A Methodological Misunderstanding “The analysis is currently very descriptive and is not sufficiently robust.” I received this disappointing feedback after defending my PhD thesis to a panel of examiners in July 2024. I had spent […]
Environmental History Now.
A Platform on Representation, Engagement, and Community
Fluctuating and Fragmented: The History of Regulating the Tidal Salt Marsh near Wood Island in East Boston, Massachusetts
East Boston has the largest amount of made land in the City of Boston. It was originally comprised of five islands connected by acres of fluctuating tidal marshes and flats. The history of the Great Marsh exemplifies centuries of efforts to regulate and control the ambiguous space between land and sea.
Plant Blindness and “Seeing” Vegetal Timescales
What is the concept of “plant blindness”? How can the arts help us to appreciate different timescales and plants’ ways of being?
EHN’s 6th Anniversary Retrospective
To wrap up this year’s anniversary week, the EHN team would like to showcase three essays featuring the life world of plants, animals, and water.
The Role of Natural History Museum Collections in Conservation Science and Communication
In an era marked by a pressing global climate crisis and alarming rates of biodiversity loss, natural history museums stand out as beacons of hope in our collective struggle against environmental degradation.
Turning the Tide: A Queer Look at the Orca
I no longer think that science holds little or no bias. Through entrenching heteronormativity and patriarchy, biases hurt not only the queer community but all communities, because they display a skewed image of reality. But perhaps there is hope in stories such as the Orca’s Song, where an osprey and an orca can be wives.
The Raised Bog Underneath the Farm: Walking into the Past and the Present
Throughout the past 150 years, the Peel underwent drastic changes due to drainage projects, turf-cutting, and animal farming. The new materialities these uses produced can make one almost forget that this used to be a peatland. However, Jeroen, an ornithologist, remarked upon the black waters surrounding grassland areas in the Peel. He argued that in these nutrient poor pools, the peatland was “peeking through” the fabric of the present-day landscape. The multiple pasts of the Peel were still present in the landscape’s materialities.
“Premature Electrification”: Petro-masculine Panic in the EV Era
Among the varied significations circulating around the petroleum-powered car, the commodity has operated as a salient vehicle for expressions and tools of hetero-masculinity.
Hercegovina Kalifornija: Landscape and legacies in the Neretva Valley
The dream of Herzegovina as California has been around for as long as I remember. It first appeared in Yugoslavia as an industrial and entrepreneurial vision of a landscape that could provide us with everything, provided we were sufficiently entrepreneurial. But it was also an image of a place of rest, where little is needed to enjoy life, in which case industrialisation may be unnecessary.
Baguio at 115: Colonial Legacies in Contemporary Cityscapes in the Philippines
The Philippines’ Baguio: from an indigenous pastureland to a colonial hill station and now a bustling tourism center grappling with environmental challenges and Indigenous land disputes on its 115th founding anniversary.