Scales of Governance

Session Submission Type: Alternative Session

Abstract

Scholarship in environmental history has probed the intricacies of public action, exploring policies that govern energy, land, water, and light. These five panelists convened a decade ago to discuss how the development of resources and infrastructure have strengthened governments and redistributed power across the globe. As our individual research programs have evolved, we have each become increasingly attentive to how individual and communal environmental actions have driven and adapted to—and sometimes dismantled—the networks of centralized power and authority we explored in our 2014 “Scales of Governance” session. The intersections among our work continue, and this roundtable capitalizes on these ongoing conversations, inviting the audience to join us in a discussion of how scholarship evolves over time in response to further analysis, new research, community activism, and political change.
We propose a modified roundtable format, in which each participant will open with brief comments that revisit questions about the drivers of environmental action and the scales of effective policy change. The session engages with assumptions about the exceptionalism of national histories, resource development, and regulation, with Sarah Elkind evaluating national water policy, Sara Gregg reflecting on settler-colonial land policies, Sarah Hamilton exploring communal water management, and Sarah Mittlefehldt distilling biofuel histories, with Sara Pritchard moderating the conversation.

Sub Unit

• ASEH Annual Conference

Participants

• Sarah Hamilton, University of Bergen

• Sarah Mittlefehldt, Northern Michigan University

• Sarah Elkind, Emerita

• Sara Gregg, Indiana University

Moderator

• Sara B. Pritchard, Cornell University