by Adelheid Fischer
Scan the bylines of most science articles, and you’ll find a laundry list of coauthors. But single authors still pen most of the scholarly work in the field of environmental history.
ASU’s Paul Hirt is trying to change that. His own work has covered topics as varied as the history of electric power in the Pacific Northwest, the management of U.S. public forests, and water use and population growth in Greater Phoenix. He routinely relies on the research of ecologists, geologists, economists, cultural geographers and others. Hirt is convinced that cross-disciplinary input can give historians a fuller understanding of the complex interactions between humans and the landscape.
Hirt has attracted a constellation of like minds among universities in the American Southwest. It all began in 2006, when he and his colleague Katherine Morrissey at the University of Arizona arranged an informal institutional exchange. The pair conducted day-long tours of their respective universities for history faculty and graduate students.
Included on the itinerary were programs that, on first glance, had few ties to history. For example, students learned about the work of anthropologists at ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainability. They also met climate researchers at the U of A’s Institute for the Study of Planet Earth. For students studying the landscapes of today’s desert Southwest, the visits were eye-opening.
The exchange was so successful that Morrissey and Hirt began talking about expanding their efforts to include neighboring institutions such as the University of New Mexico and New Mexico State University. Before long, a cadre of scholars from all four institutions descended on Hirt’s getaway in the Chiricahua Mountains for a get-acquainted session.
The group clicked from the start. Discussions quickly led to plans for forming a joint research and education agenda. One of the projects they envisioned was establishing a summer field institute. The program would provide university faculty and researchers from around the country with an intensive, on-the-ground immersion in the ecology, history and cultural geography of the sky islands borderlands region.
The group then agreed to seek funding to embark on a trial run. By May 2007, they had amassed enough grant and departmental monies to launch a weeklong pilot project.
From the outset, the borderlands field group intended to stretch the boundaries of traditional historical research. For starters, they drew participants from a range of academic disciplines.
“What brought us together, in part, is a commitment to a type of scholarship that is collaborative, a type of interdisciplinary openness,” explains Morrissey, an environmental historian.
Their interactions—from developing the itinerary to after-dinner discussions—modeled a new way of working for students.
“The interdisciplinarity that we’re trying to promote requires more collaboration than what students traditionally do in their areas of study,” says Sam Truett, a University of New Mexico historian. “I hope that my students will make this a part of how they see their work.”
Even more unusual was the fact that the borderlands group ventured into the field to conduct their inquiry. “We recognized that one can learn in all sorts of interesting places,” Morrissey says.
The scholars walked former cattle ranges to learn about efforts to restore overgrazed grasslands and endangered species. Retired scientists guided them into sky island forests to introduce their flora and fauna. They walked the desert washes used by Mexican migrants on their perilous border crossings.
“That’s not common,” says ASU geographer Dan Arreola, a participant who studies border towns in Mexico and the United States.
More typically, most of his colleagues in history “just go to a library archive,” Arreola explains. “Their materials are data in repositories of record. That’s how they work. I can appreciate that because I do that as well. But as a cultural geographer, I’ve long been trained—and believe firmly—that you have to go to places and try to understand the themes and issues. It’s necessary to actually interact with the place. Here was a group of historians that actually went outside.”
The field study held unique benefits for geographers as well.
“My students got to listen to environmental historians and ecologists, people who know wildlife and grasslands. Most geography students don’t get this kind of exposure,” Arreola adds.
Field study can serve a far more fundamental purpose, says Marsha Weisiger, a professor at New Mexico State University. “Introducing our students to the landscape in which they live is really profound,” she says.
Field study can ignite the curiosity of students. Studying “in place” is a powerful tool for opening students’ eyes to a world that may have grown dull with familiarity.
Read more about Paul Hirt's work in "Crossing the borders of learning."