Oral Histories
Hope and Trauma in a Poisoned Land
In 2017 I oversaw a team of students who conducted research into the lasting legacy of uranium contamination in northern Arizona. They interviewed oldtime miners and environmental scientists, water managers and Downwinders. The documentary panels they produced formed part of the Hope and Trauma art exhibit at the Coconino Center for the Arts.
Dislocated: Stories from the Navajo New Lands
In the 1970s the federal government relocated numerous Navajo families from their longtime homes to a faraway tract of ranchland. I oversaw a team of NAU students who went to the Nahata Dziil Chapter to gather stories.
Private Memories of Public Precipitation: Gathering and Assessing Ecological Oral Histories in an Era of Climate Change
I contributed a chapter about how Hopi oral histories of change connect to western climate science to this 2017 anthology, published by Oxford University Press.
Working on Earth
The land has changed. But so have the ways we look at the land–whether we live there, or merely visit. An environmental history of the rangelands of east-central Arizona, based on an oral history with a long-time rancher. It’s a chapter in an anthology published by University of Nevada Press.
Generating Controversy
A story commissioned by National Parks magazine, about the impact of the Navajo Power Plant on the local people living nearby.
What Has Passed and What Remains at Flagstaff’s Pioneer Museum
Flagstaff’s Pioneer Museum hosted a large multimedia exhibit based on our Ecological Oral Histories project. It was a change to see and hear the stories of ranchers, Native farmers, foresters, and other elders who’ve watched the land for decades.
What Has Passed and What Remains: The Book
The edited recollections of northern Arizona elders musing about environmental change. I conducted some of the interviews; others were completed by my students at Northern Arizona University. With photos by Dan Boone and Ryan Belnap.
Ecological Oral Histories
“If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away when they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other’s memory. This is how people care for themselves.”
—Barry Lopez
