Table Of ContentAdvAnce prAise for
Thinking
OuTside The
girl BOx
“Writing between hope and despair, and with tremendous grace, this ex-
traordinary pair of mother-daughter researchers reveals the limits that young
Appalachian women face in breaking free of the strictures of gender and the
injury of being working class in America.”
—Ruth Behar, professor, University of Michigan, and author of
Traveling Heavy: A Memoir in between Journeys
“i read the entire thing in two days! it is incredible! it is like a love story! i
laughed, i cried, i was angry, i grieved . . . simply incredible!”
—Shelley Gaines, founder, Girls’ resiliency program of Lincoln
county, West virginia
“Thinking Outside the Girl Box reads as a delicious, compelling, collaborative
ethnography that escorts readers into the delicate, rugged human terrain of
life in Appalachia, where girls contend with dreams, relationships, possibili-
ties, disappointments, the delights and struggles of rural life in a stretch of
disinvested America. The book is written with a spirit of sweet invitation into
a love story indeed; a mother-daughter adventure; an intimate essay on girls’
desire for lives of meaning and creativity; a sad obituary on a program that
carried the girls on the wings of possibility. We meet young women, adult
mentors, shelley and ric who carve the space and hold the girls, and we
bear witness to the possibility and fragility of programs devised to support
youth in a nation that has banished them to the margins in times of swelling
inequality gaps.
This book is beautifully accessible to undergraduates or graduates; if
you are trying to teach students to appreciate ‘difference’ and imagine ‘oth-
ers,’ you don’t need a passport. come to West virginia and meet young
women in our own country, sisters in the mountains, with few opportuni-
ties, enormous capacity, and rich desires. spatig and Amerikaner are gifted
storytellers. Together with the young women and their mentors, they have
crafted a sweet jewel, opening the box of ethnography, challenging the girdle
of evaluation, asking us to peer inside the intimacy of growing up girl in
rural America.”
—Michelle Fine, distinguished professor, The Graduate center, cUnY
“The aim of this book is to tell the story of rural, Appalachian girls in a youth
development program—their lives presented through their own words, and
the words of the authors, spatig and Amerikaner, highlighting the girls’
challenges, struggles, fears, likes, and dislikes. . . . situating these girls’ voices in
a framework of ‘collaborative ethnography’ amidst a preferred research focus
in the U.s. on quantitative, standardized, accountability models is refreshing,
timely, accurate, and serves to highlight what we need to know most about
girls and schooling.”
—Brett Elizabeth Blake, professor, school of education, curriculum
and instruction, st. John’s University (new York), and author of She
Say, He Say: Urban Girls Write Their Lives
“This book grows out of a ten-year community-based research project and
exemplifies the possibilities of what can happen when outsiders tell stories
about Appalachia. Beginning as a program evaluation of a youth resiliency
program, it morphed into a collaborative ethnographic study of much reflec-
tion and fun, too much data, too little money, many mothers and daughters,
and too many necessary losses. Honest about the tensions, it is designed to
move beyond the walls of the university as it tells stories about the posi-
tive legacies of a program that helped adolescent girls in small-town West
virginia live bigger lives. What results are complex tales of living poor and
girlhood, girl-driven interventions, the violence of low expectations and the
weight of gender norms. it is a life history of an organization told through
strong characters about lessons learned, loving and leaving, poetry and song,
and questions of power, voice, and language. i recommend it to those inter-
ested in Appalachian studies, girlhood studies, community-based activism,
and collaborative ethnography as well as general readers interested in a darn
good story.”
—Patti Lather, professor, The ohio state University, and author of
Getting Lost: Feminist Efforts toward a Double(d) Science
“Written with great tenderness and insight, this book portrays West virginia
through the eyes of those who seldom appear in the literature about Ap-
palachia: rural girls. The stories of their struggles and transformations are
revelatory—instructive and beautiful in equal measure. i love this book!”
—Barbara Ellen Smith, professor, department of sociology, virginia
Tech, and coeditor of Transforming Places: Lessons from Appalachia
“far too often theories become abstract and convoluted—losing connection
to reality in the pursuit of ever higher levels of elaboration. Theorists cite
other theorists to prove their erudition. This book, however, is a story that
advances theory. spatig and Amerikaner take life experience that they have
felt—love, disappointment, and suffering—and conceptualize that knowl-
edge into critical theory. This book is not just about Appalachian girls. This
book is about how we study and think about life around us. This book is
about how scholars should expose social inequality and oppression and then
write about it.”
—Lynda Ann Ewen, founder, center for the study of ethnicity and
Gender in Appalachia at Marshall University
“This is an extraordinary collaborative ethnography, one that authentically
involves research participants in multiple stages of the research and writing
processes. But it is also much more than this. it is, as spatig and Amerikaner
suggest, a love story that both warms and breaks the heart. Thinking Outside
the Girl Box documents the amazing successes, and then the unsettling demise,
of the Girls’ resiliency program, a community-based youth development
program in one of the poorest counties in one of the poorest states in the
country. Make no mistake, though, this isn’t another account about victims
of rural poverty. The adult leaders and young women who are both subjects
and research partners in this study do struggle against enormous odds; yet
their remarkable and resilient commitment to model positive relationships
and to make a difference to each other and within their communities inspires
hope for what is possible when we decide to work together for change. Any-
one with an interest in youth programs, Appalachia, rural poverty, or gender
studies—and, of course, collaborative ethnography—should read this book.”
—Luke Eric Lassiter, author of The Chicago Guide to
Collaborative Ethnography
“Thinking Outside the Girl Box will change the way you look at words like
resiliency, development, democracy, girls. spatig and Amerikaner remind
their readers that a real feminist analysis begins with love and that its meth-
odology is necessarily one of loving collaboration. in a period in which
multinational agency after multinational agency is ‘discovering’ that girls
exist, the story of the Girls’ resiliency program, from efflorescence to almost
complete demise, is a necessary one, and i, for one, can’t image anyone better
to tell that story than Linda spatig and Layne Amerikaner.”
—Daniel Moshenberg, director, Women’s studies program, George
Washington University, and coeditor of Searching for South Africa:
The New Calculus of Dignity
Thinking
OuTside The
girl BOx
oHio UniversiTY press
series in race, ethnicity, and Gender in Appalachia
Series editors: Marie Tedesco and Chris Green
Memphis Tennessee Garrison: The Remarkable Story of a Black
Appalachian Woman, edited by Ancella r. Bickley and Lynda
Ann ewen
The Tangled Roots of Feminism, Environmentalism, and Appalachian
Literature, by elizabeth s. d. engelhardt
Red, White, Black, and Blue: A Dual Memoir of Race and Class in
Appalachia, by William r. drennen Jr. and Kojo (William T.)
Jones Jr., edited by dolores M. Johnson
Beyond Hill and Hollow: Original Readings in Appalachian Women’s
Studies, edited by elizabeth s. d. engelhardt
Loving Mountains, Loving Men, by Jeff Mann
Power in the Blood: A Family Narrative, by Linda Tate
Out of the Mountains: Appalachian Stories, by Meredith sue Willis
Negotiating a Perilous Empowerment: Appalachian Women’s Literacies,
by erica Abrams Locklear
Standing Our Ground: Women, Environmental Justice, and the Fight to
End Mountaintop Removal, by Joyce M. Barry
Shake Terribly the Earth: Stories from an Appalachian Family, by sarah
Beth childers
Thinking Outside the Girl Box: Teaming Up with Resilient Youth in
Appalachia, by Linda spatig and Layne Amerikaner
Thinking
OuTside The
girl BOx
Teaming Up with Resilient Youth in Appalachia
Linda spatig
Layne Amerikaner
iLLUsTrATions BY
LAYne AMeriKAner
OhiO University Press • Athens
ohio University press, Athens, ohio 45701
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shelley gaines, founder of the girls’
resiliency program: The kids that we were
working with were really carrying around a
lot of labels that people gave them and . . . it
just got perpetuated within the family, or from
the community. . . . everybody has had these
girls in these little tiny boxes that were very
disempowering.
interviewer: How would you like to impact the
girls’ lives?
shelley gaines: i guess i hope . . . that the box
they have drawn, that all women have to fit
in, is at least a thousand times bigger than
when they started.
