Oral History and the Environment

As uncontrolled development forces crises in the natural world, deeply ingrained human connections with the earth are changing. Oral history's proven ability to explore issues of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality make it a uniquely effective methodology for bringing in new perspectives to our understanding of environments. This book brings together interviews with a global range of activists, farmers, water system managers, victims of catastrophe, tribal trustees, wilderness rangers, reindeer herders, and foresters, among others whose life experience gives them special insights into human-environmental interaction and adaption. Commentary by oral historians examines how these stories can be used to better understand our relationship with the natural world. Oral History and the Environment takes what could seem broad and impersonal forces such as climate change and environmentalismLand crystalizes their meaning through personal stories. It overturns narrow historical frameworks bounded artificially by national borders and instead portrays the issues facing our common ecosystems.