Deborah Thompson came to UK’s Geography Department in 2001 after 10 years of teaching Appalachian Studies, Geography, and Women’s Studies and directing the Appalachian Semester program at Union College in Barbourville, Kentucky. She earned a certificate in Women’s Studies at UK in 2004 and holds an M.A. in Appalachian Studies from Appalachian State University (1988). Her research interests include music of the Appalachian region, place-based education, intentional communities, contemporary folkways, Appalachian religion, and the impact of gender, race, and class on cultural expression. She is dedicated to including service-learning and community-based research both in her teaching and in her own research.

She has most recently worked at Berea College, as Programming Director for the Appalachian Center, from 2007-2009. She is currently completing her dissertation, titled “The Place of Music in the Production of Community and Locality in Appalachia.”
My dissertation research investigates the work of music in producing contemporary Appalachian space, exploring the power relations that may be traced through music and musical practices. Folk music and other folk arts have been identified in Kentucky as cultural resources to be used for economic development, which then impacts monetary distributions on many scales. Questions of authenticity and access to traditional music have repercussions as to who is allowed to speak for and represent the Appalachian Region through its folk culture.

I will explore issues of representation, hybridity, and the impact of race, gender, age, class, and other characteristics on cultural productions. The politics and performance of culture and community will be addressed on various scales, especially locally and regionally.
The three questions that frame my research are:

• How does music work to create a sense of belonging, difference, community, and Appalachian identity in eastern Kentucky?
  
  
• How are eastern Kentucky musicians’ networks formed, and how do such factors as race, class, age, and gender inflect these relationships?
  
  
• What ramifications do these networks have for broader community building and economic development in Appalachia?

I am not simply seeking to document the existence and extent of “Appalachian music,” but am “using music as a tool of discovery to question value systems – not just highlighting the differences between genres or subjects, but how the divides themselves are constructed and negotiated” (Leyshon, Matless et al. 1998).

Advisor: Rich Schein. Committee: Rich Schein, Anna Secor, Michael Crutcher, Ron Pen (Music).

Deborah Thompson has also worked as a freelance musician and dance caller, artist in residence, local arts council director, principal investigator for historic architecture surveys, and resident director for cultural study programs in Appalachia, Mexico, and the Texas-Mexico border.

Music and dance are an essential part of her life. Deborah is from a musical family and learned to play banjo, guitar, and dulcimer during the folk revival of the 1970s, with repertoire from living and playing in Kentucky, West Virginia, North Carolina, and New England. Since 1976, she has performed both solo and with various groups, currently with the old time and Americana band, Skipjack (www.skipjackmusic.org). She enjoys mountain-style flatfoot dancing and has been calling and organizing traditional community dances, including contradance, Kentucky running sets, play parties, and other folk dances. She has taught classes and workshops in Appalachian music and dance for all ages since 1984, including public school residencies and Elderhostels, Appalshop’s Banjo Day, Hindman Family Folk Week, Cowan Creek Music School, Augusta Heritage Center, and John C. Campbell Folk School. Her specialty is interpreting Appalachian music and dance, presenting programs that tie together the history of the Appalachian region, information about and demonstrations on various instruments, and a smattering of music theory. Her training includes many years of performance and playing with traditional musicians and interviewing traditional artists for cultural and heritage studies.

Related Links:

http://artistdirectory.ky.gov/aer/educationalarts/DeborahThompson.htm.

http://skipjackmusic.org