Imaginary Appalachia
Gus Wightman
Imaginary Appalachia
11–30–18
I learned a lot through this project and am glad I chose the topic I did. This topic meant a lot to me because of the fact I have a strong belief you can not define a place by a map but only by its customs. I live in Shenandoah county and we are right on the border of what is considered the Appalachian region. My hometown shares many customs of Appalachia and it has bothered me since the first day of class that I was not considered part of Appalachia.
I conducted my research in two different ways. I first wanted to understand what others thought about the region. I asked two individuals to draw on a map where they thought the region of Appalachia was. Both were different and helped me start thinking I am not the only one that sees the inconsistency within mapping the region. The second part of my research was conducted online. I wanted to find as many different maps as possible and find out the reasoning behind the way they mapped the region. Reasons varied from topographic reasons, income reasons, etc. But I never read much about the customs on these sites which helped me furthermore prove my point on the fact this region is so diverse and different it is impossible to throw the locations of it onto a map and say this is and this isn’t Appalachia.
I found out the more I dug the less irrelevant everything became. Without looking at all these sources I could see where someone would argue, yes, you can indeed map this region but after finding so many different maps and ideas I have been able to confirm the region of Appalachia can not be defined by maps but by the customs individuals withhold in the region.
