Mergoat

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Mergoat Mag is a publication dedicated to investigating the contemporary ecological situation of Southern Appalachia and the cultures shaped by it.
MERGOAT

Mergoat Land Design and Restoration

Sorrel Inman

[email protected]
(865) 250-6140

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MERGOAT

Mergoat Land Design and Restoration

Sorrel Inman

[email protected]
(865) 250-6140

Our publication seeks to explore Southern Appalachia at the intersection of ecological apocalypse and restorative futurity—
Who are we? How do we locate ourselves ecologically and politically in this overwhelming global moment? What transformations are opening within our region? What structural challenges impede these transformations? How has the Southern Appalachian imagination evolved within these conditions?

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  • 4 fresh issues per year + Mergoat treats here and there. Starting with the next issue!
  • SOLIDARITY SUBSCRIBERS get a free T-Shirt (please note your preferred size)
  • All subscriptions include access to digital versions of each issue.
The cover of Mergoat Mag Blue Hollers in the Shadow of the Holocene features a blue collage of images of natural elements like bloodroot and mushrooms, a sturgeon fish, and tree roots, as well as Atlanta police and stacks of tires.

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The Current Issue

The Mergoat Mag Issue 3 "Kindly of a Queer Nature" cover showing an all-pink monochrome image of a pig with a big tree growing out of its head and three baby pigs running around with tree sprouts coming out of their heads in a spacious mountain scene.

Issue 3

Transecologies: Kindly of a Queer Nature

Transition is not only a movement from one physical state to another, it is also a psychic and societal operation. It is the enfleshment of hope, possibility, and self-determination. What else might the queerness of Appalachia teach us about our hills and heritage? Can we lift the veil of separation hanging between our desire for a new future and the currents of our bleak reality? Can we project another world, another future, into the void left by industrial capitalism—a world characterized by ecological reciprocity? Can we transition? Will we transition?

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Mergoat Magazine Sliding Scale Breakdown
Sliding Scale: The following slides provide a breakdown of the current sliding scale pricing. If you're able, we ask that you subscribe at the solidarity level in order to help us subsidize discounted subscriptions.
Discounted Rate: This price level is intended to serve working class, queer, and BIPOC folx. Print and digital: $75/year or $20/every 3 months. Digital only is $55/year or $15/every 3 months.
Standard Rate. This is retail price: what you would pay at the bookstore. Print and digital: $90/year or $25/every 3 months. Or digital only: $75/year or $20/3 months.
Solidarity Rate: This price is for subscribers who wish to invest in the longevity of our project. Print and digital: $150/year or $40/every 3 months. Or digital only: $120/year or $30/every 3 months.
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Call For Entries

Issue No. 4 Dowsing Yonder. Theme: Ecofuturism. Deadline to Submit: September 1. Submit art, writing, abstracts, projects, and poems to submissions@mergoat.com.
There is a notable resignation, exhaustion, and nihilism that broadly mars the ecological politics of Millenials and Gen Z. In some ways, we have been left with no choice. Our ecological inheritance is clearly the result of industrial capitalism: climate change, mass extinction, and a progressively toxic environment. We have also inherited an economy driven by the single-minded pursuit of profit, which offers no incentive to address the root causes of climate change—such as fossil fuels dependency, extractive practices, and land development.
For decades, many believed the government would properly manage the various emergent ecological crises as information evolved. Others even believed the free market would resolve the matter. As we resist struggle, debate, and process defeats, we never had a meaningful chance to find our way. Now: Cop City. MVP. Willow. Coal Country. Lutzerath. East Palestine. East African Crude Oil. TVA’s fossil fuel swap. Wildfires. Surging authoritarianism. We live collectively with the residue of the trauma from being born into endless wars, catastrophic failures of those in power, and the unthwarted libido of industrial capitalism.
In the face of such overwhelming despair, we have worked to lay the groundwork for forging a new future. Not a future that is guaranteed, but a future that we will envision, create, and safeguard. It is incumbent upon us to learn how to hold the bleak realities we are facing in tension with a steadfast hope for any possible future. As far as we can tell, this is the only way to fully grasp the stakes in order to develop the powerful and diverse strategies necessary to sustain life into the future.
After grieving the death of a concept of nature that is no longer tenable, our trans siblings have led us through the intricate, painful, and liberating process of transition. This is not dissimilar to the work that lies before us, as we create a world that nurtures a profound respect for the land, treating it as a living entity with inherent rights and intrinsic value.
We understand that during any transitional process, one must remain deeply in touch with (1) the agony of what has been lost or left behind, (2) the commitment to understanding the material and social realities that gave rise to and sustain our current threats, and (3) the possibility of a different future. In other words, we must remain in touch with our grief, devotion, and hope.
In our fourth and final issue for 2023, we focus our energy towards the process of invention, world-creation, resilience, and hope—the very essence of “futurity.” We embrace ecofuturism not only as a subgenre of hopepunk, but also as the oppositional force to the gloomy nihilism which lures us towards inaction and self-destructive lifestyles. Ecofuturism rejects the temptation of nihilism in exchange for an attempt at world creation.
Ecofuturism rejects the temptation of nihilism in exchange for an attempt at world creation.
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What is Mergoat Mag?

Notes from Our Publisher: What is Mergoat Mag? Mergoat Magazine is a publication that provides a collective, interdisciplinary record of the ecological situation throughout Southern Appalachia and the broader Southeast.
Ecological situation is an intentional, yet ambiguous phrase. While ecology is a specific scientific discipline, we believe that human culture itself signifies our inclusion as an ecologically embedded species; therefore, we understand human society to be inextricably linked to matters of ecology.
In this spirit, we seek to explore: the complex and changing ecologies of our region; how these ecologies relate to one another and the rest of the earth; and how these ecological matters materialize in our daily lives on the planes of culture, politics and identity. In order to achieve this, one of our primary goals is to work towards deconstructing artificial binaries such as "nature" and "technology," or "wilderness" and "society."
There will always be science-oriented writing in Mergoat Magazine and ecological questions will always guide our work. Nevertheless, we reject the notion that ecological practice ends with observations or descriptions of natural phenomena from a detached, scientific spectator.
Ecology is impermanent, always becoming. Ecology is relational, and observing ecological relations provides pathological information for assessing a community's health. Ecology is political, and the political process affects ecologies. Ecology is a negotiation—a reciprocal exchange, for good or ill. We do not exist as objective observers outside of our ecology. Rather, we are enfleshed participants that emerge within material ecological networks. Mergoat Magazine explores this network of relationships on the horizon of history and futurity in Southern Appalachia.