The Nature of Home: Taking Root in a Place PDF
Preview The Nature of Home: Taking Root in a Place
the nature of home The Nature of Home taking root in a place Greta Gaard Th e University of Arizona Press / Tucson Th e University of Arizona Press © 2007 Greta Gaard All rights reserved library of congress cataloging-in-publication data Gaard, Greta Claire. Th e nature of home : taking root in a place / Greta Gaard. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. isbn 978-0-8165-2576-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Home—Psychological aspects. 2. Ecofeminism. 3. Social justice. 4. Gaard, Greta Claire. 5. West (U.S.) I. Title. hq503.g22 2007 305.420978—dc22 2007025508 Manufactured in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper containing a minimum of 50 post- consumer waste and processed chlorine free. contents Preface vii Looking for Home 1 year one: history and identity 9 Women/Water 11 Family of Land 25 year two: place and workplace 41 Whatcom Creek 43 Wilderness 52 year three: home/economic 79 Climbing 81 Silver Lake 104 year four: oil and water 131 Explosion 133 Body, Midlife 143 year five: impermanence 155 Food and Shelter 157 Th e Dance 180 epilogue 191 Th e Headwaters 193 Acknowledgments 201 Bibliography 207 Credits 211 Preface Written and revised over a ten-year period from 1997 through 2007, these essays explore the intersections of feminism, ecology, and social jus- tice through the lens of personal experience. At the time that I began this volume, there was no queer feminist environmental writing. I wrote these essays, in part, to fi ll that literary gap. Larger than essay, memoir, journalism, or poetry, creative nonfi ction includes these genres and goes one step further: it allows writers to address topics of importance through the lens of their own life experiences. Creative nonfi ction utilizes research and refl ection, dialogue and narrative and anec- dote, the techniques of fi ction and the tangible details of contemporary life. Neither this nor that, creative nonfi ction is a hybrid genre well suited to writers with hybrid identities, and writers who see culture and nature, social justice and environmental health, as inseparably intertwined. Writing about places that have been or could be home to me, I wanted to explore the ways that humans, like other life on Earth, both shape and are shaped by our environments. But there are no wholly adequate frame- works for this exploration. Traditional Western psychologies describe iden- tity development as a process of separation and individuation, equating maturity with autonomy. To me, these psychologies seem antie cological, implying that a separation of self from environment is not only possi- ble but desirable. Feminist psychologies in this same tradition provide an alternative view, describing women’s identity development as taking place primarily through relationships, and women’s mature self-identity as vii viii preface a self-in-relationship, interdependent but not subsumed by relationship. For the most part, feminists have not explored the power of nonhuman relationships in shaping self-identity. For that perspective, we can turn to ecop sychology. Initially an outgrowth of deep ecology, ecopsychology shares that philosophy’s emphasis on wilderness, and focuses on the shap- ing power of wild places in forming human self-identity. But environments are both wild and cultured, both ecological and economic. Bringing the environmental justice movement’s defi nition of environment as the place where we “live, work, and play” to a feminist ecopsychology of human development, we can begin to ask questions about the shaping power of place in all its dimensions—social, ecological, economic. Th ese essays approach the relationship to place as a primary relation- ship, seldom acknowledged and yet potentially equal in force to any mar- riage, partnership, or family relationship. As a relationship with a mate defi nes a marriage, a relationship with place provides the foundation for our sense of home. And what if place changes, as it does for so many of us in an era of increasing mobility? How do these fl uctuating relationships to place aff ect our human relationships and our self-identity? And how do we reestablish relationships with place so that we can be at home wherever we live? Bioregionalists suggest several strategies that in my mind parallel a pro- cess of courtship and commitment to place, and the essays in this volume attempt each of these strategies separately or in combination. To nourish the process of “inhabiting” the places I have called home, I sought to learn the land (in “Wilderness,” “Climbing,” “Whatcom Creek,” and “Silver Lake”). I paid attention to the cultural and ecological histories of place (in “Family of Land,” “Whatcom Creek,” and “Explosion”). I invested time in getting to know the inhabitants (“Body, Midlife,” and “Silver Lake”), exploring local economics (“Silver Lake” and “Food and Shelter”), and practicing engaged citizenship (“Looking for Home,” “Women/Water,” and “Food and Shelter”). At the same time that I was exploring my relationship to place, employ- ing the strategies I thought would make me feel at home, I overlooked the reciprocity of the process: I too was changing. Th e spaces of wilderness I found most welcoming at 27 were not the same places of wild earth I sought out at age 37. Th e place I had considered to be home as a youth was preface ix less satisfying at midlife. And the places where I had built only temporary relationships had infl uenced me nonetheless, aff ecting what I wanted from my home place, and what I wanted to give in return. To convey these shifts with any accuracy, I chose for this volume a spi- raling narrative that brings together place and perspective in a loose chro- nology. Life develops this way, too, not in a linear progression but as a spi- ral: questions return again and again, each time fi nding diff erent answers. Accordingly, in each essay, place shifts; the essays explore one or more specifi c environments, both social and natural. Time shifts; explorations from the past are mapped onto the present. Identity shifts. Our “authentic self” is no more static than our experience of home. Ultimately, I found a sustainable relationship with place that balanced work, community, and ecological environments. My hope is that these essays may serve as a map for others seeking to do the same.
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