Amy Ryken walking and meditating on place in Dickman Mill Park, Tacoma, WA
Each week a confluence of planned and unplanned events determines what I study and reflect on. In this blog post I share excerpts from my daily notes for this week to make visible some of the activities I engage in to better understand the Ruston Way waterfront.
Readers of this blog know that I have referenced the writings of scholar William Cronon many times. He is the Frederick Jackson Turner Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This week Cronon visited the University of Puget Sound and gave two public lectures. He also joined me for a walk along the Ruston Way waterfront.
Monday, March 23, 2015: The Importance of Narrative
Today I walked along the Ruston Way waterfront from Northern Fish to the circular turn around near Point Ruston and back. Two things struck me—1) the very high tide covered the beaches and almost covered the pilings at Dickman Mill Park and 2) the rain created active circle patterns on the surface of the water.
Pilings at High Tide, Dickman Mill Park, Tacoma, WA
Today I also read Cronon’s article A Place for Stories: Nature, History, and Narrative. In the article, Cronon examines different historical narratives about the Great Plains—stories of frontier progress, tales of human ingenuity (e.g., the invention of barbed wire fencing) in the face of natural disaster (e.g. the Dust Bowl), and descriptions that highlight the destructive impact of capitalism.
These conflicting narratives about the same place demonstrate that the stories we tell are both important and problematic. They are important because they can “increase our attention to nature and the place of people within it” and are “our chief moral compass in the world. Because we use them to motivate and explain our actions, the stories we tell change the way we act in the world” (p. 1375). They are problematic because they are grounded in different moral visions or values; the same facts and documents can be used to tell very different stories about a place. Cronon suggests that we should authentically engage conflicting narratives and use narrative “consciously, responsibly, self-critically” (p. 1376).
The article made me consider the posts I write for the Environment and Learning blog as a series of stories about place. I recognize the tension that Cronon described in my efforts to both celebrate environmental cleanup efforts (e.g., a story of progress) and acknowledge the massive scale of human impacts on the Ruston Way waterfront and the planet (e.g., a narrative of decline).
My efforts to invite a wide range of community members to share their stories about the Ruston Way waterfront is grounded in using narratives to see and experience place from a range of perspectives. Cronon asks, “What do people care most about in the world they inhabit? How do they use and assign meaning to that world?” (p. 1376). I see a connection between these questions and my ongoing survey question, “Do you have a favorite spot along the Ruston Way waterfront? Where? What makes it a favorite for you?” Although nature cannot tell narratives, as we humans do, nature is not silent. I could see that today in the high tide and falling rain.
Tuesday, March 24, 2015: Visitor Narratives
Today I walked along the Ruston Way waterfront through Chinese Reconciliation Park, Jack Hyde Park, and Dickman Mill Park. In each park I thought about the design of the space and the different meanings that park visitors can ascribe to the same space. For example, the design of Chinese Reconciliation Park invites visitors to engage the narratives of exclusion and expulsion by highlighting how city officials, and a crowd of citizens, forcibly removed Chinese residents and mill workers from Tacoma on November 3, 1885.
Visitor-created Visual Narrative, Chinese Reconciliation Park, Tacoma, W
As I explored Chinese Reconciliation Park, I discovered that a visitor had spray painted a heart and a grenade on a wall. I debated naming the visual narrative “graffiti” or “an unsanctioned/unofficial narrative.” I wondered if the narrative was the work of one visitor or two—one visitor painting the heart and the other painting the grenade. The image of a heart evokes care and love and can been viewed as reinforcing the park design narrative of reconciliation and inclusion. The grenade in relation to the heart may suggest how violence can impact and even end lives, reinforcing the park design message of exclusion through community-sanctioned violence.
People who have shared reflections about Chinese Reconciliation Park with me have described it as “a positive turn from a terrible part of Tacoma’s history,” “peaceful and beautiful,” “providing opportunities for quiet contemplation,” “bridging the past to the present,” “a remote and natural waterfront,” and “having up close viewing spots for the trains that rumble by.” Parks are often designed with specific design intentions—these varied perspectives are a reminder that visitors bring their own highly personalized meanings and narratives to park settings.
Wednesday, March 25: Caretaking Tales
Today I read William Cronon’s essay, Caretaking Tales: Beyond Crisis and Salvation. He writes, “Stories create places by teaching us why any given patch of earth matters to the people who care for it” (p. 88). This essay got me thinking about the difference between crisis narratives, salvation narratives, and caretaking narratives. In land conservation debates we often evoke crisis narratives (e.g., paradise has been lost, we need to act now), in hopes of fostering human actions that will lead to salvation narratives (e.g., paradise has been saved, our efforts saved land from human destruction). In contrast, caretaking narratives are about “the much subtler challenge of caring for the land, day in and day out, with no end in sight” (p. 90). Caretaking narratives highlight humans’ relationships within communities and our ongoing and daily actions to nurture and sustain all kinds of land—wilderness, parks, public green spaces, industrial sites, residential and business communities.
“Droplets” Public Art by Chandler O’Leary, Old Town Dock, Tacoma, WA
Today I walked a mile loop around the University of Puget Sound campus as a part of “Strides of Solidarity,” an event to mark the 50th Anniversary of the march from Selma to Montgomery. Collectively, campus community members walked a total of 54 miles to mirror the 54 miles marched by civil rights activists half a century ago. As I walked the loop around campus I thought about the intersecting civil rights/social justice narratives of progress (e.g., marriage rights equity) and crisis (e.g., racial and income inequality). I find Cronon’s focus on caretaking narratives powerful as I reflect on how day-to-day interactions, within systems of oppression, shape an individual’s sense of belonging. A focus on caretaking brings attention to how our ongoing and daily interactions can create a feeling of inclusion or exclusion.
Today I also walked on Ruston Way from the Old Town Dock to the fence at Point Ruston and back with an art historian. My walking partner shared narratives about colors, perspective, and framing views of the landscape, as well as deep family connections to Fox Island and Commencement Bay.
Thursday, March 26: Reading the Signs
Today I walked along the Ruston Way waterfront from Katie Downs Tavern to the Point Ruston development and back with a biologist. My walking partner brought binoculars for both of us and shared narratives of bird migration, green corridors in cities, and the environmental justice implications of concentrating transport and chemical hazards unevenly throughout Tacoma.
Marker at the Base of Flag Pole, Old Town Dock, Tacoma, WA
Today I also attended William Cronon’s lecture, The Portage: Time, Memory, and Storytelling in the Making of an American Place. Cronon used historical markers at a road turn off in Portage, Wisconsin as a starting place to trace the human and natural history of one local place and connected those many stories to our ideas about nature. He noted that monuments are one kind of sign in the landscape that tell us there are “things worth remembering here.” He emphasized that it is “worth meditating on any place you care about or seek to care about” and that “reading the signs is a never ending challenge.” Cronon’s talk supported me to think about how history, even one as thoughtful and detailed as the narrative about Portage, tells a limited number of stories in relation the many humans (and other species) that live in a place. Hearing and sharing stories of place—as I am doing as I walk on the waterfront with community members and write this blog—is important because history, lives, and the meaning of place are made visible in our narratives.
Friday, March 27: The Paradox of Nature
Today I took a bus tour of the Port of Tacoma. The tour guide shared narratives about the “deep water international port in your backyard.” The stories included the port as a driver of economic development, the challenges of environmental clean up (“dirty dirt and soil testing”), and the early 1900’s consensus building to convince rural and urban Pierce County voters to approve a ballot measure to establish the port.
Break Bulk Cargo, Port of Tacoma
Today I also attended William Cronon’s lecture, Saving Nature in Time: The Environmental Past and the Human Future. Cronon outlined 14 theses of a sustainable humane environmental politic. He thoughtfully engaged the genuine paradox of nature—nature is at once defined as 1) everything and 2) everything except humans. The lecture supported me to think about the importance of developing the reflective habit of consistently asking about the consequences of our lives: “Do we stand inside or outside the moral circle of nature?” and “What kinds of marks do we wish to leave?” Cronon emphasized that we each have a partial view of nature, so we need to engage in genuine dialogue across divergent viewpoints about land use. We must ask ourselves: What are my unexamined assumptions? and Where do we share values? As we consider these questions we engage both “tragic and rich fertile choices” about how we choose to use nature and live together in community.
After the lecture Cronon joined me for a walk along the Ruston Way waterfront and the Point Ruston mixed use development, rich sites for considering the paradox of nature. He shared narratives of using documents to understand place, using visual images and artifacts as educational signs in the environment, and interdisciplinary learning and teaching about place. He generously recommended many resources to support my ongoing inquiry. His critical and caring perspective, and his commitment to engaged conversation and building consensus, inspired me to view my inquiry as a life-long collaborative exploration of the paradox of nature.
For more information about this research project read the Project Overview.
To receive regular updates about this project subscribe below.
Resources
Cronon, W. (March 1992). A place for stories: Nature, history and narrative. The Journal of American History, 78 (4), 1347-1376.
Cronon, W. (2002). Caretaking tales: Beyond crisis and salvation. In The story handbook: Language and storytelling for land conservationists. (pp. 87-93). San Francisco, CA: The Trust for Public Land.
Subscribe to receive updates via email
- Navigating Nature, Culture and Education in Contemporary Botanic Gardens - June 9, 2018
- Vashon Island Perspective - March 18, 2018
- Teaching and Learning in Nearby Nature - March 12, 2017
