Chelsea Fisher

Assistant Professor Of Environmental Studies

What classes are you teaching?

To round out the rest of the 20222023 academic year, I’ll be teaching Environmental Humanities, Food and the Environment, and my Spring Term class, Environmental Archaeology. I’m very excited to engage our ENV students in some of my favorite topics: nuclear waste markers, Shaker farming communes, iron furnaces, Niagara Falls and the Paleo diet.

Can you tell us about the research / scholarship projects you are working on right now (or projects recently completed)?

I have a book coming out! It’s called “Rooting in a Useless Land: Ancient Farmers, Celebrity Chefs, and Environmental Justice in Yucatán.” I started writing it in summer 2021, worked on it through my pre-tenure sabbatical in fall 2021, and submitted the first draft to my publisher, the University of California Press, in January 2022, though it’s based on work I’ve been doing since I was back in grad school.

Here’s the little summary I sent my editor for the book jacket: “In ‘Rooting in a Useless Land,’ Chelsea Fisher uses archaeology to examine the deep histories of environmental justice conflicts in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. Fisher draws on her innovative archaeological research in Yaxunah, an Indigenous Maya farming community dealing with the tensions of possible land dispossession, but with a surprising twist: Yaxunah also happens to be entangled with prestigious sustainable development projects and the most famous chefs in the world. Fisher contends that in Yaxunah and across Yucatán, sustainable development initiatives and celebrity chefs inadvertently bolster the useless land narrative — a colonial belief that Maya forests are empty wastelands, which has been driving Indigenous land dispossession and environmental injustice for centuries. ‘Rooting in a Useless Land’ explores how archaeology, practiced with communities and located in so-called wastelands, can counter the useless land narrative by restoring history and relationship with contested ground.”

On the cover will be a spooky old photograph of a burnt cornfield. I took my own author photo; I sent it to my editorial assistant months ago, but he still hasn’t said anything about it. So I hope this means we can both pretend it never happened. All bad selfies aside, I’m very excited about my book, and you can look for it in fall 2023!

Studying the environment can sometimes be disheartening. What is something you have seen or read recently that makes you excited about the environment?

Lately I feel more heartened than I have in a long time, but I also believe that it’s normal and OK to pass through cycles of despair and hope about these things. The last couple of months I’ve been grateful for the work of Richard Rohr and the folks at the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in helping me navigate those cycles.

What is your current favorite movie / TV show / podcast / etc. and why?

I love the podcast “Maintenance Phase,” hosted by Aubrey Gordon and Michael Hobbes. Gordon and Hobbes debunk wellness industry myths and deconstruct health fads — think Snackwell’s cookies, the “sleep loss epidemic,” celery juice, the President’s Physical Fitness Test, apple cider vinegar and Goop. I love the way they incorporate research into the show and connect to really compelling questions about food policy and culture! 