Becoming Damascus: An Ethnographic Study of Identity, Power, and Revitalization in Appalachia

Abstract

This thesis presents a narrative ethnography that details revitalization in Damascus, Virginia, a small rural Appalachian trail town devastated by Hurricane Helene’s floodwaters. It accomplishes this by drawing upon lived experience, community engagement, and anthropological analysis. This thesis works to examine what it means to attempt to contribute to the recovery of a place from a position of partial outsiderness. The method of this thesis relies upon the anthropological mechanism of firsthand research and ethnography in which centers my own individual efforts to aid a community I myself claim, yet naively approach. For decades, Damascus, Virginia has organized its economy almost entirely around the Virginia Creeper Trail, a 34-mile-long recreational trail that serves as the town’s primary source of economic revenue. When Hurricane Helene’s flood destroyed local infrastructure, the true vulnerability of the community became exposed, raising broader questions around revitalization efforts in rural Appalachia. This thesis traces those questions that arose and follows my own personal journey into crafting a nonprofit looking to simply bridge what I consider my “two worlds.” This is completed through examining extractive industries, cultural stereotypes, and tourist development dependences. Lastly, this thesis is not designed as a roadmap or a solution to how revitalization in Appalachia should be practiced, but rather offers an honest account of what happens when the distance between two distinct worlds collapses, and what that collapse reveals about the true nature of identity, power, and revitalization in Appalachia.