Analyze

In our group we had Dr. Jessica Sewell come speak to us a little while ago about her book Women and the Everyday City and we landed on the topic of “imaginaries of space” for a long time. And the visual politics of space- so how do we notice things? What do we notice? What seems out of place or in place. Thinking about how imaginaries make certain presences completely invisible (thinking here about gendered labor, black labor, and more). And how powerful imaginaries are, how they intersect with our construction of language. But also how resistance can work with these imaginaries.. thinking about women’s sort of take over of dept stores during the suffrage movement as an extension of their private space, a space for organizing. This is long winded way of trying to think through COVID-19 national models in the context of national imaginaries. What has been puzzling me is so many Americans’ response to the Swedish model of governing in Covid and how imaginaries of Sweden have been warped in such a way that there is a complete erasure of how xenophobic policies have gained traction in Sweden in recent years.  

Department of Interior agencies that manage federal lands (BLM, USFS, NPS) have educational programs for school students and visitors to public lands presenting relatively manicured histories of the places from both natural (biological, geological) and cultural history points of view. These forms of education do not necessarily encourage a reflective capacity for examining land use. In some instances, the multi-use aspect of these areas is treated as a taken-for-granted characteristic of the spaces while at other times multiple-use is somewhat obscured or omitted in favor of highlighting spaces as natural and carrying value in their own right as ecosystems/as places to visit specifically for the enjoyment of natural spaces.

In general there seems that the conflicts surrounding public lands themselves are rarely the focus or topic of educational programs. Furthermore, the historical and political conditions that contribute to such conflict or that create challenges for management, though recognized by some individuals within agencies, do not appear to be incorporated explicitly into educational programs.

Some questions that remain and require further ethnographic exploration are who else is educating people (education broadly conceived) about the areas that fall into the category of federal public lands? For instance, many local residents who are members of the LDS church hold negative attitudes toward the federal government but highly value these spaces and regularly camp, fish, hike, bike, and hunt on public lands. Who/what informs their knowledge and relation to these spaces? What education about these spaces and about the environment occurs through the LDS church?

None so far. But its future could be much like Weldon Spring's. DOE educators providing AEC-driven education. 

One interesting example of land use education that I found is the Whitney Plantation Museum in Wallace, LA--about an hour north of New Orleans proper and right on the banks of the Mississippi River. The museum is, according to its website, "the only plantation museum in Louisiana with an exclusive focus on the lives of enslaved people." The 2,000 acre property was once a sugarcane plantation that operated from 1752 until well into the 19th century, with over 350 enslaved persons working on it during this period. 

The museum was founded in 2014 by John Cummings, who has spent more than $8 million of his own fortune on this long-term project, and worked on it for nearly 15 years.[ The director of research is Ibrahima Seck, a Senegalese scholar who has done much work on the history of slavery. These two seem to be the primary organizers of education in the musuem which focuses on how land in the Lower Mississippi was organized towards the cultivation of Sugar. 

Right off the bat, it is interesting that this museum is completely financed by a private citizen. I've looked up other plantation museums in the region and for the most part they see to all be privately run. Also, contrast the focus on slavery at Whitney to the Oak Alley plantation museum's celebration of a family legacy of sugar planters: "Hold fast to that which is good...."