Anxiety

An unexpected emotional political ecology surrounding the current status of the Chestnut remnants was the emotion of anxiety. Sara shared that when she used to go hiking in areas where Chestnut saplings could be living, she “can’t go into the woods without looking for Chestnuts.” After feeling emotions of anxiety, she even went to the point of

“join[ing] the caving club…because I could rest there in a sort of outdoor activity, not outdoors, but you know what I mean, like not in a house or a building but because there’s no Chestnuts underground.”

Sara,
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She has now “made peace with that though” and can not feel this emotion while she hikes or works towards restoring the Chestnut

“Like I can either be anxious all the time and say that it sucks, or I can just embrace it and deal with it. And you know, that’s took some time and some maturity and realizing that, especially like, around where I live, there’s chestnuts all over the place”

Sara,
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The emotion of anxiety was also felt by Terry in a different light when he was discussing the future of the Chestnuts if there is a blight-resistant tree approved for plantings

“it’s going to be an integral part of the forest. And I’m anxious to see it. I wish I could come back 100 years from now to see it, in the forest.”

Terry, Wednesday June 28, 2023

Both Terry and Sara expressed emotions of anxiousness through an anticipation of the unknown whether that be the presence/absence of a Chestnut sapling in the forest or the future of the Chestnut restoration.

Anxiety in the Anthropocene is a blossoming field of inquiry with fascinating results from Robbins and Moore (2012) where they postulate disorders stemming from living in and through the Anthropocene.

The emotional political ecology of Chestnut adds to these conversations through the ways individuals in Appalachia shape the ongoing story of the American Chestnut through anxiously restoring and/or imagining the potential return of the species.