Research Spotlight: Jordan Woodward
Originally hailing from Oklahoma, a state with its own distinct histories tied to extractive industry, Jordan Woodward is a researcher exploring the ways in which former mining communities recognize the past while reshaping their shared identity—and the role of storytelling in those changes.
As a postdoctoral research associate in public humanities for Humanities Without Walls, Woodward has partnered with the Climate Jobs Institute as part of the Illinois Coal Workers & Communities Listening Project team to travel across the state of Illinois and spoken to dozens of people living in communities marked by the decline of the coal industry. “I’m really interested in how communities experience environmental, economic, and social transitions, and how they communicate about those in various forms,” she said.
While completing her PhD in English (Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy) at The Ohio State University, Woodward conducted research in Appalachian Ohio. And while she does continue that work, her time at the University of Illinois has opened up new connections throughout the state, including West Frankfort and parts of Vermilion County—both sites with a long history of coal mining.
As of 2023, burning coal accounts for approximately 15 percent of the state of Illinois’ electricity production, compared to nearly 55 percent in 1990. According to Woodward, Illinois is the fourth highest producing coal state in the U.S., with the largest recoverable coal reserves east of the Mississippi. The state produces about as much coal as it ever has, but because of mechanization of mining technologies, this mining supports a fraction of the jobs. In that transition sits countless stories of communities, families, and individuals navigating the shifting identity of their towns and livelihoods.
Inside the Christian County Coal Museum: a display of the “In the Mine” “Out of Mine” system, which was used to keep track of specific miners’ whereabouts in case of disaster, as well as to determine who was working at any particular time.
Photo by Jordan Woodward
In the Field
As part of her field work, Woodward traveled with the Climate Jobs Institute and Harlem Documentary Project to southern Illinois for West Frankfort’s annual Old King Coal Festival last spring. The Illinois Coal Workers and Community Listening Project team met with and interviewed residents.
In addition to crowning a “Princess Flame” and “Old King Coal” at the festival, the community also held a memorial service for victims of the town’s 1951 mine disaster. Old King Coal 2025, John Smith, is the son of a miner who died in that disaster, which took 119 lives altogether. In fact, the West Frankfort tragedy, together with mining disasters in Centralia and Cherry, Illinois, helped prompt President Harry S. Truman to strengthen national mining safety regulations.
As she speaks with community members, Woodward hears conflicting emotions about the past and visions for the way forward. “I think it’s in part so complicated because not just individual identities of miners are connected to it, but the whole community is connected to it,” she said. “A lot of people will talk about when mines have left or shut down, how that had a kind of cascading effect in terms of the economics of the town, the businesses that were there, and then with people leaving, how the town’s getting smaller.”
Woodward has also been building relationships in Vermilion County, which is the home of Kickapoo State Recreation Area—once a major site for surface coal mining, from 1850 until about 1940. She is partnering with the Vermilion County Museum to develop ideas around oral history activities with family members of coal miners, including zine-making (or scrapbooking) workshops.
(1) Jordan Woodward (left) talking to Old King Coal 2025, John Smith (right). Johnathan Hettinger, the communications director of the Climate Jobs Institute is in the center of the frame. Photo by Nick Talan. (2) Jordan Woodward (right) about to conduct an oral history with Gail Thomas (left). Photo by Emily Guske.
Ethical and Equitable Research
For Woodward, how she conducts her research is as important as why. In fact, she was initially drawn to the HWW postdoctoral position because of its emphasis on “reciprocity and redistribution”—a framework for research that seeks to disrupt the boundary between the academy and the public sphere through collaborative partnerships that are ethical and equitable by design.
As a researcher, Woodward sees herself as a participant observer who seeks to co-create knowledge with the people she interviews and collaborates with. In this model, it is possible to be transparent about your research aims while also serving the community and giving back. In Ohio, for example, she spent hours observing meetings of the Little Cities of Black Diamonds council, ultimately becoming a secretary for the board.
“There’s a lot of ways to be in reciprocity with people,” she said. “We are fielding ideas together to create something that would be beneficial to the community or the organization.” And while her work has yielded academic papers and presentations, Woodward is also excited for the more public-facing outputs that will directly enter the community.
The Illinois Coal Workers and Community Listening Project, for example, will be creating short documentaries out of the oral histories they recorded, to be shared with rural museums. She also plans to hold a second zine-making workshop as a kind of community history project in support of Vermilion County’s upcoming bicentennial.
In the spring semester, Woodward will be involved in two different events on campus: an exhibition and forum (“Memorias de Mujer Lotina: Arpilleras, Women, and Coal in Chile”) with Urban & Regional Planning Professor Magdalena Novoa, who will be inviting Chilean women from former coal communities, and a public talk by Erin Brock Carlson titled “Dwell, care, build: Drawing on place-based expertise to craft a better world.” (Watch HRI’s calendar for information, coming soon.)
Organic Community Connections
Through all of the site visits, the people she’s met, and the stories she’s heard, Woodward has begun conceptualizing a theory around the patterns of connection that happen organically in communities every day. “Rhetorical mycology1,” as she calls it, is a framework describing the less flashy, often unsung ways in which work gets done and results bloom.
Just as nature’s mycelial networks connect the root systems of plants and trees and support new growth above, Woodward is interested in the organic systems connecting organizations that make change possible.
Some of these unseen networks are found in the web of meeting minutes, archives, emails, and text messages—forms of communication and labor that may be overlooked as unimportant and are oftentimes done by women.
“It’s the behind-the-scenes work that enables public-facing campaigns, documents, websites, eco heritage designations, and historical markers,” she said. “It allows it all to come into being.”
As her postdoctoral work draws to a close in 2026, Woodward plans to continue this research in whatever path she takes next. “What draws me in is that I love working with people, and I love talking with people.” She continues to be energized by the work she sees happening in community spaces like local and regional museums. “It’s just inspiring to be around people who are doing that kind of work.”
Jordan Woodward, whose position is based at the Humanities Research Institute, is one of two HWW postdoctoral research associates.
- Rhetorical mycology definition: Rhetorical mycology is an interpretive framework and method of attunement that can help reveal the ways coalitional networks, like mycelia, facilitate mutualistic symbiotic relationships, work to create a shared resource economy, and aim to foster regenerative possibilities in (post-)extractive landscapes and communities. This is accomplished by developing fungal-like networks of collaboration, employing rhizomatic (or intergenerational) rhetorical strategies, supporting decomposition and transformation, and the spore-like dissemination of public initiatives. -Jordan Woodward ↩︎
This research was conducted as part of the Illinois Coal Workers & Communities Listening Project, led by the Climate Jobs Institute at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, in collaboration with University of Illinois Department of Urban & Regional Planning; University of Illinois Extension; University of Illinois Labor Education Program; University of Illinois Humanities Research Institute; Harlem Documentary Project; and Prairie Rivers Network. The project seeks to listen to and learn from Illinois coal workers, their families, and communities affected by mine and plant closures — preserving their stories and informing policies for a just and equitable transition.