Andrea Gaynor – Ellie Fisher

‘Suburban Encounters’: An Interview with Associate Professor Andrea Gaynor

Interview: ellie FisheR

Associate Professor Andrea Gaynor is Director of the Centre for Western Australian History within the School of Humanities at the University of Western Australia. She is, primarily, an environmental historian, and her passion for this developing and contested field is infectious. Her research focuses on explorations of environmental and Australian history, and recent projects include urban environmental history, the history of water and water management, the place of animals in history, the history of fishing, and Western Australian environmental history. She is convenor of the Australian and New Zealand Environmental History Network and Vice-President of the European Society for Environmental History.

Ellie Fisher: How would you describe environmental history to the person on the street who thinks it sounds brilliant but is confused as to what the field actually is and does? Why study environmental history?

Andrea Gaynor: Good question! Environmental historians study the vast range of ways in which human lives have been bound up with nature. This ranges from the history of nature conservation efforts, to the causes of environmental degradation, and responses to both long-term environmental change and crises like ‘natural’ disasters. In an era of climate and biodiversity crises, this historical perspective is absolutely essential to inform our thinking about the causes of the problems and how we should respond to them. As a narrative discipline, environmental history has the power to open up new ways of thinking about and approaching environmental problems.

ER: You’re a polymath, and struggled early on to choose between the Arts and the Sciences. What made you decide that your love of and concern for the environment was best served by studying a Bachelor of Arts?

AG: I knew I wanted to do something to help turn around the environmental destruction that I could see around me. It’s obviously crucial to have scientific knowledge about the problems, but from quite early on I could see that the problems were essentially human ones that were not amenable to solution by science alone. That is, scientific understanding is necessary but not sufficient to address the issues we face; we also need to know how people think and feel about nature, and how societies make decisions about how they will exploit or protect the non-human world. While I was pretty good at science in high school, I really excelled at writing and loved to read, so I decided to enrol in a BA. I then tried a year of arts/law in which I discovered history - the first time I had studied it since junior high school. It was just the right combination of imagination and analysis, and I was hooked! There was no environmental history program major or minor available in any university, but I cobbled together my own program from a mix of history, anthropology, and science and environmental studies between UWA and Murdoch.

ER: Is there a seminal, crystalline moment that cemented your passion for the natural world?

AG: Hmm, it’s hard to say. When I was younger I wasn’t much of a fan of the bush - it was dry, prickly and full of ants. I preferred lawns and swimming pools! But as an older child I experienced more wild places and we moved to a house that had scorpions in the basement, frogs in the pool and bobtails on the front lawn. I found I loved these things (yes, even the scorpions!), and was deeply upset when bobtails were killed on the road outside our house, and when the enormous tuart tree that I could see from my bedroom window was cut down. I think these suburban encounters shaped my emerging environmental consciousness.

ER: Historically and contemporaneously, environmental issues are portrayed as a contest between humanity and the natural world; a war between legitimising the hunt for resources and diminishing the need to preserve environments. Do you think that this narrative will begin to change positively in coming years?

AG: I think that the dominant narrative is already starting to change. The old narrative of ‘man’ vs nature has long been challenged by preservationists, who seek to protect nature - usually by locking it away (except for tourism and recreation). More recently in Australia we have seen a kind of fusion of nature protection and livelihood enhancement in the form of landcare, which in theory at least sees humanity as stewards of the natural world. This movement involved thousands of people across Australia alone from the 1980s, and in many places is still going strong, but needs more historical narrative and analysis, so we can learn from and sustain the movement. More recently still, of course, there have been other initiatives to break down the ‘jobs-&growth’ vs environment story, for example in renewable energy. Perhaps one of the most exciting developments is the increasing willingness of settler peoples to listen to and learn from Indigenous approaches to nature, which are about kinship and collaboration, not competition. ER: What units are available for undergrads to get involved with regarding environmental history? Are there any other opportunities becoming available to dive more deeply into the subject?

AG: The key unit is ‘HIST1901: Environmental History’, which now forms the first unit in a new minor in environmental humanities. The humanities have something unique to give to our understanding of human-environment relations: they explore human thought, feeling, being and action in relation to nature, from historical, philosophical and literary perspectives. In this way, we gain a deep understanding of the human dimensions (the subjectivities, social relationships and cultural practices) inherent in all environmental challenges. For example, the environmental humanities shed light on the question of how people living in the industrialised world carry on as usual when our life-support system is collapsing around us, and work out strategies for operating as if non-human life really mattered. The minor includes an intensive unit with fieldwork on the south coast, which we’re looking forward to running for the first time in 2022. So I would encourage people to check out the new minor, which provides an excellent interdisciplinary grounding in humanities approaches to the environment. Also, with a grounding in HIST1901 it may be possible to pursue environmental topics in other history units, which often allow for a selfdevised research project. And I very much welcome postgraduates interested in studying environmental history!

ER: What are your feelings about the future of our planet? Are you hopeful, depressed, or conflicted?

AG: Definitely conflicted! I am of course hopeful, and grateful for the many grassroots initiatives that I see in which people are experimenting with sustainable ways of living. There are also some encouraging top-down commitments from states and corporations. But frankly it is still insufficient given the scale of the problems we face. We are in a race against time, and at present we are not winning. But as a historian, I also know that sometimes change can be swift and come from unexpected quarters - look at what the pandemic did to Western Australian politics! So I keep hoping, and telling the kinds of historical stories I think the present needs.

If you’d like to hear more of Andrea’s erudite thoughts on everything from environmental destruction and regeneration to sunsets, gardening adventures, and the meaning of life, head to her Twitter @enviro_history.