Document Type
Article
Abstract
Ecologists refer to it as 'shifting baselines.' Anthropologists call it 'environmental generational amnesia.' Both refer to the slow change in the ways we respond to and define the environment. As biologists and social scientists have deftly argued, definitions of environmentalism and sustainable resource use are often based on our earliest experiences with nature. We then use these memories as the basis for our understanding of the natural world and its use. Ultimately, this creates a generational approach to issues of conservation, particularly with regards to such contentious issues as water rights and the changing face of the American West. At no place is this changing perspective more apparent than the Glen Canyon dam. "Growing Up With Glen" addresses this change in perspective. Using a combination of personal narrative and cognitive theory, I explore generational responses to Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon dam. Specifically, I examine ways in which writers and thinkers born after the construction of Glen Canyon dam create their own baseline regarding the acceptability of the dam and the ways in which its reservoir does (and does not) represent the natural world. These ontologies provide useful perspective regarding both the emerging school of environmentalism and new thinking regarding water storage in the American West.
Repository Citation
Miles, Kathryn. "Growing Up With Glen." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 6, no. 3, 2006, pp. 1–18. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol6/iss3/13
Included in
Biological and Physical Anthropology Commons, Nature and Society Relations Commons, Water Resource Management Commons