The Urgency of Protest

This paper makes a case for academicians to promote, support, and participate in nonviolent direct action in our roles as teachers and scholars given the unfolding climate catastrophe and the extent to which academic institutions are complicit in the systems driving ecological breakdown. Drawing from recent experiences resisting fossil fuel infrastructure in Appalachia and the literature on social movements, I argue that specialists in marginalized economies and societies in the Appalachian and Carpathian Mountains are primed to critique dominant narratives about economic growth and state nationalism, to embrace the reputation of mountains as ungovernable, and to leverage international networks for the sake of mass disobedience and mutual aid.