1: Environmental Studies
- Page ID
- 305098
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\(\newcommand{\avec}{\mathbf a}\) \(\newcommand{\bvec}{\mathbf b}\) \(\newcommand{\cvec}{\mathbf c}\) \(\newcommand{\dvec}{\mathbf d}\) \(\newcommand{\dtil}{\widetilde{\mathbf d}}\) \(\newcommand{\evec}{\mathbf e}\) \(\newcommand{\fvec}{\mathbf f}\) \(\newcommand{\nvec}{\mathbf n}\) \(\newcommand{\pvec}{\mathbf p}\) \(\newcommand{\qvec}{\mathbf q}\) \(\newcommand{\svec}{\mathbf s}\) \(\newcommand{\tvec}{\mathbf t}\) \(\newcommand{\uvec}{\mathbf u}\) \(\newcommand{\vvec}{\mathbf v}\) \(\newcommand{\wvec}{\mathbf w}\) \(\newcommand{\xvec}{\mathbf x}\) \(\newcommand{\yvec}{\mathbf y}\) \(\newcommand{\zvec}{\mathbf z}\) \(\newcommand{\rvec}{\mathbf r}\) \(\newcommand{\mvec}{\mathbf m}\) \(\newcommand{\zerovec}{\mathbf 0}\) \(\newcommand{\onevec}{\mathbf 1}\) \(\newcommand{\real}{\mathbb R}\) \(\newcommand{\twovec}[2]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\ctwovec}[2]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\threevec}[3]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cthreevec}[3]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\fourvec}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cfourvec}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\fivevec}[5]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \\ #5 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cfivevec}[5]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \\ #5 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\mattwo}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{rr}#1 \amp #2 \\ #3 \amp #4 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\laspan}[1]{\text{Span}\{#1\}}\) \(\newcommand{\bcal}{\cal B}\) \(\newcommand{\ccal}{\cal C}\) \(\newcommand{\scal}{\cal S}\) \(\newcommand{\wcal}{\cal W}\) \(\newcommand{\ecal}{\cal E}\) \(\newcommand{\coords}[2]{\left\{#1\right\}_{#2}}\) \(\newcommand{\gray}[1]{\color{gray}{#1}}\) \(\newcommand{\lgray}[1]{\color{lightgray}{#1}}\) \(\newcommand{\rank}{\operatorname{rank}}\) \(\newcommand{\row}{\text{Row}}\) \(\newcommand{\col}{\text{Col}}\) \(\renewcommand{\row}{\text{Row}}\) \(\newcommand{\nul}{\text{Nul}}\) \(\newcommand{\var}{\text{Var}}\) \(\newcommand{\corr}{\text{corr}}\) \(\newcommand{\len}[1]{\left|#1\right|}\) \(\newcommand{\bbar}{\overline{\bvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\bhat}{\widehat{\bvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\bperp}{\bvec^\perp}\) \(\newcommand{\xhat}{\widehat{\xvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\vhat}{\widehat{\vvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\uhat}{\widehat{\uvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\what}{\widehat{\wvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\Sighat}{\widehat{\Sigma}}\) \(\newcommand{\lt}{<}\) \(\newcommand{\gt}{>}\) \(\newcommand{\amp}{&}\) \(\definecolor{fillinmathshade}{gray}{0.9}\)This chapter will help you accomplish the following:
- Articulate the interdisciplinary nature of environmental studies
- Use key terms in Environmental Studies
- Apply this learning to a world-building activity
The interdisciplinary study of environmental issues that engages with humanities, sciences, and policies.
A central concept of Environmental Studies is asking and researching how we can be informed enough -- scientifically, socially, and politically -- to see the connections among disciplines, to ask meaningful questions of ourselves and others, and to create positive change for the world we inhabit, other species, other humans, and ourselves.
The Importance of Narrative in Environmental Studies
What stories we are told about the world shape us, and this is important in Environmental Studies. Creation myths, for instance, impact how we see the human role in the natural world. Do we see ourselves as separate or part of all? In fact, the ways in which we interpret scientific observations matter. For instance, the “Euro-Christian Edenic narrative” often evokes “problematic narratives of human dominion over animals and plants, naturalized heterosexuality, equations of women with nature, and [perhaps] colonization and whiteness” (Barclay and Tidwell ix). Alternatively, Robin Wall Kimmerer addresses this well in her introduction to Braiding Sweetgrass and in her account of the Sky Woman Falling creation story. Kimmerer invokes the creation story of Sky Woman Falling, which sets up nonhuman creatures as primary occupants of creation, helping Sky Woman by softening her fall to Earth and building land for her to stand on. This creation story, “shared by peoples throughout the Great Lakes,” is “like a compass,” according to Kimmerer, offering “an orientation but not a map” because “the work of living is creating that map for yourself” (Braiding Sweetgrass 7).
Because of that, imagination is important. Kimmerer writes that in her classroom discussion about positive relationships between humans and nonhumans, she realized students “could not even imagine what beneficial relationships between their species and others might look like” and asks, “How can we begin to move toward ecological and cultural sustainability if we cannot even imagine what the path feels like” (Braiding Sweetgrass 6). A narrative that deems humankind as in dominion over all nonhuman species sets up a different relationship to the nonhuman world than does a narrative that sets up a kinship. To talk over this in more depth, we will revisit the Investing in Futures World Building Exercise to talk over how to expand our environmental imagination.
The kinship and material narrative that Kimmerer writes about is echoed in significant environmental humanities texts. Serenella Iovino and Serpil Oppermann write in the introduction to Material Ecocriticism, “The world’s material phenomena are knots in a vast network of agencies, which can be “read” and interpreted as forming narratives, stories. […] All matter, in other words, is a “storied matter” (1-2). Such a material enmeshment requires that we tell the stories of interconnectedness appropriately, and that telling has power to change human relationship with the nonhuman (Iovino and Oppermann 9).