Methodological Challenges in Nature-culture and Environmental History Research

This book examines the challenges and possibilities of conducting cultural environmental history research today. Disciplinary commitments certainly influence the questions scholars ask and the ways they seek out answers, but some methodological challenges go beyond the boundaries of any one discipline. The book examines: how to account for the fact that humans are not the only actors in history yet dominate archival records; how to attend to the non-visual senses when traditional sources offer only a two-dimensional, non-sensory version of the past; how to decolonize research in and beyond the archives; and how effectively to use sources and means of communication made available in the digital age.
This book will be a valuable resource for those interested in environmental history and politics, sustainable development and historical geography.

Jocelyn Thorpe is Associate Professor of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at the University of Manitoba, Canada. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on the history and legacies of, as well as challenges to, colonialism in the Canadian context, examining how past discourses and relationships of power influence the present.

Stephanie Rutherford is Associate Professor in the School of the Environment at Trent University, Canada. Her research inhabits the intersections among political ecology, critical animal studies, biopolitics, and historical geography.

L. Anders Sandberg is Professor of Environmental Studies at York University, Canada. His two most recent books are the co-edited Urban Forests, Trees, and Greenspace: A Political Ecology Perspective (Routledge, 2014) and Post-Industrial Urban Greenspace: An Environmental Justice Perspective (Routledge, 2015).