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- Convenors:
-
Tom Breen
(Oxford Brookes)
Clare Hickman (Newcastle University)
Sarah Hamilton (University of Bergen)
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- Formats:
- Panel
- Streams:
- Energy and Infrastructure
- Location:
- Room 10
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 20 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
The national park is often seen as a symbol of pristine nature, but its creation and development were heavily dependent on oil. This panel examines the desire to preserve and protect such rural landscapes in the context of environmentally destructive petroscapes.
Long Abstract:
The concept of a ‘national park’ is a relatively recent invention, dating back to the establishment of Yellowstone in the United States in 1872, but really flourishing in the late twentieth century with the formation of hundreds of national parks worldwide. The national park movement grew out of a desire to preserve the natural beauty of special landscapes from environmental damage. However, the oil industry was needed to build the infrastructure, roads, and cars that made it possible for people to visit national parks. This created an ongoing dichotomy in which people seek the solace of nature through environmentally destructive, noisy, and polluting means. This panel will examine national parks and the wider rural landscape through the lens of the ‘petroscape’, focusing especially on car-oriented infrastructures, recreational tourism, and our over-reliance on oil.
We welcome papers that explore the following themes:
• Transformation from labour to leisure landscapes
• The role of the motorised transport and ‘cheap gas’
• Seeing the rural through the lens of the car
• Our relationship with nature and ‘wilderness’
• The accessibility of the path network
• The impact of honeypot sites on the environment
• Weighing the environmental damage of tourism with social gain
• The social and cultural implications of petroscapes for national park visitors and local communities
By bringing together scholars from a range of disciplines, this panel aims to contribute to the growing field of environmental history and stimulate discussion about the complex relationship between oil, modernity, and rural landscapes.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 20 August, 2024, -Paper short abstract:
Using a set of oil company road maps owned by a US oil field worker, this paper explores how oil and oil infrastructure was made (in)visible in these maps, while simultaneously reinforcing racialized rural landscapes and settler colonial history.
Paper long abstract:
In 1954, Mrs. George Allman gifted some of her husband's belongings to the University of Oklahoma. Within this collection is an assortment of paper products that Allman collected during his work in the Oklahoma and Texas oil fields: hotel brochures, train time tables, World War II gas rations, and multiple road maps of various US states. The road maps - published by a variety of US oil companies - offer a glimpse into the life of an individual oil field worker, as well as how oil companies integrated oil into the United States landscape through road maps available at their respective service stations. This paper explores how oil and oil infrastructure was made (in)visible in these maps, while simultaneously reinforcing racialized rural landscapes and settler colonial history.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines Sinclair’s National Parks advertisements alongside the earlier 1930s “To visit Britain’s landmarks, you can be sure of Shell” campaign in the UK to understand how oil companies promoted travel via petrol automobiles to natural and cultural heritage sites.
Paper long abstract:
In 1955, Sinclair Oil Company launched a special advertising campaign in encourage the public to visit American National Parks. Full page advertisements in major magazines featured amazing US western park destinations like Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Bryce Canyon. In addition, the Sinclair Auto Tour Bureau passed out free maps to help drivers plan their visits to the National Parks. Of course, the public was intended to visit via the family automobile -- and use Sinclair petroleum products to do so.
This paper examines Sinclair’s National Parks advertisements alongside the earlier 1930s “To visit Britain’s landmarks, you can be sure of Shell” campaign in the UK to understand how oil companies promoted travel via petrol automobiles to natural and cultural heritage sites. Deploying landscape painting and photography, these ad campaigns engage in forms of environmental storytelling that promote a vision of cars, roads, and petroleum as nearly invisible conduits to nature. These campaigns were part of a larger toolkit of activities, such as the US Mission 66 ten-year program launched in 1956 to expand National Park infrastructure, that aimed to reorient the natural and cultural heritage sites toward the automobile. Sinclair’s previously understudied National Parks series demonstrates that the twentieth-century petroleum industry moved far beyond promoting physical infrastructures of cars and roads to promoting their products as enablers of natural and cultural heritage.
Paper short abstract:
I will explore the notion of ‘traveler’s freedom’ as represented in late 19th and early 20th-century Finnish travel literature and contemporary newspaper articles on Finnish national parks. The focus of presentation is on the material conditions of transportation to and within the parks.
Paper long abstract:
Put in crude terms, nature tourism is a product of Romantic and American Transcendentalist thought, and in its core lies the idea of ‘freedom’ of wandering. This freedom is characterized by the wanderer’s solitude, his connection to nature and independence from society, and the (ostensible) absence of modern infrastructure. When national parks became a mass tourist destination in the postwar United States, the car-driven society was fascinated with another form of freedom, namely, the false freedom made possible by the use of fossil fuels. Thanks to oil – asphalt and automobiles –, Americans were free to drive to Glacier National Park (Going-to-the-Sun Road) or Rocky Mountain National Park (Trail Ridge Road).
In my presentation, I will first explore the notion of the ‘traveler’s freedom’ as represented in late 19th and early 20th-century Finnish travel literature, and then compare that notion to respective representations in contemporary newspaper articles on Finnish national parks. The focus of the survey is on the material conditions of transportation to and within the parks.
Is the traditional idea of the national park any longer sustainable, in light of today’s visitor numbers, visitors’ continuously changing notions of recreation and activities and the carbon footprints of visitors’ transportation and national park infrastructure maintenance? The Romantic idea of freedom, which manifests in several ways in national park visitors’ expectations and desires, seems to have potentially negative environmental impacts both locally and globally.
Paper short abstract:
In the immediate vicinity of Hungary's capital, Budapest, lie the Danube-Ipoly National Park, where river valleys, mountains and plains meet. In my paper I will examine the environmental damage of tourism and the social and cultural implications of petroscape for visitors and local communities.
Paper long abstract:
In 2020, during the closures caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, a "full" sign was placed at the entrance of a village near Budapest, the capital of Hungary. With no other option during the closures, many capital residents spent their weekends in the protected area around the city, also known as the lungs of Budapest. The Danube-Ipoly National Park covers the area, which was established in 1997 with a desire to preserve the natural beauty of this landscapes from environmental damage. Contrary to this people seek the solace of nature through environmentally destructive, noisy, and polluting means. During the closures the woods became full and the roads and squares of the villages leading to them were crowded with cars.
The Ördögárok Stream, which originates in the above-mentioned village of Nagykovácsi and flows into the Danube at Budapest is an important part of this area. In my researches I examine its role in the local and wider society, the relationship between the stream and the village, the stream and the city. In my paper, I will seek to answer the question of the role of the Ördögárok Stream in the Danube-Ipoly National Park and the Buda Protected Area. How tourism and the motorised approach have affected it, how it has changed and how this has changed the relationship of society to it. To what extent can we talk about a petroscape in relation to this area as a nature reserve in the immediate vicinity of a relatively small country’s relatively populated capital?
Paper short abstract:
Revolution of Transport: Explore how motorized evolution and affordable gas shaped park visits and travel trends historically. discover past influences on accessibility and sustainability
Paper long abstract:
The arrival of affordable automobiles in the early 20th century boosted travel, bringing a new opportunity and access to remote areas and landscapes. Key innovations like Henry Ford's Model T made automobiles more accessible to the public while the construction of large road networks and infrastructure developments gradually eased travel to national parks and rural areas.
The affordability of gasoline which often referred to as "cheap gas," further fastened this transformation. Lower fuel costs not only made long-distance travel affordable but also resulted in growing popularity of road trips and cross-country journeys. As gas prices fluctuated on certain decades, regional and seasonal variations in visiting patterns emerged impacting the tourism preferences of travelers.
This historical analysis highlights the close relationship of the motorized transport and gas prices as well as its evolution. Advancements in transportation technology and infrastructure development have worked with fluctuating gas prices to influence travel decisions. The reaching and accessibility of previously remote areas has resulted in increased visiting, bringing economic benefits to the region and opportunities for cultural exchange.
by doing so, this historical analysis highlights how the evolution of motorized transport along with the affordability of gasoline has historically influenced visiting patterns to national parks and rural landscapes. By exploring this historical context, we get valuable insights into the past and future of travel behavior.