In Erosion, Gina Caison traces how American authors and photographers have grappled with soil erosion as a material reality that shapes narratives of identity, belonging, and environment. Examining canonical American texts and photography, including John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, Octavia Butler's Parable series, John Audubon's Louisiana writings, and Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother, Caison shows how concerns over erosion reveal anxieties of disappearance that are based in the legacies of settler colonialism. Soil loss not only occupies a complex metaphorical place in the narrative of American identity; it becomes central to preserving the white settler colonial state through Indigenous dispossession and erasure. At the same time, Caison examines how Indigenous texts and art such as Lynn Riggs's play Green Grow the Lilacs, Karenne Wood's poetry, and Monique Verdin's photography challenge colonial narratives of the continent by outlining the material stakes of soil loss for their own communities. From California to Oklahoma to North Carolina's Outer Banks, Caison ultimately demonstrates that concerns over erosion reverberate into issues of climate change, land ownership, Indigenous sovereignty, race, and cultural and national identity.
Industry Reviews
"Gina Caison's Erosion is a superb example of environmental humanities scholarship and will serve as a model for the field's methodologies and their affordances. Caison shows that the movement of soil across regions of the United States may appear naturalized but in fact reflects the ecological, social, and cultural depredations of settler colonialism and racial capital. Bringing Indigenous and regional studies perspectives to a powerful narrative of the material and metaphorical effects of the shifting grounds of US settler land management, Erosion will generate keen, widespread interest." -- Hester Blum, author of * The News at the Ends of the Earth: The Print Culture of Polar Exploration *
"Gina Caison's important and careful analysis of the environmental impacts of colonialism reminds us that addressing building climate justice will not just come from science-based inquiries but will be elevated by the work of the humanities to challenge and grow our perspectives on erosion and climate change. Caison's work is extremely effective at demonstrating how settler-colonial anxiety informs conservation and environmentalism and why critical and cultural conversations like this book are key to the future of building climate resiliency." -- Cutcha Risling Baldy, author of * We Are Dancing for You: Native Feminisms and the Revitalization of Women's Coming-of-Age Ceremonies *
