ESEH 2019: Boundaries in/of Environmental History

Facilitators:
Andrea Gaynor, The University of Western Australia
Cordula Scherer, Trinity College Dublin
Sverker Sörlin, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Margaret Cook, University of Queensland

Session abstract:
This forum will provide an opportunity for sharing experiences of doing environmental history beyond the boundaries of academia, and reflecting on the nature and utility of those boundaries for environmental historians. While most, if not all, environmental histories seek to engage a wider audience, some exercises in environmental history-making are more deliberately public-facing and engaged than others. Sometimes we also bring our expertise or insights as environmental historians to membership of external committees, or to environmental activism. Several countries now have formal mechanisms for assessing academic impact and engagement, yet doubts over the motivations and validity of these exercises remain. There is, however, widespread agreement that increasing social injustice and ecological devastation have lent a new urgency to our work as environmental historians. This panel will begin with a series of short commentaries from five scholars who have taken environmental history beyond the boundaries of academia, followed by an ‘open microphone’ enabling others to share their experiences. We will ask: What are the risks and opportunities of environmental history beyond the boundaries of academia? Who are our key audiences beyond each other? Are there particular scales, audiences, or forms of engagement that are more receptive to environmental historical thinking and messages – or that need it more – than others? Are there trade-offs between activism and academic standing or credibility? And if we look back on environmental history within academia from beyond its boundaries, what are its most urgent and necessary tasks in an age of ecocide? The session will be recorded, and will conclude with a collective summary and agreement on a means of developing and widely circulating discussion outcomes.

Facilitators:
Ute Hasenöhrl, University of Innsbruck
Odinn Melsted, University of Innsbruck
Karena Kalmbach, Eindhoven University of Technology
Patrick Kupper, University of Innsbruck
Timothy Moss, Humboldt University of Berlin
Andrew Watson, University of Saskatchewan
Verena Winiwarter, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU)

Session abstract:
In recent years, historians of energy have increasingly related their work to contemporary discussions about energy transition and formulated “insights from history” or “lessons from the past” for the future decarbonisation of society. While this research has vastly increased our knowledge on past processes, structures, actors, and dynamics of energy production and consumption – and at least attempted to introduce this vital information into public debate –, there has been little systematic discussion on how historians should best engage in these topical debates. How can historians go beyond academia, to inform (or even influence) experts, policymakers, education, and the general public? Is energy history even “useful“ for informing contemporary transitions, and how can it be communicated? Are (energy) historians qualified to formulate practical lessons from the past, and what is the particular added value of historical research compared to, for example, transition studies from the social and natural sciences? And, last but not least, does energy history need to be useful at all – or do we risk reducing our research agendas by focusing primarily on what appears to be relevant or desirable today?
In this open discussion forum, historians of energy and practitioners from the field are invited to scrutinize the relevance of energy history in times of transition. Renowned historians of energy and the environment will give short statements, sharing and critically evaluating their experiences in relating their research to contemporary challenges, working inter- and transdisciplinary, as well as in policy informing and science to public activities. The forum will also be confronted with statements from recorded interviews with practitioners from energy politics, utilities and citizens’ initiatives. In doing so, this session aims to explore both the potentials and boundaries of energy history in going beyond historiography and engaging with other disciplines, stakeholders and the general public. All ESEH delegates interested in this debate – as well as local stakeholders from Tallinn – are invited to join and contribute to the discussion.

Facilitators:
Patrick Kupper, University of Innsbruck
Anna-Katharina Wöbse, University of Giessen

Abstract:
We like to use this session to trigger a discussion on the role of environmental historians in (re-)writing the history of Europe. What new perspectives on European history can and should environmental historians contribute? What has our field to offer and what are the opportunities and prospects as well as the difficulties and pitfalls? How can we write truly European environmental histories that leave behind national histories? And how can we overcome the historiographical boundaries in Europe and go beyond collecting and comparing national cases? 
We believe that environmental history is well positioned to rise to the challenge of becoming European. Its community and research are highly internationalized and its subjects of study are transnational “by nature”. Surprisingly and disappointingly, however, the environmental history literature on Europe is most limited, which points to the fact that so fare environmental historians have rarely framed their research and publications as European. Nearly no scholar has explored the historical aspects of Europe’s materiality and spatiality and the many ways people interacted with the continent’s physical features and attributions and vice versa. Neither do European moments of contact and/or collaboration across borders and regions figure prominently in the environmental history scholarship.
In our session we will invite everybody to share his or her experiences, expectations and concerns. At the beginning we will provide a short plenary presentation of a recently started handbook project on the history of European environmental protection, which we are editing and which is part of a new handbook series “Contemporary European History” published by de Gruyter. This will be followed by a World-Café. Contributors to the handbook will be present and host several tables, where the participants will debate, while moving from table to table, various challenges of writing environmental history on the European scale. The group discussions will be recorded in the form of European maps, which will be used in the end to wrap up the session in the plenary.  

Facilitators:
Tatyana Bakhmetyeva, University of Rochester
Stewart Weaver, University of Rochester

This interactive workshop/roundtable explores innovative approaches to teaching and conducting research in environmental history and global environmental justice, approaches that many have proposed as potential answers to the growing pressure on academia to make research more relevant, inclusive, and responsive to contemporary problems. The workshop raises questions that invite the audience to interrogate the traditional academic boundaries between researchers and their subjects, as well as teachers and students. Among these questions are: who has the right to conduct and own research as the traditional boundaries of scholarship of discovery are expanding to include scholarship of application and scholarship of pedagogy? What is community-based participatory research? How can it be applied to environmental history, and what value is there, if any, in using this approach to study and teach environmental history and global environmental justice?

Facilitator:
Sandra Swart, Stellenbosch University

This is a crash course in "life hacking" for the academic historian who is trying to survive in global warming's equivalent at the university: the rising waters of tenure insecurity, the increasing heat on publishing, and the freak storms of austerity measures in the corporate academe.
The workshop is intended for a small, interactive group and will include:
1. How to think in ink - publishing made more efficient.
2. How to manage (and protect!) your "writing time".
3. How to manage toxic interference.
The workshop is intended to offer one of the most useful hours at the conference because it focuses on the thing historians care about most - "time". Only this time it is *your* time.