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- Convenors:
-
Ada Arendt
(University of Oslo)
Frank Zelko (University of Hawaii at Manoa)
Send message to Convenors
- Chair:
-
Ada Arendt
(University of Oslo)
- Formats:
- Panel
- Streams:
- Expanding the Practice of Environmental History
- Location:
- Room 21
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 21 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
The panel invites reflection on how environmental historians appropriate theoretical concepts from the fields of philosophy, ethics, literary, postcolonial, or disability studies. What are the latest relevant theoretical shifts? What are the potential pitfalls of such interdisciplinary translation?
Long Abstract:
The environmental historical imagination is furnished with metaphors and concepts that shape its overarching narratives. The once prevalent metaphor of ‘collapse’ has been gradually substituted with concepts of a different kind, not necessarily temporal, processual or visual but rather affective and speculative such as ‘care,’ ‘reworlding’ or ‘ruination.’ Often broadly defined and anachronistic, those concepts serve as theoretical engines that propel inquiry, attune the senses and offer a new lens to look into the past. If those transdisciplinary concepts have anything in common, it is an inherent call to action, as they bridge the past with an anticipated vision of the future. That said, this productive and forward-oriented movement within environmental history should be theoretically disciplined and aware of the conditions and pitfalls of interdisciplinary translation. The ‘Modi operandi. Transdisciplinary concepts in current environmental history’ panel serves as a platform to exchange experiences, inspirations, struggles, and concerns involved in the process.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 21 August, 2024, -Paper short abstract:
Since its emergence, the concept of landscape has spread so widely that it has become virtually synonymous with nature. Recently, new approaches have renewed interest in it, especially based on developments in the field of Anthropology, which opens up perspectives that can be particularly productive
Paper long abstract:
The origin of the idea of landscape has been most commonly associated with a pictorial genre in which the representation of nature acquired an aesthetic meaning. In addition to its developments in art history, the term became key to geographical thought, was read from political and sociological perspectives, caught the attention of philosophers, especially in the area of phenomenology, and was the object of literary studies related to descriptive writing and to the relationships between nature, subjectivity and memory. In recent decades, Anthropology has become one of the most productive fields for adding to the concept, based on the contributions of researchers such as Tim Ingold, Philippe Descola, Eric Hirsch and Christopher Tilley. Their work has allowed environmental humanities to problematize traditional approaches to the concept, going far beyond the field of representation to allow the incorporation of the dimensions of experience, perception and agency. From then on, it’s possible to pay more attention to aspects such as: the centrality of emotional motivations in the subjects’ engagement with the environment; the somatic culture involved in the pleasures and displeasures of the environment; the structure of feelings involved in the enjoyment of nature; the subjects' point of view in relation to their own physical location in a landscape produced through everyday practices in living and working spaces.
Paper short abstract:
This paper arises from a transdisciplinary collaboration at the University of Cologne in which archeologists, climatologists, cultural historians and computer scientists are working together to map the interrelationship between climate change and cultural change from the deep past to the present.
Paper long abstract:
This paper arises from a transdisciplinary collaboration at the University of Cologne in which archeologists, climatologists, cultural historians, environmental linguists, ecocritics, and computer scientists are working together to map, model and better understand the interrelationship between climate change and cultural change from the deep past to the present. The overall project aims to develop a new field of Human and Earth System Coupled Research (HESCOR) in order to identify those cultural factors that have either enabled or impeded successful adaptations to past climatic changes with a view to deriving actionable knowledge in the face of today’s unprecedented anthropogenic climate disruption. Here, we discuss the methodological challenges of such an undertaking, and share some initial insights from our subproject on how human societies have variously perceived and conceptualized ‘nature’ through time, exploring how historically-specific cultural assumptions, values, meanings and purposes regarding the more-than-human world mediated and shaped human responses to past climatic and associated environmental changes in specific times and places of major transition (‘climes’), and how those changes in turn reshaped prevailing knowledges, imaginaries and practices of more-than-human world-making. Situated within the environmental humanities, our research draws on multispecies and decolonial approaches in order to open both new perspectives on the past and pathways towards transformational resilience in the perilous present.
Paper short abstract:
Permaculture is debated from the perspective on contextualizing ‘care’ within resilience rhetoric of ‘tierratrauma’ experienced communities, shown via the literary dimensions of profiling ‘permaculture’ techniques in Chornobyl fictional writings within debating narrative tools of utopian resilience.
Paper long abstract:
An uncertain time of increasing vulnerabilities – climate change, pandemics, toxic localities, high-risk zones, environmental degradation, geological hazards etc – tries to not only find the solutions of disaster management but also minimize sufferings via framing the instruments of survival, hope and resilience. Some suggest developing disaster preparedness via scientific/technological tools (Bhatia 2022), while others suggest appealing to ‘permaculture’ (’a set of gardening techniques, the creation of human systems which provide for human needs, but using many natural elements’, Chapman, 2015), highlighting the indigenous agricultural technics as a tool of switching from survival to resilience. The presentation aims to debate ‘permaculture’ from the perspective on contextualizing ‘care’ within permaculture ethics (earth care, people care, future care), expected to be a tool of weakening ‘survival’ rhetoric of ‘tierratrauma’ (Albrecht, 2017) experienced communities and strengthening ‘resilience’ but the expected intensification of social interdependence as a step towards resilience within toxic locality happens to be relevant and even utopian. The presentation aims to show the literary dimensions of profiling ‘permaculture’ techniques within ‘survival‘ narratives in post-Chornobyl fictional writings – such as Andrea White’s Radiant Girl (2008), Helen Bate’s The Lost Child of Chernobyl (2021), Pavlo Arie’s At the beginning and at the end of times (original: На початку і наприкінці часів, 2015), Kateryna Mikhaylitsyna’s The Flowers near the Fourth (original: Квіти біля четвертого, 2022) – where critical thinking perspective on permaculture activities and technics within storytelling ‘tierratraumatic’ experience contributes to debating narrative tools of ‘utopian’ resilience within a post-traumatic community.
Paper short abstract:
Early Indian traditions aligned the country’s growth with environmental protection and public welfare. In the era of reckless extraction of natural resources and exploitation of marginalized communities, revisiting Indian practices offers impactful lessons for a sustainable and inclusive future.
Paper long abstract:
While climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss are significant environmental concerns, at the same time, global poverty, illiteracy, gender discrimination, and lack of health facilities exist as an equally substantial menace to human survival. The root cause of these prevailing catastrophes can be traced back to the inception of the Industrial Revolution and the economic order that compromises the environment and the interests of marginalized communities. Based on a similar exploitative market model, the current global economies overlook the environmental impacts of unrestricted growth, limited natural resources, and the unjust sharing of developmental benefits. There lies an urgent need to reconsider our lifestyle and economic system to respond to the contemporary crisis.
Through his Separate Opinion in the 1997 Gabcikovo-Nagymaros Project case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Justice Weeramantry noted the significance of ancient civilizations and traditional legal systems in reconciling economic development with environmental law. India, as one of the ancient civilizations, has a rich history of sustainable and environment-friendly practices, including organic farming, rainwater harvesting, water conservation through check dams and irrigation canals, dependency on forest products, and cow dung as fertilizers. Along with constructing environmentally sound architectures and maintaining a sacred relationship with nature, India held nearly a world’s quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from 1 AD till the 17th century. The paper proposal aims to highlight ancient and medieval India’s environmental ethics, sustainable lifestyle, and elements of circular economy. It will determine strategies to create a clean, inclusive future harmonized with economic growth.