Call for Papers

Civilising Nature: National Parks in Transnational Historical Perspective

Conference at the German Historical Institute, Washington, DC

June 12-14, 2008

Conveners:
Bernhard Gissibl (University of Mannheim, Germany)
Sabine Hoehler (German Historical Institute, Washington, DC)
Patrick Kupper (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)

National parks can be seen as an essentially Western concept of ordering space and the relationship between humans and their environment. Over the last century, they have become a truly global institution. The 2003 UN-List of Protected Areas features nearly 4000 National Parks located all over the world. Ever since the United States started designating large areas to the preservation of natural wonders, the idea of relegating “Nature” to the confines of a “park” and assigning it the status of a national heritage has been transferred to a wide range of political, social, and ecological settings. In the course of their global spread, national parks have served as sites for the preservation of scenic landscapes or threatened species, destinations for outdoor recreation and tourism, venues for scientific research, and locations of spiritual renewal. However, they have also been places of fierce contest about conflicting utilisations and perceptions of land and nature, and their creation was in many cases associated with the removal of indigenous residents. The spread of national parks can thus be construed as a means of “civilising nature”: they became a tool for civilising “wild nature” into a park, and they were regarded as markers of the advanced, “civilised” state of societies that established them to preserve a spiritual space and give their citizens access to “wild nature”.

The conference seeks to analyse the global development of the concept of the National Park between its original Western principle and its localizations and adaptations in differing historical, political, social, and ecological settings. Paper proposals that deal with one or several of the following aspects in a comparative and/or transnational perspective are encouraged:

Concepts, Ideas and Networks:

In analyses of national park policies around the world, reference is often made to an original “Yellowstone model” – usually denoting the large-scale preservation of “wilderness” – that has been transferred to a multitude of political and ecological settings around the world. But national parks were not all intended to preserve “wilderness”, nor was “Yellowstone” or the North American idea of the national park ever as clear-cut as such references suggest. “Yellowstone” and “national park” has meant many different things in different times and places: some have regarded it as a noble, non-utilitarian cause of appreciating nature, some as a game sanctuary, others again referred to Yellowstone to advocate state responsibility for the environment in their own country. It is, therefore, useful to unpack the “Yellowstone model” and this monolithic “national park idea” to reveal the multiple natures and geographies behind it. We are interested in examining areas declared “Nature” and why they were deemed worthy of protection, the basic concepts guiding preservation efforts, and previous human ecologies erased by the establishment of parks; we’d like to explore the transfer and neglect of aspects of North American national parks among nature conservationists abroad, the role assigned to science and scientific conceptualisations of nature, and local conservationist traditions that were incorporated or served as reference points in the declaration of national parks. What kind of persons, networks and institutions were involved in the invention of spatial preservation concepts and its transnational transfer? And which scientific or organisational channels were instrumental in this transfer?

Centres, Peripheries, and the Politics of Time/Space:

While the promoters of National Parks usually were based in cultural, political and economical centres, the areas of protection often lay in peripheral or remote border regions. This pattern can be observed in nation-states and in empires, in liberal democracies and in communist regimes, as well as in international collaborations. European empires created National Parks in their colonies and dominions sometimes long before they did the same at home. International organisations, like the IUCN or the World Wildlife Fund, based their headquarters in Western centres while concentrating their activities on the colonial or developing world respectively. We invite scholars to investigate to what extent the National Park idea was shaped by centre-periphery constellations and justified by evolutionary assumptions about certain spaces and natures as “pristine”, “primeval”, or “backward”. How did these constellations and connections evolve and change over time, and how did the availability of “wilderness” at the national or colonial peripheries shape the perceptions and use of the other landscapes of home? How were local residents affected by the exclusive policy making in faraway centres, and what options did local people have to influence, change or resist these policies in both “Western” and “Non-Western” political contexts?

Nationalism, Internationalism and Globalisation:

The establishment of National Parks was closely linked to notions of progress, nation and civilisation. Therefore, we invite contributions that analyse and historicize the widespread transfer of the national park idea between nationalised natures and naturalised nations. What role do we assign to the rise of nationalism and the nation-state in the making of national parks? Can national parks be linked to the spread of liberal democracy, providing access to “Nature” for all, or must they be related to the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion so crucial to the national and colonial setting in which the first national parks were established? Moreover, we are interested in contributions that situate national parks between nationalism, trans-/internationalism and globalisation. How are national parks related to transnational forces, like the global market economy of the late nineteenth century and associated debates over species extinction in connection with the trade in furs, feathers, hides and ivory? Has the concept of the national park travelled so widely in response to uniform global processes, such as industrialisation and the associated environmental degradation? In that context, we are particularly interested in parks established in non-nationalised territories, such as the oceans or polar regions, and in parks that transcended national borders.

Please send a proposal of no more than 500 words and a brief CV to Bärbel Thomas at B.Thomas@ghi-dc.org. The deadline for submission is January, 10 2008. Participants will be notified by the end of January.

The conference will be held in English and focus on the discussion of precirculated papers of about 5,000 to 6,000 words (due by May 15, 2008). Cost of travel and accommodation will be covered.

Please send inquiries to one of the conveners: Bernhard Gissibl (b.gissibl@uni-mannheim.de), Sabine Hoehler (hoehler@ghi-dc.org), Patrick Kupper (kupper@history.gess.ethz.ch)