Grön humaniora

Vad, när, varför och varthän?

Abstract

Better knowledge of the emergence and growth of the environmental humanities is important for the future direction and vitality of the field. In this article I argue, against a backdrop of a so far not so coherent historiography of the field, that it is possible to discern two complementary perspectives, one emphasizing internal factors within the humanities, the other emphasizing external factors. In the former I stress theoretical and normative features of recent tendencies in humanities research such as posthumanities, new materialism, postcolonial studies, feminist studies, justice, ecoracism, and several others including strong subdisciplinary contributions from e.g. environmental history, archaeology, eco-criticism, environmental anthropology. Eclecticism and the collective organization of a range of humanities approaches under the umbrella of the green humanities I read as an “evolutionary” extension and transformation of previous approaches from the environmental and social sciences to become useful for policy and practice on environment and climate. In the latter perspective I insist rather on the “symptomatic” nature of the environmental humanities. The argument here is that during the last decade there has been a transformation to a new research policy regime giving more space to responsibility, risk, and complexity, thus inviting care for global stewardship and environmental and resource management and climate. This is a global tendency, it is felt in Sweden as well and it provides a general stimulus for integrative, challenge oriented approaches across all science fields and this also includes the humanities. These two perspectives mutually reinforce each other and together help explain the rapid and forceful emergence of a green humanities agenda, which albeit requested from policy circles for a long time did not appear until the last decade. The emerging and solidifying field has bright opportunities although its dramatic eclecticism and bridge-building across theoretical and normative divides may over time require care and collaboration to secure prosperity, performance and usefulness to policy.