ABSTRACT
The idea of an observatory is not new. As a process, a way of seeing, of imagining and reecting on our place in the cosmos, the observatory has ancient origins. The notion of an observatory as a place to see things in their entirety, or from a wide purview of inquiry, informs the development of the Humanities for the Environment (HfE) Project and the global HfE Observatories. This idea of observing through the HfE Observatories is the theme for this book Humanities for the Environment (HfE): Integrating Knowledge, Forging New Constellations of Practice, acknowledging that, as Joni Adamson points out in her Introduction, ‘observation’ is not a neutral or value free concept. Using this theme of observing, the chapters in this volume discuss cross-cultural encounters and environmental pasts, sustainable livelihoods and Indigenous futures. They also raise questions about the concept of the Anthropocene, take up discussions around ecocriticism, tangled reef ecologies, narrative ethics and bushres, and consider the relatively unexamined notion of curating the Anthropocene. The chapters range across geographies, ecosystems, climates and weather regimes; from icy Arctic landscapes, to the tropics of north Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef, and to urban ‘laboratories’ on a university campus in Phoenix, Arizona. In these diverse settings and contexts, this volume showcases how, using multidisciplinary approaches to ‘integrating knowledges,’ educators, photographers, scientists and artists across the humanities, social and hard sciences can help foster awareness about the crisis faced by anthropogenic processes on the planet.
