At the Edges: Sub-biomes as Frameworks for Environmental Histories

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Abstract

How can historians study in-between ecologies? Since the nineteenth century, western scientists have tried to categorize global ecologies into broad biomes like tropical, arid, polar and temperate. Alas, nature is not so neat, as historians well know. There are forests which are too warm to be temperate but too dry and cool to be tropical; frigid coasts with too many trees to be arctic; Southern Ocean islands too warm to be Antarctic. These spaces are found in distinct bands across the world, and have often been assigned a ‘sub-‘ qualifier by ecologists: the subpolar (both arctic and Antarctic) and the subtropical.
Historians have been as ambivalent as scientists about these sub-zones, even while recognizing that their peculiar ecologies produce unique and important histories. Subpolar and subtropical zones have often been key sites of resource extraction and colonization. Many of us in ASEH call these places home. Yet few historians explicitly work within ‘sub-‘ biomes, leading to a lack of scholarship or discussion on how and why historians should or could understand ‘sub-‘environmental histories.
To address this, our roundtable gathers subpolar and subtropical historians to consider three sets of questions. First, why do some historians embrace ‘sub-‘ zones as an organizing principle? Is this ecological distinction useful to historians? Second, what is unique about these ‘sub-‘zones and their human/animal histories? Were these ecological distinctions recognized by and important to our historical subjects? Third, what is the historical relationship between ‘sub-‘ environmental zones and adjacent biomes? Can we write of the subarctic without the arctic, the tropical without the subtropical? Coming from different corners of the world and different time periods, our roundtable offers a chance to talk through an overlooked sub-field of environmental history.

Sub Unit

• ASEH Annual Conference

Chairs

• Urmi Willoughby, Pitzer College

• Christopher Parsons, Northeastern University

• Katherine Sinclair, Rutgers University - New Brunswick

• Katie Holmes, Harvard University/La Trobe University

Moderator

• Ruth Morgan, Australian National University

Presenters

• Jack Bouchard, Rutgers University - New Brunswick

• Elaine LaFay, Rutgers University