An IASH Work-in-Progress seminar, delivered by Dr Brittany Meché (Environmental Humanities Fellow, 2025).
Desert Black: Arid Lands and Imperial Democracy in the Transatlantic World
Desert Black: Arid Lands and Imperial Democracy in the Transatlantic World is a new book-length project that explores the transnational circulations of arid lands knowledge in the 19th and 20th centuries. Focusing on the interrelations between the American Southwest and French-occupied West Africa, the project examines the role of Black/African labor and transnational circulations of expert knowledge about deserts in imperial nation-building. I ask: how and why have deserts served as recurring sites of imperial competition and scientific exploration? What modes of governance emerge from and within arid ecologies? And, in the shadow of this imperial history, how can we (re)theorize arid ecologies as unique, dynamic sites of multivalent placemaking? Ultimately, Desert Black seeks to theorize the imperial ecologies of arid landscapes, while also exploring how to cultivate alternate ecological futures in arid lands.
Please join in-person, or click the link below to join the webinar:
https://ed-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/83015772676
Passcode: b1QpaAD7