Being human with trees: Unsettling settler epistemologies in northern “New England”
Conference Year
January 2022
Abstract
Eastern white pines have grown through a temporal and physical landscape shaped by the violence of settler colonialism and white supremacy. Settlers have lived and shaped this history, leveraging human-tree relationships in the fabric of revolution, capital, wealth accumulation, industry, conservation, and death that influence today’s political ecology. Through a historical and autoethnographic approach, I (Emily) position myself and case studies of three ancestors in relation to white pines in northern “New England,” drawing from multiple disciplines to gather human, tree, and human-tree perspectives on bodies, relationship, and grief through time.
Primary Faculty Mentor Name
Ingrid Nelson
Secondary Mentor Name
Abigail McGowan
Status
Undergraduate
Student College
College of Arts and Sciences
Program/Major
Geography
Primary Research Category
Arts & Humanities
Secondary Research Category
Social Sciences
Being human with trees: Unsettling settler epistemologies in northern “New England”
Eastern white pines have grown through a temporal and physical landscape shaped by the violence of settler colonialism and white supremacy. Settlers have lived and shaped this history, leveraging human-tree relationships in the fabric of revolution, capital, wealth accumulation, industry, conservation, and death that influence today’s political ecology. Through a historical and autoethnographic approach, I (Emily) position myself and case studies of three ancestors in relation to white pines in northern “New England,” drawing from multiple disciplines to gather human, tree, and human-tree perspectives on bodies, relationship, and grief through time.