Methodological Challenges in Nature-Culture and Environmental History Research

This book examines the challenges and possibilities of conducting cultural environmental history research today. Disciplinary commitments certainly influence the questions scholars ask and the ways they seek out answers, but some methodological challenges go beyond the boundaries of any one discipline. The book examines: how to account for the fact that humans are not the only actors in history yet dominate archival records; how to attend to the non-visual senses when traditional sources offer only a two-dimensional, non-sensory version of the past; how to decolonize research in and beyond the archives; and how effectively to use sources and means of communication made available in the digital age. This book will be a valuable resource for those interested in environmental history and politics, sustainable development and historical geography. Introduction: 1. Methodological Challenges Stephanie Rutherford, Jocelyn Thorpe and L. Anders Sandberg Part I: Nonhuman Actors 2.Do Glaciers Speak? The Political Aesthetics of Vo/ice Sverker Sörlin 3. Experiencing Earth Art; or, Lessons from Reading the Landscape Marsha Weisiger 4. A Resounding Success? Howling as a Source of Environmental History Stephanie Rutherford 5. Animals as Historical Actors? Southwest China’s Wild Elephants and Coming to Know the Worlds they Shape Michael Hathaway 6. Dawns Ysbrydion 09.02.63/ Ghost Dance 09.02.63: Performance as the Instantaneous Precipitation of Traces Roger Owen PART II: Decolonizing Research 7. Co-becoming Time/s: Time/s-as-Telling-as-Time/s Bawaka Country, including Sandie Suchet-Pearson, Sarah Wright, Kate Lloyd, Laklak Burarrwanga, Ritjilili Ganambarr, Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs, Banbapuy Ganambarr, Djawundil Maymuru, and Jill Sweeney 8. Dibaajimowinan as Method: Environmental History, Indigenous Scholarship, and Balancing Sources Lianne Leddy 9. Giving and Receiving Life from Anishinaabe Nibi Inaakonigewin (Our Water Law) Research Aimée Craft 10. Decolonizing Intellectual Traditions: Conducting Research and Telling our Stories in a ‘Mi’gmaq Way’ Fred Metallic 11. It Matters Where You Begin: A (Continuing) Journey Toward Decolonizing Research Jocelyn Thorpe PART III: Senses and Affect 12. On Narrative, Affect and Threatened Ecologies of Tidal Landscapes Owain Jones and Katherine Jones 13. Eat Your Primary Sources! Researching and Teaching the Taste of History Ian Mosby 14. Political Effluvia: Smells, Revelations, and the Politicization of Daily Experience in Na