The Appalachian Justice Research Center
Archives
The Appalachian Justice Research Center aims to produce accessible, actionable research deliverables. These research products look like what Appalachians tell us they need: legal resource guides, toolkits, oral histories, zines, policy briefs, and images. It also looks like the scholarship that AJRC affiliated faculty produce as a part of community collaborative work.
In addition to this archive, the Appalachian Justice Research Center will also host a community-driven research archive, which will be live in late 2026. This community archive will be a community-led digital space for public storytelling about Appalachian justice struggles and futures. Through curated project spaces, it will seek to bring together community archives, interviews, and oral histories (audio, video, transcripts, photos, essays), media projects (podcasts, zines, short films, and visual exhibits), and policy and research materials (reports, briefs, legal resource guides, white papers) as well as digital dashboards, data codebooks, and more. It will be built on a non-extractive model of research, where communities resist long-term treatment as data sources and instead are the authors of their own knowledge, representations, and research. The portal will function as a durable, evolving infrastructure that supports long-term work on issues like community safety, land justice, housing and health in Appalachia and the Mountain South, serving community, researchers, advocates, journalists, policymakers, and anyone seeking clear, accessible entry points into justice work in the region.
-
Abolition Now: Images for Study and Struggle
Database | Ongoing
Growing out of a legacy of visual criminology at the University of Tennessee, this database is a digitally curated, searchable, and open-source database that documents an unprecedented flow of social movement art in the era of “new abolition,” which spans from the birth of the Movement for Black Lives (circa 2012), through the George Floyd uprisings, and into the present. The database contains art concerned with a range of issues, and a multitude of movements, that are directed towards new abolition, and its historic antecedents. Abolition Now (AN) features short vignette and long form interviews with artists, organizers, and curators about the production and contexts of their work and the image. When possible, AN traces how people reuse and repurpose movement art. The participatory platform includes educational commentary, artist study guides, a submission portal, and user guides to empower people to build their own Canopy-IIIF digital exhibit or archive. AN includes a number of Southern and Indigenous regional artists whose work was collected during the Spring 2025 Appalachian Justice Research Lab, led by Vivian Swayne (Sociology).
-
Heirs’ Property in Tennessee: A Guide
Legal Resource Guide | May 2026
This legal resource guide explains the issue of Heirs’ Property in plain language and offers resources for Tennesseans who are experiencing an Heirs’ Property issue or want to prevent future issues.
Read more about the AJRC’s research on Heirs’ Property in Rural Tennessee and Beyond
-
What’s Dobbs Got To Do With It?: Pregnancy-Related Prosecutions in a Post-Roe World
Journal Article | May 2026
This essay published in the N.Y.U Review of Law & Social Change explores the history of pregnancy-related prosecutions, traces their legal basis, outlines preliminary data regarding prosecutions involving allegations related to fetal or infant demise, and describes why prosecuting pregnancy loss is suspected to be on the rise after Dobbs.
Read more about the Understanding Pregnancy Criminalization study here.
-
Shifting Power in Rural America: Conversations on Just Transitions
Event Recording | April 2026
This is a recording of a public conversation about the changing social and economic conditions of rural America with John Gaventa, Loka Ashwood, Gabe Schwartzman, and Lindsay Shade. This discussion offers important insights into the growing inequalities in rural America, the changing nature of politics and citizen participation, and the possibilities of just transitions to new economies in the face of the decline of fossil fuels and climate change.
-
Addressing Heirs’ Property in Rural Tennessee and Beyond: Heir Rights in Tennessee’s Clearfork Valley
Digital Story Map | Spring 2026
This story map is a community-based case study into Heirs’ Property and land relationships in a portion of the Clearfork Valley, in Campbell and Claiborne County, Tennessee.
Read more about the AJRC’s research on Heirs’ Property in Rural Tennessee and Beyond
-
Pregnancy as a Crime: An Interim Update on the First Two Years After Dobbs
Report | September 2025
This document provides a preliminary update on pregnancy-related prosecutions in the U.S. during the first two years after the Dobbs decision. This update focuses on pregnant people and the charges and allegations brought against them. These data are part of the Pregnancy Prosecutions Tracking Study, a research study examining pregnancy criminalization in the three years after Dobbs.
-
Tennessee Medical Ethics Defense Act Factsheets
Factsheets | Fall 2025
These factsheets – one for patients and one for providers – summarize research findings about medications for opioid use disorder, pregnancy, and Tennessee state laws.
Read more about the AJRC’s research on harm reduction during pregnancy
-
Housing Stability and Tenant Representation in a Changing Knoxville
Report | April 2025
This report provides information on the state of evictions in Knoxville and Knox County, Tennessee, with a focus on the legal process, impacts, and cost of eviction for the City and County. It also analyzes the resources available to tenants and provides a cost/benefit analysis of City and County funding.
Read more about the AJRC’s research on Housing Issues in Knox County
-
Oral Histories from the Clearfork Valley
Short Audio Documentaries | Spring 2025
These short oral histories document Clearfork Valley residents’ experiences with family land and heirs’ property through in-depth interviews. Participants discuss the challenges of managing land without clear title, family land transitions, and the impacts of heirs’ property conflicts.
Read more about Envisioning the Future of Land in the Clearfork Valley
-
Visualizing Just Futures
Images | Spring 2025
These images were created by teams of student researchers and residents in the Clearfork Valley of Tennessee. Students facilitated storytelling exercises about past land transitions and guided participants in producing collaborative AI-generated images representing their imagined land futures.
Read more about Envisioning the Future of the Clearfork Valley
-
The Community Impacts of Retail Theft Prosecutions in Sullivan County, Tennessee
Zine | Fall 2024
This zine summarizes the research findings of a community-driven study about shoplifting and burglary charges filed by Walmart in Sullivan County, Tennessee.
Read more about the Retail theft, Shoplifting, and Community Impacts study
-
Engaging Democracy: Deep Listening for Collective Change
Slidedeck | Fall 2024
This slidedeck summarizes the findings from more than 100 deep values conversations with young people ages 14-27 in Knox County, TN, to better understand how young people think about democracy, why they do or do not engage in democracy, and support their self-efficacy to create change through democratic participation.
-
Pregnancy as a Crime: A Preliminary Report on the First Year After Dobbs
Report | September 2024
This report presents the preliminary findings of a research study seeking to document all charges of pregnancy criminalization in the country in the three years after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The report covers the first year after Dobbs, from June 24, 2022 to June 23, 2023. The research is ongoing and will result in additional reports in the coming years.
Read more about the Understanding Pregnancy Criminalization study