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A Strangely Familiar Forest: Conservation Biopolitics and the Restoration of the American Chestnut

Biermann, Christine
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1397574035

Abstract Details

2014, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Geography.
Once a dominant canopy tree in Appalachian forests, the American chestnut (Castanea dentata) was rendered functionally extinct by an invasive blight fungus (Cryphonectria parasitica) in the early twentieth century. A century after the arrival of the fungus, blight-resistant chestnuts are now being produced through backcross breeding and genetic transformation, with the ultimate aim to restore the species to its former dominance in eastern North America. Despite restoration’s goal of reinvigorating an historic species, nothing about the chestnut’s demise and resurgence can be considered purely natural but is instead socioecological all the way down, forged through power relations among human and nonhuman actors, from fungal pathogens to plant geneticists, and from biotechnology corporations to hypoviruses. This dissertation problematizes and contextualizes ongoing efforts to save the American chestnut from functional extinction, explicitly challenging the view of ecological restoration as a straight-forward process by which ecosystems are returned to an ideal or improved state. Drawing on ethnographic and archival research, I argue that the restoration of the American chestnut is a biopolitical project in which the species is divided, bred, modified, immunized, and made to live through racialized technologies and discourses. Efforts to protect and restore the American chestnut are not—and indeed were never—solely about the conservation or improvement of species and ecosystems but are also about the construction and defense of national natures. This research also finds that what counts as ecological restoration and biodiversity conservation are under radical revision, driven by novel biotechnologies as well as by the widespread recognition that we live in the Anthropocene—a new epoch in which humankind is a dominant earth system force. In identifying key areas of friction within chestnut restoration, I argue that the `messiness’ of the movement is emblematic of the complex and contested process of making nature live in the Anthropocene, a time in which science and conservation are increasingly future-oriented yet remain gripped by concepts, norms, and practices established around a pre-given nature. More broadly, this dissertation demonstrates that biopolitical technologies, strategies, and logics do not come to a grinding halt at the edge of taxonomic divisions but instead are fundamental to the doing of science and the management and conservation of nature.
Becky Mansfield (Advisor)
223 p.
Geography
political ecology; ecological restoration; conservation; biopolitics; American chestnut; Appalachia; de-extinction; Anthropocene

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Biermann, C. (2014). A Strangely Familiar Forest: Conservation Biopolitics and the Restoration of the American Chestnut [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1397574035

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Biermann, Christine. A Strangely Familiar Forest: Conservation Biopolitics and the Restoration of the American Chestnut. 2014. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1397574035.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Biermann, Christine. "A Strangely Familiar Forest: Conservation Biopolitics and the Restoration of the American Chestnut." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1397574035

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1397574035
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© 2014, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.