Liminal Whiteness: Southern Rednecks, Hillbillies and Crackers in American Culture

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Evangelia Kindinger
• Subject Area: European and American Literary and Cultural Studies ; General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
• Term: from 2019 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 419187393

• Final Report Year: 2024

Final Report Abstract

Since the founding of the United States of America, whiteness has been a complicated and contested, as well as unsteady category. An almost invisible and powerful socio-cultural norm, whiteness divides American society into two groups: those who have access to the privileges of whiteness and those who are denied these privileges. Systematically excluded from these privileges are people of color, but also white Americans who 'fail' to live up to the American dream of prosperity and success. "Liminal Whiteness" is dedicated to a special form of whiteness that has been circulated since the 19th century: the stereotypes redneck, hillbilly and cracker. These stereotypes describe poor, white Southerners who occupy a liminal position. They stand between the historically manifested privileges of whiteness and the disadvantages of their regional affiliation and social class. This liminal position undermines and often simultaneously reinforces the hegemonic power of whiteness. This becomes particularly evident when one looks at the representation of them in U.S. popular culture, which functions as an important stage for imagining these stereotypes. "Liminal Whiteness" argues that these stereotypes have been instrumentalized since the 19th century to promote whiteness and power, especially in times of crisis. The project's main argument is that every historical epoch 'needs' these stereotypes and reshapes them in order to hold on to whiteness. This project makes an important contribution to the critical examination of race and social class in American Studies, Southern Studies, Cultural Studies and Critical Whiteness Studies.

Publications

• “The Local Color is Mountain Pink: Appalachian Femininity and Popular Culture.” Popular Culture, Media, and Politics in the US, John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies. Freie Universität Berlin, 05.02.2020
  Evangelia Kindinger
  
• “The best way to fight them is refuse to leave”: Mountaintop Removal and White Vulnerability in Ann Pancake’s Strange as this Weather Has Been. Appalachian Journal, 48(3-4), 246-265.
  Kindinger, Evangelia
  
• “Beyond the ‘Diabetes Belt’: Appalachian Cookbooks and the Valorization of Mountain Foodways,” Society for the Study of Southern Literature 2022 Biennial Conference. Atlanta/USA, 26.-29.06.2022, online
  Evangelia Kindinger
  
• “Doing Southern Studies in Europe” (Special Issue), The Southern Quarterly, 58. 3, 2022.
  Kindinger, Evangelia
  
• “Mountain Fantasies: Food and the Making of Appalachia,” Perspectives on American Literature and Culture, Culture/Literature Research Colloquium, John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies. Freie Universität Berlin, 15.06.2022
  Evangelia Kindinger
  
• “The Myth of the Mountain Pink: Crafting Whiteness and Womanhood in Local Color Writing,” Southern Studies Forum 2022: The Spirit(s) of the South. Jagiellonian University, Krakow/Polen, 26.-28.05.2022
  Evangelia Kindinger
  
• “Cooking Up the Mountains: Appalachian Cookbooks and the Heritage Turn”. Southern Studies Forum 2023: Southern Trans/formations. Université d’Artois und Université Picardie Jules Verne, Frankreich, 21.-23.09.2023
  Evangelia Kindinger