The New Western History: An Essay from the Woods (and Rangelands)

SALLY K. FAIRFAX AND LYNN HUNTSINGER The New Western History: An Essay from the Woods (and Rangelands) SKED t? discuss the "New Western History" (nwh) from the .resource management perspective, our immediate thought was that one of the virtues of the New Western History is that historians and literary types feel the need to include folks like us, specialists in natural resource management. Academic barriers being what they are, we seldom get such invitations. We infrequently employ terms like "mimetic" and "trope," and we are confident that we do not have much to contribute to a discussion of either literary criticism or historical method. Although we are clearly a bit off-site, we came to this discussion to reflect upon what the New Western History says about the role of nature and the environment in human history. If not the principle distinguishing feature ofNew Western historians, their explicit engagement in telling a story about the western United States that includes^ the biophysical world, environmental science, management, and nature is certainly what we call in dendrology a "key spotter." Although resource managers are increasingly inclined to view their tasks as biological or technical rather than social, we are not strangers to telling stories about nature. "Resource management" as a profession and research area is comprised traditionally offields like forestry, rangeland management, and wildlife management. Born out ofprogressive era goals of implementing scientific management on the forests and rangelands ofNorth America, professional resource managers are charged with designing and implementing programs to conserve natural resources Arizona Quarterly Volume 53, Number 2, Summer 1997 Copyright © 1997 by Arizona Board of Regents ISSN 0004-1610 192Sally K. Fairfax and Lynn Huntsinger and ecosystems while producing goods and amenities sought by the public. After a brief sortie into interdisciplinarity and self-awareness, our profession appears to be reverting to an earlier phase—"the science knows best" approach to issues and concerned citizens. Our concern with that backsliding shapes our response to the New Western History. The essay proceeds in three sections. In the first, we start with our assigned topic—how the natural world is depicted in the New Western History. As the depiction and use of nature has everything to do with the analytic tools brought to bear, method is discussed in the second section, as it focuses on two tools of the New Western History, region and narrative. Discussing region, we are less concerned with the exceptionalism issue that seems to bother the New Western historians, and are more concerned with whether the West, as an analytic focus, is a good place to explore the issues of human diversity, human interaction with nature, and kindred recurring themes that seem ofcentral concern to New Western History authors. As a preliminary matter, we think not. Narrative is probably the resource manager's least respected or acknowledged means of dealing with information. Yet we use it all the time, frequently without even noting that we are doing so. It is in dealing with narrative that we believe resource managers have the most to learn. Therefore, our discussion of traditionally nwh narrative is aimed less at commenting on their use of it than at demonstrating our own profession's frequently disguised and misguided reliance on storytelling. Emphasis on narrative as a way of sharing information and engaging people in thoughtful reflection on their place in nature is very closely related to the topic of our third section, an exploration of the concept ofa public history. The New Western History's efforts to lead fellow citizens to use the past in constructing a meaningful—one is tempted to say sustainable—future makes the discussions of region more sensible. In this political (or as we would construct it, managerial) context, the nwh's choice ofregion becomes plausible, and narrative methods emerge as critical to public debate and professional interaction. In its activist mode, the nwh emphasis on diversity also makes more than decorative sense. New Western historians argue, we find, two things: first, that one must have a history to have a place at the table; second, that one must have a past if one is to act responsibly regarding the future. It would simply compound past omissions ifwe...