Gabe Schwartzman is a human geographer who studies climate change, rural development, and the energy transition. His recent research examines the political, economic, and cultural landscapes emerging with the decline of the coal industry in Central Appalachia, using the coalfields as a site to study the question: how can we ensure a ‘just transition’ for fossil fuel producing communities?  Schwartzman’s research asks fundamental questions about rural prosperity, including:

• How is climate change, climate policy, and climate politics affecting rural livelihoods and economies?
• What is driving a declining quality of life and rising poverty in rural North American communities?
• Who benefits from the current economic geography of rural North America?
•  What alternatives are there to contemporary economic development and climate policy in rural North America?

Schwartzman is an ethnographer, oral historian, and teaches qualitative research and community engaged methodologies at the University of Tennessee. His scholarship draws on feminist political economy, political ecology, conjunctural analysis, and peasant studies frameworks.  He has formerly worked in the Brazilian Amazon, conducting ethnography with riberinho peasant communities that reside within conservation units of the Terra do Meio region, Pará State.

His ongoing research investigates how fossil fuel transition and proposals for decarbonization articulate, or link up with, emerging post-neoliberal political conjunctures. His work is rooted in close relationships with community-based institutions in Central Appalachia.

Current research projects:

• Data Centers and the Southern Energy Buildout: Studying energy transition and environmental justice implications of data center developments, AI, new methane gas powerplants and pipelines, and the impacts on rural communities in the Tennessee Valley and Appalachia
• Comparative analysis of policy landscapes for post-mining ‘just transitions’: comparing Minnesota’s IRRRB (Iron Range Rehabilitation and Redevelopment) and the Appalachian Regional Commission investment regimes in post-mine landscapes
• Carbon forest governance in post-coal landscapes: Understanding the impacts of forest-based climate solutions, such as carbon offsets and conservation easements, on forest communities, economies, and livelihoods in Central Appalachia. NSF DISES Award 2024
• Supporting digitization of land records and land ownership transparency as part of the Appalachian Land Study, in collaboration with Dr. Lindsay Shade. 

Selected Publications

New book: co-authored with John Gaventa. (2026). Power and Just Transition: the Struggle for a Post-Coal Future in an Appalachian Valley. U. Illinois Press.https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=c046933

30% Off Discount Code: F25UIP

Schwartzman, Gabe and Junior Walk. (2025). Transition to What? Uncontentious Politics and West Virginia’s ‘Just’ Transition.Institute for Development Studies Bulletin. 56(2) https://bulletin.ids.ac.uk/index.php/idsbo/article/view/3320/3489

Shade, Lindsay, Gabe Schwartzman, Karen Rignall, Kevin Slovinsky and Jacob Johnson. (2025). Afterlives of coal: land and transition dynamics in Central Appalachia. Enviromental Research: Energy (2)1. https://iopscience-iop-org.utk.idm.oclc.org/article/10.1088/2753-3751/adb1ea/meta

Schwartzman, Gabe. (2024). “Masculinities in the Decline of Coal: Queer Futures in the Appalachian Coalfields.” In Deviant Hollers: Queering Appalachian Ecologies for a Sustainable Future, pp 183-206. https://doi-org.utk.idm.oclc.org/10.5810/kentucky/9780813199290.003.0009

Schwartzman, Gabe. (2022). Climate rentierism after coal: forests, carbon offsets, and post-coal politics in the Appalachian coalfields. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 49(5), 924–944. https://doi-org.utk.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/03066150.2022.2078710

In The News:

“Struggles for Justice in the Energy Transition: Voices from the Front Lines”. 11 November 2025. https://www.ids.ac.uk/publications/struggles-for-justice-in-the-energy-transition-views-from-the-front-lines/

Q&A: The Changed Landscape of Coal Politics. Olivia Weeks. The Daily Yonder. 19 January 2024.https://dailyyonder.com/qa-the-changed-landscape-of-coal-politics/2024/01/19/

Carbon offsets bring new investment to Appalachia’s coal fields, but most Appalachians aren’t benefiting. February 2024. The Conversation.

https://theconversation.com/carbon-offsets-bring-new-investment-to-appalachias-coal-fields-but-most-appalachians-arent-benefiting-217430

Affiliate Faculty

Institute for Climate and Community Resilience

Center for Energy, Transportation, and Environment Policy, The Baker School

Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center, Research Affiliate 

Current Graduate Students

Marian Moss, MS 2027

Former Graduate Students

Gabrielle Chapman, MS 2025

Prospective Graduate Students

I am current recruiting for a PhD student to support the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation-funded research project, “Data Centers and the Southern Energy Buildout: Implications for Electricity Cost, Energy Transition, and Energy Justice.” 

Read more about the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Project

I am always interested to hear from prospective Masters and PhD students interested in studying critical agrarian studies, Appalachian Studies, Appalachian development and environmental politics, and critical energy transition scholarship. Please reach out to me to schedule a meeting before applying to work with me for an MA or PhD.