Narrative Extinction and Environmental Hetero-Whitewashing

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Reflecting on the small exhibition on the topic of Environmentalism at Kenyon with Abby and Lily, I could not help but reflect on the process of undertaking this task. Through many meetings in which we looked again and again at different folders and boxes, parsing through an endless stream of information which we had to analyze and fit into a coherent, visually and mentally intriguing narrative, we picked a good variety of materials to construct the narrative that environmentalism has taken many forms in Kenyon’s history. From collections of pressed flowers to recycling groups and then later recycling facilities and the makings of the BFEC, it is safe to say for as long as Kenyon has existed, an interest in the environment has been present on this campus. 

Yazdiha, in chapter 6 of her book “The Struggle for the People’s King, presents the notion that  collective memory is something that is subject to the whims of those who invoke it. She specifically references the feminist movement in contesting the whitewashed version of the movement’s past. She writes about the societal reckoning with the idea that black women’s voices have often been excluded from the mainstream narrative of feminism, and continues by describing ways in which people have tried to resolve this injustice in our collective memory of feminism.


Tying this back to environmentalism, I guess in hindsight I do wonder whose voices we missed. How deeply is queerness or ethnic and racial diversity woven into our environmentalist past? I remember reading about different types of flowers being used as symbols of queerness before for example, so I can’t help but wonder if students here ever used nature in this way. What types of untold stories lie beneath Kenyon’s systemic white, heteronormative narrative? I tried to look further into scrapbooks and other materials in the digital collections of the Kenyon archives, in hopes of resurfacing anything that we missed, even if it is too late to add it to our collection, but I found nothing. I am sure many people have thus far called this people home, and many of them would have been able to give us insight into the stories our collection missed. Alas, these narratives might have just withered away, lacking the water, air, and sunlight required for them to grow into a branch of our collective memory of Kenyon’s environmentalist activities.


Thank you, Abby and Lily, for making this group project so much fun.


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