Transcending Nation's Nature: New Directions in Transnational Environmental History Roundtable

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Abstract

Today’s most pressing and complex issues go beyond the nation-state: neoliberal capitalism, imperial militarism, settler-colonialism, mass migrations, climate change, and the sixth extinction. Considering that national borders often hide or obscure extra-territorial affairs, this roundtable brings together scholars at varying career points to discuss ways that a new generation is researching and interpreting transnational environmental change. Examples include Indigenous sovereignty, human-animal relationships, air pollution, scientific practices, large landscape conservation, and mineral prospecting. This roundtable will consist of short introductions (5-7 minutes) from each member about their research topics and approaches to allow for conversation between the audience and the panelists. We want to create a dialogue about how to trace social and material systems beyond national borders, and how to build solidarity across them, even though archival holdings, academic institutions, and political activism are often bound by the nation. Revealing environmental connections across nations holds the prospect of repairing uneven and asymmetrical geographies.

Sub Unit

• ASEH Annual Conference

Moderator

• Megan Ann Black, London School of Economics

Presenters

• Kat Boniface, University of California-Riverside

• Kerri Keller Clement, University of Colorado-Boulder

• Conrad Hirano, Northwestern University

• Megan Raby, University of Texas-Austin

• Will Wright, Montana State University