Oral History and the Environment

Stephen M. Sloan is the Director of the Institute for Oral History and Associate Professor of History at Baylor University. Mark Cave is Senior Historian with the Historic New Orleans Collection. Sloan and Cave are the editors of Listening on the Edge: Oral History in the Aftermath of Crisis, winner of the Oral History Association book prize.

Sloan and Cave have assembled an admirably global set of oral histories ranging from taiga to tropics and from oil spills to afforestation projects. This book brings to life perspectives and voices that rarely appear in the written record and reveal an intimately human side of environmental history as experienced by everyday people. Environmental history and oral history make good partners and this book is a shining example of how to realize their combined potential.

• Introduction: Querying Environmental and Human Landscapes by Stephen M. Sloan Chapter 1Grim Humor and Hope: Australian Oral Histories of Drought by Deb AndersonOral histories by Deb Anderson with residents of wheat-belt communities affected by drought in the Mallee, southeast Australia, Sea Lake, Ouyen, Tiega, Victoria 2004-07 Chapter 2A Pelican in Her Piety: Perspectives on Wildlife Rescue in Louisiana Following the Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill by Mark CaveOral histories by Mark Cave with participants in the wildlife rescue operation in Louisiana following the Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill, Baton Rouge, Lacombe, Youngsville, and Arabi, Louisiana, November 2010 to March 2011 Chapter 3Fragmentary Time: Memory and Politics in the Wake of the Torrey Canyon by Timothy Cooper and Anna GreenOral History by Anna Green with environmental activist "Jane Evans" at St. Agnes, Cornwall, United Kingdom June 2012 Chapter 4The Ghosts of Bhopal: Oral History, Environmental Justice, and the Literature of Protest by Suroopa MukherjeeOral histories by Bhopal Survivors' Movement Study with Bhopal activists Hazra Bi, Hamida Bi, Rashida Bi, Abdul Jabbar, and Satinath Sarangi, Bhopal, India, 2007, 2008, and 2012. Chapter 5Floating Reed Islands: Gendered Stories of Resilience during Ecological Disaster in the Mara Region, Tanzania by Jan Bender ShetlerOral histories by Jan Bender Shetler with elderly women of the Mara Region of Tanzania, August-November 2010 Chapter 6Fighting through the Fallout: Maternal and Feminist Resistance and the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster by Heidi HutnerOral histories by Heidi Hutner with Sachiko Sato of Fukushima City, September 21, 2011 and April 23, 2017 Chapter 7More than H2O: Exploring the Biophysical and Social Dimensions of Water by Javier Arce Nazario Oral history by Javier Arce Nazario with Héctor L. Martinez Rivera, water system manager for the Doña Mayo community, Barranquitas, Puerto Rico on February 12, 2015 Chapter 8Environmental Guardians: Learning from Maori Perspectives on Geothermal Fields by Caren FoxOral history by Caren Fox with Aroha Campbell at the Ohaaki Power Station near Reporoa, New Zealand, January 14, 2017 Chapter 9When Little Fish Encounter a Big Dam: Environmental Conflict on the Upper Yangtze by Dai Qing and Kang XueOral history by Kang Xue, retired Beijing People's Radio journalist, with Zhang Boju, secretary-general of Chinese non-governmental environmental protection organization, Friends of Nature, Chongying China, June 2016 Chapter 10The Free Play of Natural Forces: Wild Methods of Oral History in Documenting Wilderness by Debbie LeeOral history by Debbie Lee with Wilderness Ranger Art Seamans, Lewiston, Idaho, April 28, 2013 Chapter 11Culture Keepers: Voices of Renewal in the Eurasian Taiga by Tero MustonenOral histories by Tero Mustonen with Evenk reindeer-herder Vladimir Kolesov, Sakha-Yakutia, Siberia, Russia (2005-2010) and Finnish-Karelian fisherman-farmer Kauko Heiskanen, North Karelia, Finland (2013) as part of the Snowchange Oral History Archive. Chapter 12 Who Speaks for the Trees?: Forestry in the Scottish Highlands by K. Jan OosthoekOral histories collected by Jan Oosthoek with retired foresters of the British Forestry Commission, Stirling and Edinburgh, Scotland, June 1998-August 1999. Epilogue: The Fall and Rise of Oral Testimony in Environmental History by Christopher Sellers