Appalachia—a coal mining region in the South-Eastern United States with high levels of chronic multidimensional poverty—has long been subjected to exploitation, environmental degradation, and bureaucratic corruption due to its pernicious mining industry. Yet, development actors, academics, and the American public at large have all historically attributed the region’s poverty to a fictitious ‘culture of poverty’ that has been upheld by undignifying photography which attempted to impress American suburban modes of community onto the region.