Innovations, Interruptions, and Regenerations of Chestnut Restoration: Reciprocal Restoration as a Framework for Reflexivity in Chestnut Restoration Narratives

• In Event: Reflecting on Reflexivity in Practice: Responsible Innovation, Engagement, and Governance - II

Abstract

The restoration of the American chestnut tree has been framed as an urgent conservation need that can be remedied (perhaps exclusively) through the innovation and subsequent deployment of a genetically engineered chestnut tree. Bucolic narratives rooted in European American -- and Native American -- heritage have underpinned these urgent calls for chestnut restoration or, for some, chestnut resurrection. This paper explores how Reciprocal Restoration (Kimmerer 2011) -- which explores restoration through the lenses of Indigenous communities -- can prompt reflexivity in the narratives surrounding chestnut restoration. Drawing on interviews and participant observation data of community and stakeholder engagement activity surrounding the GE chestnut, this paper demonstrates how restoration narratives are complicated by Indigenous histories and perspectives. Connecting STS and ecological restoration literatures, Reciprocal Restoration creates space for reflexivity around chestnut restoration narratives, allowing for the identification and interruption of existing stories about restoration. Importantly, Reciprocal Restoration also offers a framework for the regeneration of narratives around the restoration of the American chestnut tree that might inform greater reflexivity in innovation.

Authors

• S. Kathleen Barnhill-Dilling, North Carolina State University

• Danielle Costantini, North Carolina State University

• Jason A. Delborne, North Carolina State University