THE DAM FIGHTERS: COMMONS ENVIRONMENTAL RHETORIC, RHETORICAL CITIZENSHIP, AND LOCAL ETHOS
A dissertation by Savannah Paige Murray
Dedicated to all “Dam Fighters” past, present, and future.
UFBDA logo from an internal memo. Image from Western Regional Archives.
GENERAL AUDIENCE ABSTRACT
In this dissertation project, I examine the ways in which a grassroots environmental organization, the Upper French Broad Defense Association (UFBDA), was able to contribute knowledge and voice concerns regarding a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) proposal between 1961 and 1972. The TVA proposal included a plan for comprehensive water resource development in western North Carolina which would have required in the implementation of 14 dams, flooding of more than 18,000 fertile agricultural acres and displacing 600 families from their ancestral homes. In order to complete this dissertation project, I explored two archival collections pertaining to the UFBDA. Based on my findings in the archives, I provide new understandings of how grassroots environmentalism works, particularly in terms of how environmentalists use language in order to participate in decisions about the environment. More specifically, this dissertation documents how members of the UFBDA were able to describe the western North Carolina landscape as a commons and not a wilderness, work together across counties to create new opportunities to share their concerns over the TVA project, and establish their own credibility as knowledgeable citizens about their local environment. By highlighting specific components of the UFBDA’s work, this dissertation provides examples that can be used by future grassroots environmental organization facing similar challenges regarding environmental controversies.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
- How can citizens legitimate their own knowledge and expertise within environmental controversies and public deliberations?
- How is political efficacy defined in environmental controversies?
- How can scholars of rhetoric and writing studies examine political efficacy in environmental controversies as a nuanced set of rhetorical opportunities rather than simply examining these controversies as either a simple “success” or “failure?”
DISSERTATION CHAPTERS
Information in this dissertation is organized into the following chapters:
1. Introduction & Literature Review
2. Theories of the Public, Deliberation, and Democracy
3. Archival Research Methods
4. Historical Overview of the "Dam Fight," 1961-1972
5. Towards Commons Environmental Rhetoric
6. Rhetorical Citizenship, Generativity, & Greeting
7. Enacting an Ethos of Local Knowledge
8. Conclusion
1. Introduction & Literature Review
2. Theories of the Public, Deliberation, and Democracy
3. Archival Research Methods
4. Historical Overview of the "Dam Fight," 1961-1972
5. Towards Commons Environmental Rhetoric
6. Rhetorical Citizenship, Generativity, & Greeting
7. Enacting an Ethos of Local Knowledge
8. Conclusion
KEY FINDINGS
- Towards Commons Environmental Rhetoric: UFBDA members constructed the local landscape as a commons, as a landscape that is used, thereby showcasing what would be lost in the implementation of the TVA dams.
- Rhetorical Citizenship, Generativity, & Greeting: UFBDA members collaborated across counties to create new opportunities for public involvement in the TVA proposal, building and reinforcing bonds with other citizens and increasing the dam fighters' effectiveness.
- Enacting an Ethos of Local Knowledge: UFBDA members established their own expertise in the TVA public hearing (fall 1971) by emphasizing their local knowledge about the western North Carolina landscape and their communities' daily lives.
WILDERNESS & AMERICAN ENVIRONMENTALISM
The National Parks Preserve Wild Life. [Nyc: works progress administration federal art project, between 1936 and 1939] Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/98518597/>.
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In the American environmental movement, the wilderness idea looms large over the goals, philosophies, and motivations behind environmental protection. The idea of wilderness evokes depictions of wilderness that are unmarred by human presence and accessible only through the most rugged forms of outdoor recreation. Wilderness also portrays the natural world as a distant, far off place, perhaps in a national park or in the western states of the U.S., as depicted in the Works Progress Administration (WPA) posters displayed above. Strict adherence to wilderness ideals within the environmental movement poses its own epistemological challenges, which in turn, obfuscate many ontological concerns. In other words, the ways in which we “think” of environmentalism has a direct connection to the ways in which we accept environmental activities “are.” In focusing on wilderness, many other forms of environmental activism are elided, erased, and ignored.
“Names are important. The name ‘wilderness’ is fraught with historical baggage obfuscating the most important role of wilderness areas for contemporary conservation. The received wilderness idea has been and remains a tool of androcentrism, racism, colonialism, and genocide. It privileges virile and primitive recreation, because the main reason wild lands were originally preserved is for such utilitarian purposes.”
—J. Baird Callicott, “Contemporary Criticisms of the Received Wilderness Idea.” USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-15-VOL-1. 2000, pp. 24.
“Names are important. The name ‘wilderness’ is fraught with historical baggage obfuscating the most important role of wilderness areas for contemporary conservation. The received wilderness idea has been and remains a tool of androcentrism, racism, colonialism, and genocide. It privileges virile and primitive recreation, because the main reason wild lands were originally preserved is for such utilitarian purposes.”
—J. Baird Callicott, “Contemporary Criticisms of the Received Wilderness Idea.” USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-15-VOL-1. 2000, pp. 24.
THE NATURE-CULTURE DUALISM
Nicholson, Frank S., Artist, and Sponsor United States National Park Service. Wild life The national parks preserve all life. [Nyc: nyc art project, works projects administration, between 1936 and 1940] Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/92522682/>.
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Rotten living Decent living through planned housing. [New york: federal art project, between 1936 and 1938] Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/98518568/>.
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Wilderness, as an idea, also reinforces the nature-culture dualism, whereas nature is placed in a false dichotomy in opposition to culture. In other words, the nature-culture dualism reinforces ideas, like wilderness, that nature exists outside of and beyond human culture. We see this dualism in many visual representations of wilderness as well. For example, in the above image of the National Parks (left), there are no humans present, and overall, this WPA poster reflects nature as operating within the confines of the U.S. National Parks. Much like this depiction, the wilderness idea promotes an understanding of nature that is apart from rather than a part of daily life. The idea of wilderness, which suggests that nature exists in distant parks and wilderness preserves, also clouds understandings of nature as part of human culture and everyday life. As depicted in the WPA poster above (right), largely as a reaction to wilderness ideas about nature, human culture is often seen as distinctly human-made, and separate from the natural world altogether. While wilderness as an idea promotes unrealistic ideas about where nature is, and nature's relation to human culture, it also limits "what counts" as environmentalism. As discussed in the section below, strict adherence to wilderness ideas prevents the recognition of alternative types of environmentalism, namely commons environmentalism.
DEFINING COMMONS ENVIRONMENTAL RHETORIC
Katz, Morris, Artist. Please Keep the Park Clean. Ohio: Federal Art Project. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/98518941/>.
Clough, Stanley Thomas, Artist. Please Keep the Park Clean. Ohio: Federal Art Project, W.P.A. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/98517123/>.
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One particular form of environmentalism that is often erased in the process of adoring wilderness, is commons environmentalism. Commons environmentalism emphasizes the use of nature, by a collective group, rather than seeing nature on as a wild place free from the alterations of human beings. For example, most people likely recognize the form of commons environmentalism associated with urban parks (as depicted in the WPA posters to the left) as well as river clean ups. However, commons environmentalism is not exclusive to urban areas, but is a powerful force in rural areas like the Appalachian region as well. Commons environmentalism, as described by Appalachian historian Kathryn Newfont in Blue Ridge Commons: Environmental Activism and Forest History in Western North Carolina, stems from the realization that mainstream U.S. environmentalism, particularly in its adherence to ideals regarding wilderness preservation, does not adequately suit studies of environmentalism in rural areas. Newfont writes, “Mainstream American ‘wilderness’ environmentalism has rarely resonated with people from rural cultures” because it remains rooted “in an urban and suburban sensibility in which the outdoors is primarily a place to visit and use recreationally” (57). Accordingly, “the wilderness model seems foreign and even threatening to many rural people” for which “the outdoors is not only a place to play—but also—and more importantly—a place to work, to produce a living” (57). Further, the outdoors “is a place to live rather than visit” for many rural Americans, making it “a part of the fabric of everyday life rather than a retreat from the ordinary round” (57). Drawing from studies of commons environmentalism, commons environmental rhetoric, as I use the term, entails the discursive and rhetorical constructions of the environment as a commons, as a shared landscape which provides food, recreation, and social community, while also emphasizing the importance of local environments and, in particular, the environments in which many rural people encounter in their daily lives. Commons environmental rhetoric helps highlight the connections between where people live and work. Rather than emphasizing nature as a pristine wilderness located “out there” and apart from humans, commons environmental rhetoric emphasizes the interconnectedness of people and place.
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WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA AS A COMMONS
The UFBDA also represented the western North Carolina landscape as a commons in many of the group’s flyers. For example, one particular flyer entitled, “You Can Help Save 14 Beautiful Valleys . . . in the Upper French Broad Basin” contains a large charcoal sketch on the front of the first page (see Figure 1). In this sketch, the valley is not portrayed as a wilderness absent of any human interaction, but instead contains a large image of the Mills River Baptist Church, a well-known church in the region which was also, as UFBDA members were quick to point out, subject to destruction in the TVA’s plan for the French Broad. By including a visual representation of the Mills River Baptist Church, UFBDA members were clearly signifying that the Mills River Community was not full of untouched wilderness lands, but that it was a commons, a shared space in which community members were free to congregate and worship. In the foreground of this image, there is a sketch of a large 7-point buck, along with two does grazing alongside it. Below the image of the buck, the UFBDA creators included the phrase, “A special kind of place where deer can still roam” suggesting that the Upper French Broad River Valleys were not as overly populated as the nearby city of Asheville, and that wildlife still used the land as a commons, themselves. While the representation of free-roaming animals may seem, to some, more akin to a depiction of wilderness than the commons, given that the deer is a highly populous and commonly hunted for recreation as well as food supply throughout western North Carolina, rather than serving as symbol of wildness, the deer in this flyer help to form the UFBDA’s commons representation as they demonstrate just one of the species that can be harvested from the western North Carolina commons. The deer on this flyer demonstrate as the community stands, without the dams, there are plenty of deer for hunters to use, showing the deer as yet another ample resource within this particular commons.
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Figure 1: UFBDA Pamphlet, “You Can Help Save 14 Beautiful Valleys.” Folder 13, Box 1, Upper French Broad Defense Association (1967-1977). Ramsey Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville.
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THE UFBDA & COMMONS ENVIRONMENTAL RHETORIC
In their rhetorical construction of the commons, the UFBDA were able to demonstrate the ways in which the western North Carolina Landscape is used, while also highlighting all that would be lost if the TVA dams were constructed in the region. While commons environmental rhetoric is present throughout the archival collections pertaining to the UFBDA, the group’s, massive, over 300-page report, entitled, “Environmental Impact of the Proposed Tennessee Valley Authority Water Resources Project for the Upper French Broad in Western North Carolina” contains a plethora instances of commons environmental rhetoric. In my rhetorical analysis of this report, I identified numerous instances of commons environmental rhetoric which I divided into the following categories:
(1) Critiques of Progress and Commercial Interests (2) Protecting Recreation and Non-Human Animals (3) Local Knowledge of the Commons (4) Preserving the Commons for the Future Constructing a commons approach to understanding the local landscape functioned as a key methods through which the UFBDA were able to legitimize their own expertise and knowledge of the region’s landscape. I argue, ultimately, that the use of commons environmental rhetoric affords more opportunities for citizens to legitimate their knowledge and voice their concerns than wilderness-based environmental rhetoric. |
PLANS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
Photo by Savannah Paige Murray. Assorted UFBDA flyers and a "Save WNC from TVA" bumper sticker. Image taken in Special Collections at UNC Asheville.
Like most scholars who complete a dissertation, my next goal for this project is to develop a book-length manuscript for publication. In the next steps of this research, I plan to move the project beyond the archives. While archival research has been a crucial part of this project so far, as evidenced in the photograph of the UFBDA memorabilia found in the archives above, I would like to include oral history interviews with surviving UFBDA members to further advance this project.
Overall, I see research as offering, via commons environmental rhetoric a new critical and theoretical frame for environmental rhetoric, one which can both help scholars better understand environmental activists from the past as well as offer strategies for contemporary environmental activists seeking change in their own "dam fights."
Overall, I see research as offering, via commons environmental rhetoric a new critical and theoretical frame for environmental rhetoric, one which can both help scholars better understand environmental activists from the past as well as offer strategies for contemporary environmental activists seeking change in their own "dam fights."