Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2023, Geography

In the face of past, present, and future environmental injustice in central Appalachia, mothers have been on the front lines of resistance to extractive industry. Scholars have acknowledged this pattern, yet no substantive research on why motherhood is invoked so often as a discursive tool has been completed. This thesis examines the factors which have led central Appalachian women activists to use motherhood in their activism and analyze the discourse's strengths and weaknesses.

Committee: Anna Rachel Terman (Advisor) Subjects: Environmental Justice; Environmental Studies; Geography; Regional Studies; Womens Studies