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Tucson Mountain Park
Tucson, Arizona
February 16-19, 2001
Table of Contents:
Purpose and Format of Confluence
In order to raise and discuss critical issues and new directions in
environment history, "Confluence: An Ante-Conference for Environmental
History" will convene near Tucson, Arizona, a little more than five weeks
before ("ante") the Durham meeting of
the ASEH and the Forest History Society in late March.
Unpropitiously, the corporate world and its clones in university
administration have appropriated the word "retreat" to describe many of
their gatherings. Confluence is a retreat in the pre-corporate,
quasi-ecclesiastical sense of the word. On retreat, participants will
observe two rules: be thoughtful, engage in conversation.
"Confluence" will provide space for discussions of categories,
methodologies, and new directions in environmental history. This is
intended as a "quick and dirty" meeting. The following will be
conspicuous by their absence:
Call for papers -- sessions with prepared papers -- job market -- book
exhibit -- fancy hotel -- banquet -- career talk in public spaces --
status hierarchies (disclosure of degree or employment status is strongly
discouraged) -- disciplinary chauvinism
Registration and fees: See the introduction to logistics, below.
1. Proposed Discussion Topics
Many of the
following discussion topics have been proposed by the organizers, Mark
Hineline and Rachel Shaw. We welcome and encourage additional topics and
questions consistent with the intent of the retreat. Please contact us
with yours.
Each topic is followed by a link to a list of readings
that pertain to the topic. Whether you can attend or not, you are
encouraged to suggest books, papers, articles, and essays that enrich the
discussion of topic questions.
o Creating and defending interdisciplinary space
Stories of success and disillusionment in
attempts to do interdisciplinary work. What is interdisciplinary work? Are
the constraints on interdisciplinarity real and felt, or imaginary? What
initiatives might we take to encourage interdisciplinarity and to defend
work that crosses boundaries? Readings
o Environmental history
and the sciences
Do you count one or more scientists as "among
your best friends"? How does one walk into a laboratory and say, "Hello,
my name is Mark Hineline. What do you do here?" How does one get invited
to participate in field research? How much science should one know to do
good environmental history, and how does one learn? Is too much scientific
knowledge bad for a historian?Readings
o Environmental history and the
broader field of history
Do environmental historians write
adequately for other historians? Could we do better? Do historians read
environmental history? How can we ensure that environmental history
survives the diffusion through narrow doors and twisty passages that connect
academic history to lay readers of all ages?Readings
o Environmental
history and historical geography
Are environmental historians
reinventing the wheel? Where do environmental history and historical
geography overlap? What are the differences between these two
disciplines?Readings
o Environmental history and "environmental
studies"
What, if anything, is "environmental studies?" Have
environmental historians adequately pursued avenues for exploring critical
engagement?Readings
o Environmental history and science
studies
Should environmental historians endeavor to increase their
"epistemological correctness"? Does social constructivism in science
studies erode the foundation of environmental history, or does it open up
new directions for research and reflection?Readings
o Environmental
epistemologies
Is science the "voice of nature?" What other voices
should environmental historians hear? Or is nature mute? `Readings
o
Ecoscapes
What is nature, and how shall we negotiate the
constructedness of this category? Is ours a dualistic world, a pluralist
one, or do we live in the realm of monads? If this metaphysical question
cannot be answered, should we nevertheless explore the question and the
consequences of our ontologies? How might we think about the universe and
our local place? Readings
o Field work as a component of historical
research
What is the value of seeing, smelling, touching, tasting,
and hearing outside the archive? What, if any, are the risks? And how
should we deal with the antiquarian taboo in academic history? What does
engagement with the materiality of the past get us? Should we be
embarrassed or ashamed to spend a night in Chaco Canyon, to gaze at the
moon, to attempt to reconstruct the experience of pre-modernity? Readings
o Teaching in the field
Should environmental historians insist
that our students engage their senses as well as their minds? What are
some strategies for employing an experiential approach? Readings
o
Collaborative methodologies
How do we form alliances across
disciplinary boundaries? How do we ensure that all parties benefit from
the arrangement? What structures exist -- or need to be created -- to
reward and promote such collaboration? Readings
o Geographic
bibliometrics
Insofar as bibliometrics -- the study of flows in
scientific knowledge -- can be useful for an understanding of
environmental knowledge, does it not make sense to explore the
geographical component of such analysis? Readings
o Activism and academic
work
Is it possible to be an academic historian and an activist?
How? Readings
o What do we take to Durham?
2. Field components
An important aspect of Confluence will be structured and unstructured
time in the field. The organizers intend to develop a formal field
excursion (on foot), a "sound walk," and a night walk. The foot log for
the field excursion will be found here.
3. Environmental Lives
Confluence is a conversation. The topics
and questions above focus primarily on how we conceive of or conduct
ourselves as scholars and teachers. But we are also individuals who have
entered and experience the field of environmental history through portals
of life experience that are usually revealing and always of interest.
Steve Holmes has kindly provided a forum
for pre-meeting expressions of the intersections between the personal and
the professional.
4. Logistics
The "Confluence" organizers
are scholars, not administrators. One of us (Mark Hineline) learned his
organizing skills in the halcyon days of the late 1960s and early 1970s,
and is confessedly nostalgic for the spontaneity and no-frills approach to
meetings from that time in his past. The other (Rachel Shaw) has NOLS
training and brings a slightly different period/ethos of organizing to the
meeting. The logistics for "Confluence" fit these patterns. It is our
hope, as organizers, not to handle money (checks, cash, or credit) over
the course of the meeting, except on occasions when 'the hat is passed' to
accomplish some specific end, such as purchasing marshmellows for roasting
over the fire. In addition, neither of the organizers currently holds a
secure tenured or tenure-track position; we are not awash in time or
privilege and have classes to teach, research to conduct, work to publish,
fieldwork to accomplish, juniper-pinyon pine ecoscapes to see and smell,
and many miles to go before we sleep. We ask that all who attend
Confluence make every attempt to make their own reservations and travel
arrangements, and to provide whatever amenities they need in order to feel
comfortable.
Such preparations as we have made, as well as a wealth of information
about how to survive three to four days in Tucson, can be found here.
Meeting site: The base camp for Confluence will be the Gilbert Ray
group campsite in Tucson Mountain Park in Arizona. Click here for
location map and directions. The site will accomodate about 20 tents, but
automobiles must be parked away from the immediate site. We will refer to
these parking arrangements as "auto-valet parking." Additional tent and
RV sites will be found in the regular campground. Gilbert Ray does not
accept reservations. All sites are first come first served. As the
organizers are not expecting a mass turn-out, these arrangements should
be sufficient. Below are some suggestions for what to bring with you.
If it rains: We will have a big kitchen fly or two plus a
bottomless well of empathy. Winter rains are usually gentle, not
torrential. Californians will still insist on calling one of these gentle
rains a "storm." Ignore them.
What to wear: Confluence will convene a full two months earlier in
the year that did the 1999 ASEH meeting in Tucson. Do not expect the same
fine weather. Daytime temperatures are usually in the 60s, which will
feel warm in the sun, decidedly cool if there is wind. Overnight lows can
drop into the upper 30s or low 40s. Rain is possible. Layering -- shirts,
sweaters, jackets, etc. -- is the way to go. Be sure to bring sturdy
boots; the desert floor is often littered with cholla stems. Your boots
will not protect you completely, but will give a cushion of time for
pulling cholla spines out of the soles with pliers should you
inadvertantly step on one. A hat is almost a necessity.
The Arizona upland of the Sonoran Desert is not wilderness. The Tohono
O'odham have been living here for many centuries, most of that without
modern conveniences.
Camping and other gear: Portable seats of some kind -- such as
those produced by Thermopad -- are a good idea for long conversations
sitting on the ground. A generic list of camping gear can be found here.
Be sure to bring a water bottle, or buy water. You can refill the bottle
at the camp site.
If your camping days are behind you, or ahead of you: Here is a
list of motelsin the area, cadged from a recent meeting of
herpetologists at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.
Name tags: "Name tags? At the anarchists' convention?"
Meals, coffee service: No coffee service. Researchers at Johns
Hopkins University have published a study which shows that adults can go
for surprisingly long periods of time without access to a Starbucks.
Unsurprisingly, the study was conducted on 100 male subjects; women
should draw conclusions from the study as they see fit. You will be
responsible for bringing and preparing your own meals and legal
stimulants. In addition, there are plenty of places to eat within a few
miles of the meeting site. The organizers hope, but cannot promise, to
prepare one group meal from foodstuffs gathered from desert plants:
mesquite flour, prickly pear pads, etc., plus corn, beans, and
squash.
Warning: We will be meeting in the Sonoran desert. It is no more
likely that you will be bitten by a rattlesnake or stung by a scorpion
here than it is that you might be mugged at a city conference. Probably
less likely (one of the organizers has been held at gunpoint while
attending the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, but
has yet to see a scorpion in the wild). But it is possible. We will have
a first aid kit and a supply of ice on site, but please do take a moment
to check on the emergency/out of state provisions of your health plan
just in case we need to rush you to the hospital.
Please note: plans for "Confluence" are presently inchoate, and will
remain partially so until the conference concludes.
6. "What if I cannot attend?"
If you cannot
attend Confluence, there are still a variety of contributions you can
make. We welcome suggestions for discussion topics, readings, and
contributed environmental lives from participants and nonparticipants
alike. You are also encouraged to participate online through Steve Holmes'
forum
on environmental lives. In addition, the organizers will prepare a detailed
summary of discussions, which will be available on this website after the
retreat. Also, when you meet colleagues in Durham, ask them: were you at
Confluence?
7. How to contact the organizers
Mark Hineline
Department of History
UC San Diego
La Jolla, CA
or
Rachel Shaw
Department of History
University of San Diego
San Diego, CA
Comments and suggestions can be, but need not be, constructive.