Session organizers:
Ben Gearey (University College Cork, b.gearey@ucc.ie ), Matt Law (Bath Spa University and L-P: Archaeology, m.law@bathspa.ac.uk ) and Suzi Richer (University of York, suzi.richer@york.ac.uk )
Session abstract:
'At its most basic, environmental humanities work has always challenged the idea that nature or the environment simply “is”. Environmental humanities suggest rather…that human ideas, meanings and values are connected in some important way to the shape that the "environment out there" assumes' (Neimanis et al 2015)
The emerging field of environmental humanities seeks to bridge disciplinary divides between the arts, humanities, and social and natural sciences. It questions the separation between humanity and nature, and draws from Western, Eastern and indigenous ways of knowing and experiencing the environment to address environmental issues such as climate change, sustainability and conservation.
Many of these concerns have been (and are being) explored by archaeologists across the world and speak to ongoing theoretical and methodological debates within the discipline. Despite this seemingly apparent crossover, archaeology within the UK has remained largely independent from the environmental humanities. Indeed outside of Scandinavia, it could be argued that there has been little formal engagement between archaeologists and research in the environmental humanities.
This session seeks to explore some of the points of intersection between archaeology and the environmental humanities agenda, and to foster collaborations beyond the field of archaeology.
We welcome papers that address the following themes and questions:
Contributor Abstracts:
PALAEOPARASITOLOGY AND HISTORIES OF ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
Matt Law (Bath Spa University/ L – P : Archaeology)
The potential of palaeoecological studies to inform conservation biology has been well explored (e.g. Rick and Lockwood 2013; papers in Lauwerier and Plug 2003). The environmental humanities question the model of conservation that places nature outside of the human, however, and recognises the environment as a social phenomenon, with human-natural relations occurring on a spectrum. Environmental justice argues that, in separating humans from nature, other forms of conservation have been blind to human issues of class, race and gender, and have overlooked nuances of human-natural relations.
This paper seeks to establish palaeoparasitology as a science that has the potential to provide time depth to arguments of environmental justice. Parasites demonstrate that the barrier between human bodies and nature are permeable or perhaps even illusive. Infections may be acquired through diet and/or particular environmental conditions, and their evidence (especially the ova of parasitic worms) have a long history of study from archaeological contexts. Evidence from these studies is reviewed to identify and explore historical inequalities and to consider what this might mean for the environmental humanities’ approach to environmental justice.
TOWARDS AN ECOCRITICAL PALAEOECOLOGY
Ben Gearey (University College Cork, Ireland)and Suzi Richer (Archaeology and Environment, University of York)
“Ecocriticism explores the ways in which we imagine and portray the relationship between humans and the environment in all areas of cultural production, from Wordsworth ...to Google Earth.” (Garrard 2012, frontispiece)
The session seeks to explore how archaeology can contribute to the field of the environmental humanities. Taking archaeology in its broadest definition to include palaeoecology, we aim to sketch the outlines of an ‘ecocritical palaeoecology’. Ecocritical studies focus on the relationship between the cultural origins of and responses to, current global ecological and environmental problems and crises. In its reading of texts, ecocriticism takes an earth-centred approach to literary studies. In this paper we consider the potential role of palaeoecology within ecocritical thought, in particular how an ecocritical approach to the practice of palaeoecology itself. Specifically, how are specific ideas and representations of ‘past ecosystems’ and their relationship to human and non-human actors, created and sustained through palaeoecological work and study? What is the relationship of palaeoecology with the politics of debates such as ecosystem degradation and ‘past human impact on the environment’ Heise (2006) has drawn attention to the lack of a comprehensive model for linking contemporary perspectives and developments in ecology to ecocritical work and thought. Thus, one of our aims may be regarded as part of a broader project to form active disciplinary connections between (palaeo) ecology, ecocriticism and the Environmental Humanities.
References
Heise, U.K. 2006. The Hitchhikers Guide to Ecocriticism. Proceedings of the Modern Language Association 121, 2, 503-516.
Garrard, G. 2004. Ecocriticism: An Introduction. London: Routledge.
GOING BEYOND THE SAFARI: THE POTENTIAL ROLE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
Suzi Richer (Archaeology, University of York), Rob Marchant (Environment, University of York), Daryl Stump (Archaeology, University of York), Carol Lang (Archaeology, University of York), Cruz Ferro Vazquez (Archaeology, University of York), Michael Wilson (Arts, English and Drame, Loughborough University) and Jo Dacombe (Freelance Artist, Leicester)
“We no longer live in a natural world – there is virtually no part of the environment that we left unchanged” – NERC, ‘Our Vision’
In contrast to NERC’s vision, a disconnect exists between the perception of people outside of sub-Saharan Africa - of open peopleless savannahs populated with the ‘Big Five Game Animals’ - and the diverse reality. To perceive the environment as separate from the people who live there perpetuates a lack of effective engagement with broader environmental issues and future grand challenges facing the world. The potential ripple effects of environmental change and population growth in Africa will increasingly be felt locally on livelihoods and globally in terms of food security and economic instability. The globally ratified Paris Agreement (COP21) and the UN Sustainable Development Goals demand engagement by an informed civil society if the goals are to be fulfilled: therefore resolving this disconnect is paramount.
The environmental humanities seeks to bridge disciplinary divides and the separation between humanity and nature, it can potentially provide a pivotal role in bringing together disparate data and insights to inform a common counternarrative to what currently exists around a notion of ‘Africa’. This paper explores how we can present and use insights from archaeological and palaeoecological projects in eastern Africa, in a public arena, to begin to challenge these current perceptions. This directly addresses Hutching’s (2014, 214) call ‘to move beyond ecocriticism to ecoaction…actively spreading counternarratives’.
Hutchings, R. 2014. ‘Understanding of and Vision for the Environmental Humanities’, Environmental Humanities 4:213-220
THE ECOSYSTEMS SERVICES APPROACH AND ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES IN THE SOUTH PENNINE UPLANDS
Christine Hopwood-Lewis [BSc (Hons), MA, MCIfA] (Natural England)
The ecosystems service approach can be described as a way of valuing the intangible as well as the tangible aspects of landscape; it allows us to visualise the otherwise invisible and to encourage stewardship of all attributes of a landscape. Rather than using the monetary value ascribed to its food production or development potential, land is seen instead as a potential provider of many services and the owner or tenant as its steward. This approach is of considerable use to the heritage community as the amenity and aesthetic qualities of landscape are often difficult to articulate; in particular the cultural heritage services of ‘sense of place’ and ‘sense of history’ translate the archaeological concept of significance into a language that can be more easily visualised and prioritised alongside other environmental outcomes such as flood risk management or carbon storage. While this approach has sometimes been criticised for taking the ‘joy’ from the experience of interaction with the environment I will argue that it can be a tool to move away from top down management regimes towards partnership working with rural communities. Using the South Pennine character area as an example I will discuss the ways in which the ecosystems services approach allows us to move from archaeological theory into the praxis of environmental humanities with particular reference to peat restoration and conservation and upland archaeology. I will also discuss the emotional connection to heritage experienced by the local people as revealed by research during the Pennine Prospects-led Watershed Landscapes project
CONCEPTUALIZING HUMAN-MOUNTAIN RELATIONS IN THE ANCIENT ANDES
Darryl Wilkinson (McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge)
In the Andes, indigenous terms for mountains (wamani, apu etc.) typically translate to something like “lord”, “king” or “judge”. And colonial narratives about mountains often describe them as sentient beings; in other words as entities who could speak, make prophecies, pay taxes and even be executed for treason. Basically then, they represented a kind of social elite – beings who were no less a part of Andean communities as anyone else. Traditional archaeological approaches to human-environment relations have, as yet, demonstrated a limited capacity to deal with such radically different worlds. At best, Andean mountains are relegated to the realm of religion (often called “mountain worship”) as a way of keeping them separate from “real” aspects of human-environment relations – like water management, mining and agriculture. In this paper, I argue that not only do such approaches fail to understand indigenous accounts of their world, but actually impede our ability to interpret archaeological data correctly. I present archaeological landscape survey data from the Andean cloud forests, relating to Inka efforts to mass-produce coca leaf, as a case-study in this respect. Rather than see such activities as an effort at agricultural intensification, to extract more resources from an asocial environment, I instead suggest that Inka landscape manipulations can only be understood as part of a project for turning mountains into a disciplined and loyal workforce.
ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES: TOWARDS A FIELD ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE ANTHROPOCENE
Christina Vestergaard and Felix Riede (Archaeology, Aarhus University)
The notion of the Anthropocene in which cultural and environmental histories collapse into one another, provides a focal point for the Environmental Humanities. In light of the current discussion regarding the Anthropocene, this paper explores this new geological epoch from an archaeological – and specifically a field-archaeological – point of view. The Anthropocene has been proposed as an epoch in which humans have become the dominating force shaping global geological and ecological dynamics. At present, a lively debate runs as to the very validity and the time of onset of this ‘Age of Humans’. One of the most convincing starting points is the ‘Great Acceleration’ of the gargantuan capitalism-driven rise in fossil fuel extraction and chemical signature of human activity that began around 1950. Curiously, from an archaeological dating perspective, 1950 also marks the year 0 – the present – what follows after is the future. By this token, the product of environmental and contemporary archaeologies could indeed be classified as an ‘Archaeology of the Future’. While some archaeologists already have involved themselves in the debate regarding the onset of the Anthropocene, these contributions have rarely been based on archaeological field-work. This paper presents results of archaeological fieldwork at the former lignite mining site of Søby in central Denmark specifically designed to capture the coupled geological, ecological and cultural entanglements of the Anthropocene. The Søby locale, we argue, presents a local microcosm of a potential global future of unintended consequences, economic overexploitation and humanly induced environmental catastrophe.