Environmental Theory is listed on the course catalogue as an “advanced exploration of major theoretical assumptions underlying environmental studies, including the nature of environment, environmental knowledge (including role of sciences and humanities), and environmental problems and solutions. Intensive reading and writing, class discussions, and project-based application of theory to contemporary topics.” Based off of the past six weeks, that course description has proved to be pretty accurate. This page will act as a portfolio of sorts — a way to compile my experience of the class by linking to various posts that I have completed throughout the class.
Looking back, our class was split into four sections: getting situated, an intensive exploration into four realms of theory, praxis projects, and finally our own environmental theories.
Getting Situated
Our first week in Environmental Theory we talked about what theory is, which posed a problem in itself, as we all figured out that distinction was not as clear as we thought it might be. Ultimately, we found that theory generally consisted of broad frameworks, while non-theory consisted of more praxis and observation based tangible assumptions. We then brought in our own “big words”: i.e. healthy, pure, clean, freedom, mitigate, the economy, science, green, infrastructure, etc. These words were all very broad frameworks for which we all had general ideas (sometimes differing) but couldn’t pinpoint its exact meaning.
As an attempt to create our own big words and understand the process in which people boil down all these specific terms into one general category, we spent two classes in the computer lab. While there, we used SPSS to analyze an EcoTypes survey administered by the ENVS 220 students last fall and came up with our own big words. Read about my process in my EcoValues and Big Green Words post. After an analysis-heavy week in the lab, we switched gears and focused on Big Words in the news by talking about the Malheur Occupation. First we identified different actors in that controversy by each bringing in two news articles, then we performed a text analysis using Voyant tools. In that post, I analyzed the usage of the words freedom, force, people, and government throughout three different press releases written by Ammon Bundy.
Switching gears again, we spent a week talking about Environmental Justice by doing several readings that focused on essentialism vs. non-essentialism, strategic essentialism, moving past first generation theories of justice, and constructions of “social” by utilizing Actor Network Theory. I realized liking these theories to current events deepened my understanding of them, which I did in my post about Beyonce’s new music video, Formation: Strategic Essentialism?.
To my intellectual excitement, we spent week five deconstructing different notions of place. After reading Massey, Proctor, and Castree’s thoughts on place, we discussed the evolution of place, space, and environment. I did some additional reading related to indigenous communities and place, which turned into a discussion on Place and Translocal Solidarities.
Reality, Knowledge, Ethics, and Politics: An Intensive Exploration
We began by talking about counting beyond two, a concept that many of us returned to in our own environmental theories. Basically, there are monistic and dualistic theories, and many times those theories aren’t taking the full picture into account, which is easier said than done. We then talked about Science, which was really fun for me to think about since it had a lot of overlap with the Science Education class I had been taking simultaneously, as well as many connections to how place influences science. Somewhat continuing on the place thread, the next week I wrote a post about utopian and dystopian senses of place, in which I explored the importance of building networks in both of these situations, bringing Suzanne Moser’s article about being a compassionate leader in times of disaster. Utopias really stuck with me that week, so I wrote another post about situating utopias in a community I visited in New Zealand.
Deep in Douglas County: Praxis Projects
Creating our praxis projects was quite a whirlwind. We got to visit Douglas County on a beautiful sunny weekend and visit important places in Roseburg like the Courthouse and the Museum of Natural and Cultural History, got a bit lost finding the tallest non-redwood tree in the world, and had a few independent adventures of our own. From there however, we were quickly brought back into the academic world and after a day to think, we came up with potential focus and framing questions. I decided to focus my praxis project on Science and Values, grounded in the environmental education program that runs on Alder Creek Community Forest. From there, I grounded my experiences in theory (as paradoxical as that sounds) and came up with a final outcome that I presented at the Festival of Scholars. Read my reflections about that experience here.
Towards Better Big Words
The last two weeks of class were devoted to taking everything we learned this semester and creating our own environmental theory. It all happened so quickly, but after coming up with my initial thoughts about my word, Resilience, we were somehow already giving each other our better big word elevator pitch. After piecing together my elevator pitch, I realized what the holes were in my argument and began to do more research into my topic. I took a closer look at a reading that we did by C.S. Holling about adaptive theory, and after going over the model with Jim, I found it really fascinating. I decided to focus in on social resilience, and so I read Debra Davidson’s article about social resilience and the importance of human agency. One of the components of our big words was an artistic representation, and since my word was about networks, I decided to model it in a group activity. My thought process about creating this activity can be found here. Finally, it was time to ENVS my big word: to figure out its situated context and to make more concrete connections to the four realms we had been studying.