Building Communities with Culture: Appalachia Rising

This paper proposes a sustainable development model for communities that have experienced exploitation and oppression. It reviews research on the creative economy, arts-based community development, creative placemaking, asset-based development, and participatory development, or community-based development. Central Appalachia is principal in the paper, which intends to identify ways Appalachian communities can mobilize their artistic and cultural assets to address the region’s history of economic and cultural exploitation. Appalshop in Whitesburg, KY is an arts and cultural organization actively contributing to local, regional, and national development, finding ways to mobilize local culture and assets in a community-driven development strategy. This paper posits that Appalshop’s model, which possesses attributes of asset-based, participatory, and arts-based development as well as creative placemaking and a democratic organizing process, can be instrumental to helping communities with a history of exploitation and oppression build a future of economic and cultural ownership.