Conlin and Lee Jolliffe (New York: NY: Routledge, 2011), 33-43; Boya
Li, “The Influence of Brand Experience on People’s Revisit and Purchase Intention in the
Context of China’s Museum,” American Journal of Industrial and Business Management 08, no.
03, (2018): 563-578.

267
“European theme routes illustrate the connections,” European Route of Industrial
Heritage, last accessed, July 4, 2023, https://www.erih.net/about-erih/route-system/european-
theme-routes.

268
Dominic Boyer, “Ostalgie and the Politics of the Future in Eastern Germany,” Public
Culture 18, no. 2, (2006): 361–381.

269
Ibid.

194

270
Stefan Berger, “Industrial Heritage and the Ambiguities of Nostalgia for an Industrial
Past in the Ruhr Valley, Germany,” Labor Studies in Working-Class History 16, no. 1 (2019):
37-64.

271
Anonymous source.

272
Zhongyan Fan, Memorial to Yueyang Tower/ Picture Book for Chinese Classic Essays
(Chinese Edition) (Shijiazhuang: Hebei children’s Publishing House: 2018), 1-27.

273
Marcia Allison and Emma Frances Bloomfield, “Rhetorical Imaginings and
Multimodal Arguments at the European Green Belt: Juxtaposing Nonhuman Nature and
Technology in Our Collective Memory of the Cold War,” Journal of Argumentation in Context
8, no. 3, (2019): 354-382.

274
Boyer, “Ostalgie and the Politics of the Future in Eastern Germany,” 361–381; Berger,
“Industrial Heritage and the Ambiguities of Nostalgia for an Industrial Past in the Ruhr Valley,
Germany,” 37-64.

275
Tim Strangleman, “Class Memory: Autobiography and the Art of Forgetting,” in New
Working-Class Studies, ed. John Russo and Sherry Lee Linkon (New York: Cornell University
Press, 2005), 150.

276
K. Baumann, B. Stokes, F. Bar, and B. Caldwell, “Infrastructures of the Imagination:
Community Design for Speculative Urban Technologies,” Proceedings of the 8th International
Conference on Communities and Technologies, (2017): 267.

277
Ibid, 266.

278
Wu, Empires of Coal: Fueling China’s Entry into the Modern World Order, 1-266.

279
“Notice on the Cancellation of the Production Capacity Announcement of 2 Coal
Mines Including Yangquan Coal Industry (Group) Pingding Yutai Coal Industry Co., Ltd
[Guanyu quxiao Yangquan meiye(jituan) Pingding Yutai Meiye Youxian Gongsi deng 2zuo
meikuang shengchan nengli gonggao de tongzhi],” Coal Production Technology Division, May
24, 2023,
http://nyj.shanxi.gov.cn/mkscnldxgscysxxgg/xgwj_66484/202305/t20230530_8647798.html.

280
Professor Biao Xiang, “‘We Want to Start with What People Are Worried About in
their Own Lives’: Toward an anthropology of ‘common concerns,’” 103.

281
Aristotle, Physics, ed. by William David Ross (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2020); Plato, Plato’s Timaeus (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1959).

282
Xiang and Wu, Self as Method, 1-262.

195

283
Professor Biao Xiang, “‘We Want to Start with What People Are Worried About in
their Own Lives’,” 97-108

284
Ibid.

285
A. Ong, Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality (Duke
University Press, 1999), 205.

286
Weiming Tu, “The Ecological Turn in New Confucian Humanism: Implications for
China and the World,” Daedalus (Cambridge, Mass.) 130, no. 4 (2001): 253.; Y. Jia and X. Jia,
“The Anthropocosmic Perspective on Intercultural Communication: Learning to Be Global
Citizens Is Learning to Be Human,” Intercultural Communication Studies 25, no.1, (2016), 36.

287
Jia and Jia, “The Anthropocosmic Perspective on Intercultural Communication:
Learning to Be Global Citizens Is Learning to Be Human,” 33.

288
Portelli, They Say in Harlan County,” 1-456; Richards, “Mountaintop Removal,” 1-
257; Howard Burton Lee, Bloodletting in Appalachia: The Story of West Virginia’s Four Major
Mine Wars and Other Thrilling Incidents of Its Coal Fields (McClain Printing Co., 1969) 1-216;
Chris Hamby, Soul Full of Coal Dust: A Fight for Breath and Justice in Appalachia, (Little,
Brown and Company, 2020), 1-444.

289
E. Bloomfield, Communication Strategies for Engaging Climate Skeptics: Religion
and the Environment 1st ed. (Routledge, 2019), 1-188.

290
Brown, Gone Home, 1-265; Turner, The Harlan Renaissance, 1-390; Frank X Walke,
Affrilachia, (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2020), 1-112.

291
For example: James Agee and Walker Evans, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1941), 1-500.

292
“History of Portal 31,” Portal 31 Museum Website,
https://www.portal31.org/history_of_portal_31.htm.

293
Yang and Moses, “Building a Public Culture of Pandemic Storytelling,” 15.

294
Christopher W Tindale, The Anthropology of Argument: Cultural Foundations of
Rhetoric and Reason (New York, NY: Routledge, 2021), 1-190.

295
Wei Wang, personal conversations, summer 2018.

296
Gabriele Schabacher, Traffic as ‘Dirt Experience’: Harold Innis’s Tracing of Media.
In Marion Näser-Lather, Christoph Neubert ed. Traffic: Media as Infrastructures and Cultural
Practices (Brill Rodopi, 2015): 50-72.

297
Gay y Blasco and Wardle, How to Read Ethnography, 1-234.

196

298
Biao Xiang, “Transcending Boundaries Zhejiangcun: The Story of a Migrant Village
in Beijing,” (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 1-219.

299
Xiaotong Fei, Xiangtu Zhongguo, From the Soil, the Foundations of Chinese Society,
trans. Xiaotong Fei, Gary G Hamilton and Zheng Wang (University of California Press, 1992),
1-176; Xiang and Wu, Self as Method, 1-262.

300
Mayfair Mei-hui Yang, Gifts, Favors, and Banquets: The Art of Social Relationships
in China (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 2016), 1-382.

301
Xiang and Wu, Self as Method, 1-262.

302
Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel, Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy,
(Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2005), 1-1072; T. Davidson, “Review of Making Things Public:
Atmospheres of Democracy,” ed. by Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel, Space and Culture 9, no.3,
(2006): 326-328.

303
Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility
of Life in Capitalist Ruins (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2015), 1-347.

304
Sidney W. Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (New
York, NY: Viking, 1985), 1-362.

305
Janet Hoskins, Biographical Objects: How Things Tell the Stories of Peoples’ Lives
(London: Routledge, 1998), 1-230.

306
Professor Biao Xiang, “‘We Want to Start with What People Are Worried About in
their Own Lives’,” 97-108.

307
“China Coal Output Up 5.8% in Jan-Feb as New Capacity Comes Online,” March 14,
2023, Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/china-coal-output-up-58-jan-feb-new-
capacity-comes-online-2023-03-
15/#:~:text=China%2C%20the%20world's%20biggest%20coal,Bureau%20of%20Statistics%20(
NBS).

308
Christian Zinglersen, “A New Era of Shared Clean Energy Leadership Begins in
China,” International Energy Agency, June 04, 2019, https://www.iea.org/commentaries/a-new-
era-of-shared-clean-energy-leadership-begins-in-china.

197

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Asset Metadata

Creator Lv, Junyi (author)

Core Title Energotopia: re-turn communication in energy transition

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Communication

Degree Conferral Date 2023-08

Publication Date 07/06/2023

Defense Date 06/15/2023

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag China,coal,energy,Kentucky,OAI-PMH Harvest,return

Format theses (aat)

Language English

Advisor Goodnight, Thomas (committee chair), Boyer, Dominic (committee member), Craig, David (committee member), Hoskins, Janet (committee member), Lake, Randall A. (committee member)

Creator Email junyilv@usc.edu,junyilyu513@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC113261844

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Legacy Identifier etd-LvJunyi-12029

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Type texts

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Abstract (if available)

Abstract This dissertation is an inter-referencing study of energy transitions in the world’s two largest carbon emitters, China and the United States. With hometown fieldwork in Yangquan, Shanxi Province, China’s largest anthracite base, and in Southeast Kentucky, energy transition is proposed to be a slow burn with multiple rhetorical meanings in heterogenous local communities. To weave complicated narratives of coal dependence and energy transition, I coin “energotopia” as an evocative idea foregrounding their rhetorical groundedness and place-based changes. Chapter One introduces coal transitions in my hometown and Southeast Kentucky. Building on previous studies, “energotopia” and “slow burn” are elaborated with multiplicities of transition, transformation, transfiguration, and transience. Three methods are presented and explained: fieldwork of re-turn, inter-referencing, and descriptive imperative. In Chapter Two, I explore ancient and contemporary history and culture of my hometown, describing how it intertwined with coal. Chapter Three presents my journeys through southeast Kentucky, learning local transition experiences in mountains, media, mines, and museums, and referencing with my hometown. Chapter Four expresses my experiences and work upon returning to Yangquan and re-turn relations between communities and coal, disentangling local energy transition with ambiguity and possibility. Chapter Five discusses the strengths, limits, and future directions for this research. Communication, rhetoric, and anthropology are connected into a relational view. I emphasize the importance of inter-referencing fieldwork to China studies in the global context and today’s rapid changes of energy and communication. Personal stories of coal communities prelude each chapter, as a source of intrigue in fusing a slow-burn narrative.