Appalachian Folk Witchcraft and Responsibility to Place

Over the last two months, I’ve been invited to guest on a couple of podcasts. These weren’t the first invitations, and like most before them, I declined. If you know anything about me, that’s not the posture I want to take.

But interestingly, I was also invited to interview for a documentary being produced about Appalachian folk magic for a pretty significant audience, which really demonstrates the current interest.

In almost every case, I’m not comfortable with the direction these things take. They lean on a down-home narrative of recipes, campfires, and sewing patterns set against string music and wooded mountainsides. These are also some of my favorite things, but they are presented with little, if any, acknowledgment of the local ecology being obliterated, hospitals closing, ongoing ICE kidnappings and worse…

And frankly, I worry about my hand in perpetuating it.

I don’t believe this expectation applies to every tradition in the same way. Appalachian folk practices are still tied to a living region, to people who are still here and still being affected by the conditions of this place. If you take up the position or the outward identity of an Appalachian healer or folk practitioner, you inherit a responsibility to Appalachia itself. Without that mutual relationship, what is presented as identity can become a kind of performed role rather than a grounded, reciprocal practice. To take on that identity is not only to reference a lineage, but to step into a role that exists within a present-day community. And that comes with a responsibility that cannot be separated from the place itself.

I imagine sitting with my great-grandmother, who lived through brutal tragedy as a miner’s wife, and explaining that it’s acceptable, even admirable, for me to highlight my story and continually pursue creative projects without persistently centering the people living here. The answer that comes back is abundantly clearer: it’s wildly out of touch for this work.

If I’m going to attach myself to a tradition of local practitioners, people whose purpose was to serve and sustain their communities, and draw personal meaning or benefit from it, then I should, in turn, be consistently giving back with energy, time, and resources. And I’m running out of patience for rationalizing otherwise, especially with myself.