Dear ECOLOG-ers, Please contact me ([email protected]) if you would like to be a panelist for the roundtable described below. Roundtable panelists will need to register for the American Anthropology Association meeting and indicate their plan to participate in the "Fire Otherwise" roundtable by April 10, but they will not need to submit individual abstracts. Sincerely, Cynthia Fowler
Proposal for a Roundtable Session at the AAA November 29 – December 3, 2017 Meeting in D.C. Title: Fire Otherwise: The Multitude of Ways Anthropology Matters for Fire Science, Management, and Policy Organizer: Cynthia Fowler Co-Chairs: Cynthia T. Fowler and James R. Welch Length: 1.75 hours Fire Otherwise will be a Roundtable during which scholars will discuss the ways anthropology matters for fire ecology, human rights, biodiversity conservation, restoration ecology, environmental justice, and other pressing concerns. Fire Otherwise participants advocate for a more inclusive anthropology where diverse epistemologies have equal standing with Euro‑American ways of knowing. The participants in the Fire Otherwise Roundtable study Indigenous, local, rural, and other minoritized people’s interactions with fire in ways that clearly call for decolonizing the scientific discipline of fire ecology. In our research, we draw on social theories and ethnographic methods that are especially apropos for translating the fire‑related ecological knowledges of subalterns. Our research provides evidence that fire science and fire management ought to be inclusive, plural, dynamic knowledge systems. The Fire Otherwise Roundtable is a critical intervention that encourages pluralization of fire science bureaucracies and management institutions. The Roundtable panelists seek to bring attention to the importance of anthropology to fire science. The panelists present information about their anthropological evaluations of the human dimensions of diverse fire management regimes, myriad interactions between people and fire, knowledges of fire’s effects on diverse organisms and ecosystems, and a wide variety of fire ignition types, goals, and outcomes. Anthropologists go beyond standard concerns of fire scientists and managers by assessing the sociocultural subtleties of anthropogenic ignitions and manipulations of fire environments to show how these influence ecological dynamics. Anthropology reveals the deep connections between humans and fire as well as the deep horizons of human impacts on the composition, structure, and function of ecological communities. The Fire Otherwise Roundtable will be structured by questions related to the application of anthropology to fire science and management. Panelists will be asked to answer the following questions: What key findings from your research would you like to share with fire scientists and managers? What key human dimensions of fire ecology in your field site do you want fire scientists to know about? What do local, Indigenous, rural, and other knowledges contribute to fire science, management, and policy? What social theories are most relevant for fire science? Which anthropological methods could improve the work of fire scientists and fire managers? What are some examples of anthropology that are already evident in fire science, management, and policy, and how can we increase the appreciation or integration of anthropology? Our wish for this Roundtable is to amplify the voices of our interlocutors so they are heard in the fora where fire science and management knowledge circulate.
