Routledge handbook of the digital environmental humanities

In July 2019, unprecedented wildfires ravaged the Brazilian Amazon, destroying over 7600 square kilometers of native rainforest. Local organizations, long voicing concerns over governmental negligence, shared disheartening images on social media, drawing attention to the dimensions of the disaster. In politically turbulent Brazil, these images incited severe civil criticism against President Jair Bolsonaro, known for downplaying the ecological importance of the biodiverse Amazon and for championing free economic development in this region. Bolsonaro – consistent with his far-right stance – quickly dismissed these concerns as media hyperbole, claiming that the rainforest was “pristine and virtually untouched” and, via Twitter, zealously defended what he deemed as the government's right to develop the Amazon. While unyielding in tone, his comments contrasted sharply with the evidence presented by Brazil's National Institute for Space Research and NASA. Verified satellite imagery revealed the magnitude of the devastation: smoke could be seen from outer space. Circulating across digital ecologies as wildfires themselves, the images also triggered a strenuous global conversation, and in a few days, they became a trending topic that activated international preservation efforts. By September, the planetary uproar pressured the Bolsonaro administration to participate in a regional summit on this matter and to agree on signing a resolution on collaborative efforts for monitoring the Amazon biome – its effects still to be seen.

It is becoming increasingly challenging to distinguish the environment from the digital media and technologies we use to perceive, understand, and ultimately manage it. As discussed in STS research, the “digital” has never been without material dimensions; not only does it have the capacity to define our everyday lives, but our digital world is so deeply intertwined with the planet that its existence now requires the recomposition of Earth's geology – its formations, minerals, energy (Parikka 2015; Starosielski 2015). What's more, signs, traces, and transformations of our planet – global warming, atmospheric rivers, wildfires, etc. – ubiquitous yet exceeding our bodily sensibilities, have become tangible to us through databases, computational models, and visualization tools (Edwards 2013). While such blurring is symptomatic of the increasing cultural disconnection from our more-than-human worlds, it may also offer a significant opportunity to imagine practices that foster well-being in our already overheated worlds. Digital technologies afford emergent spatiotemporal dimensions through which humans may engage with the Earth anew – movements, compositions, and forms (Jørgensen 2014). They may animate the wrecking of complex localities to power the spreadsheets that make such wrecking manifest. However, they can also act as prisms that refract our understanding of our entanglements with the world – and our ethical responsibilities within it (Hui 2020).

The Routledge Handbook of the Digital Environmental Humanities (Handbook hereafter) brings together a broad range of experts working at the complex intersection of digital media and technologies and the environment. Probing into what the digital can afford, this volume is an important contribution to an urgent socio-ecological problem: how to foster ways of reconnecting our human sensibilities and modes of knowing with a hurting planet that needs our collective vitality. As such, the Handbook comprises short, pedagogically-oriented chapters ranging from digital activism to archival preservation. While the introductory essay pinpoints the potentialities, negotiations, and implications of such an expansive interdisciplinary proposal, this is not a volume driven by the need for a theoretical broadening, nor does it introduce transversal idioms. Drawing on familiar concepts in the post-humanities, contributors present a programmatic blueprint rich in tangible engagements, projects, and tools. By doing so, the Handbook underscores the importance of engaging with digital media and technology to empower local communities, enhance biodiversity globally, and reimagine an ethically and politically conscious scholarly practice that is response-able to the contemporary moment (Haraway 2016).

The Handbook amplifies a flourishing conversation that has gained traction in the past decade. Also referred to as Ecocritical DH (Starling Gould 2021) or Ecological Digital Humanities (Cohen and LeMenager 2016), the Digital Environmental Humanities (DEH) bridges two distinct interdisciplinary projects (Jørgensen 2014).¹ On the one hand, the Digital Humanities, a field that embraces a diversity of research in the humanities through technology, media, and computational methods. Scholars in Digital Humanities emphasize their shared methodological outlook, exploring innovative methods of collecting and analyzing data at – until recently – unprecedented scales (Gold 2012; Travis 2018; Turnbull 2014). This turn has also been accompanied by an engagement with digital communication technologies and the emergence of investigation projects focused on fostering public engagement, ranging from online repositories and community archives to podcasts and platforms (see Coulter, Graf von Hardenberg, and Jørgensen 2021). On the other hand, the Environmental Humanities, a field that has blossomed at a time when the blurring boundaries between “human” and “nature” have become an inevitable problem in humanities thinking (Rose et al. 2012). The Environmental Humanities draw on discussions, notions, and questions posed by scholars in literature, environmental history, political ecology, and ecofeminism – and many others – as their practitioners strive to build interdisciplinary idioms that both identify and exceed the constraints of professionalization in contemporary approaches to the environment. In doing so, they underscore the crucial role of humanities scholarship in fostering new strategies to reassess the cultural dimensions of the present geo-historical epoch, the Anthropocene, and the unsustainable socio-natural relationships that underlie prevailing models of accumulation and inequality (Neimanis, Åsberg, and Hedrén 2015).

The Digital and Environmental humanities have overlapped throughout their formation processes, yet their questions, problems, and directions diverge. Establishing connections while identifying the ruptures and resonances at this interface has demanded over a decade of debate and discussion within the DEH community, a productive tension that the editors of the Handbook have welcomed. As Charles Travis and colleagues note in their contribution to the volume, scholars in the Digital Humanities tend to prioritize technological and methodological innovation over conceptual or thematic cohesion. The contrary could be said about those in the Environmental Humanities who probe the relationship between humans and their environments, emphasizing conceptual coherence and innovation over methodological robustness. Yet both projects strive to convey ideas beyond academic spaces, aiming to reach broader audiences and impact cultural formations as a means to promote planetary well-being (Cohen and LeMenager 2016).

In this capacity, the volume occupies the challenging space where critique, method, and public engagement converge. In over thirty chapters, the Handbook showcases a variety of approaches operating at this leaky intersection, ranging from geospatial analysis on water usage, toxicity, pollution, and food security to decolonial critiques in Ecocinema and Eco-horror, Indigenous mapping practices, and subaltern botanical archives. While most individual chapters are written from the angle of specific fields or (inter)disciplines, the overall project effectively demonstrates how scientific, artistic, geographical, cartographical, informatic, and computational scholars can articulate common grounds and create synergies without jeopardizing their respective principles of practice. Yet contributions such as the chapter by Aude K. Chesnais, which brings together discussions on data systems and assertions of native sovereignty, or that by William J. Mackwood and Gwenyth H. Dobie on performance artists, which explores the implications of having a digital lab in a lush forest, are indispensable to recognizing the forms and affordances of interdisciplinary practices in DEH. As a whole, the Handbook is empirically, critically, and ethically committed to exploring digitally mediated, visualized, and interpreted framings of past, present, and future environments through a variety of perspectives and angles.

The structure of the Handbook also amplifies the editorial attention to these ruptures, resonances, and leakages as generative formations. Comprising six sections, not strictly segmented by topics, fields, or methodological approaches, the volume outlines the contours of emerging cross-disciplinary dialogues. Part I, “Overviews,” edited by Charles Travis, introduces the myriad of approaches and practices in DEH, shedding light on collaborative ventures and interdisciplinary methodologies used by arts, humanities, and science scholars alike. Part II, “Voicing Indigeneity,” edited by Arlene Crampsie, demonstrates DEH's capacity to intervene in discussions surrounding the decolonization of environmental knowledge, emphasizing the revitalization of Indigenous environmental notions, idioms, and worldviews through the reappropriation of imperialistic digital tools. Deborah P. Dixon, editor of Part III, “Geopoetics and Performance,” probes the implications of geo-prefixes and their ability to transform the Earth into varied entities such as spaces or landscapes. Part IV, “Species, Systems, Sustainability,” edited by Robert Legg, highlights DEH's capacity to impact environmental education and conservation by exploring their transformative capabilities in narrating the stories of Earth's species. In Part V, “Digital Chronicles of Environment, Literature, Cartography, and Time,” Charles Travis introduces a variety of storytelling practices in DEH within the Anthropocene narratives of the twenty-first century. Lastly, Part VI, “Algorithmic Landscaping,” edited by Luke Bergmann, characterizes the landscape as a digital entity and explores the metamorphosis of anthropocentric representation projects.

As noted earlier, one of the chief contributions of this volume to DEH discussions is its thorough attention to methodological approaches – consistently emphasized across chapters – as both a critique of methods and a method of critique. In doing so, the Handbook succeeds in showcasing the analytical potential of DEH and in extending the boundaries of research practices in the humanities by introducing a wide variety of innovative possibilities to researchers and educators. For instance, Travis et al. shed light on the application of DEH methodologies in projects such as Larry McMurtry's Literary Geography and NorFish, demonstrating the productive richness found in the intersection of technological diversity and analytical depth. Likewise, Curtis et al. vividly reconstruct the events of the 1975 forced evacuation of Phnom Penh, employing innovative visualization techniques to recast narratives and testimonies.

While the volume unfolds through a range of innovative approaches that pave the way for new narratives and perspectives on – at times – over-studied archives and themes, the question of method extends well beyond the affordances of computational analysis. Ursula Biemann's chapter, notably illustrative, discusses a video essay juxtaposing Alberta Oil Sand carbon geologies with the hydrogeographies of the near-permanently flood-threatened Ganges Delta of Bangladesh to highlight the reshaping perceptions of our rapidly transforming environment. In line with the Routledge Handbook series’ editorial emphasis on research practices, this volume aptly responds to the growing demand for robust methodological engagement within the environmental humanities (Marcone 2022; Schneider-Mayerson et al. 2023), marking a noteworthy contribution to scholarship and pedagogy.

The Handbook also shows that questions around tools and methods can expand beyond procedural requirements; they are pivotal to building engagement with audiences outside academia. Several chapters addressing how digital systems and technologies document, record, and shape narratives about planetary life emphasize how they also activate new modes and scales for thinking and being together. The chapter by Mickey Dennis and his collaborators, an excellent example of this mode of engagement, discusses the capacities of community countermapping practices in revisiting histories of settler colonialism in Indigenous territories of North America. Similarly, Darius Scott's contribution on oral histories from U.S. South communities demonstrates how audio recordings can also operate as counter-narratives against the erasures of Black voices in the landscape. In this digital era, where the display of dominance over Nature intertwines with how and what data is being collected, analyzed, and employed for policymaking (Ballestero 2019), these public-facing and academic-community collaborations harness digital technologies to conjure emergent narratives, actions, and affects on the Anthropocene in ways that are instrumental for Environmental Justice activism. Such an approach not only challenges linear scientific communication practices but also dismantles authoritative paradigms defining what an environment is, who participates in its definitions, and what ways of knowing count in it.

Another salient contribution of this volume is its emphasis on using digital tools in ecological and environmental education. Even more, the Handbook underscores the potential of these digital teaching practices to promote new forms of citizenship engagement and activate planetary awareness among learners and community partners. The chapter by Shanmugapriya T. Priya and Deborah Sutton phenomenally exemplifies this, discussing a digital literary visualization project about water stress in Southern India. Engaging local activists and communities, they curate open-access data on lost and hurting water landscapes, challenging traditional narratives constructed by imperial legacies and state-endorsed scientific paradigms. Selin Süar Oral et al. also advance this conversation in their chapter, which proposes an educational program model that aims at amplifying environmental consciousness through actionable pedagogical practices. As digital technologies become commonplace in contemporary educational models, the Handbook showcases different ways instructors can integrate these tools into their classrooms as a way to cultivate an informed and engaged public attuned to global environmental challenges.

The comprehensive editorial effort behind the Handbook, predominantly led by geographers, offers invaluable insights for spatial analysts and thinkers alike. However ambitious, it also misses key conversations that could have enhanced the project's breadth. Discussions on the environment and digital technologies in Science and Technology Studies are myriad, but they are particularly sparse here. Weaving in STS perspectives might have added depth to arguments on the political and ethical dimensions of digital interaction and mediation, and could have enriched the conversation on how digital tools such as databases and geographical information systems not only sharpen spatial understanding but also reshape our communities, landscapes, and identities (Fortun et al. 2016; Rahder 2020). Bringing into the conversation Cultural Studies and ecocritical scholarship would have also broadened the volume's self-reflexive scope (Neimanis, Åsberg, and Hedrén 2015). This oversight becomes especially glaring in the context of techno-optimism, green economies, and surveillance capitalism. Finally, despite the volume's extensive regional variations, its lack of attention to Latin American scholarship is surprising, especially given the vibrant academic production currently happening in Argentina (Costa 2021), Mexico (Piña-García and Espinoza 2022), Colombia (Maldonado Castañeda 2021), and many others – not to mention hemispheric online platforms, such as entre – rios, Wimblu, Endémico, and Plataforma Latinoamericana de Humanidades Ambientales. Even more, the Latin American experience offers an unparalleled perspective into the politics of digital technologies and their role in environmental shaping. Just in Chile, the costs of the digital revolution are very critical and palpable: lithium mining for batteries consumes the landscape, while data centers clash with community water conservation efforts during droughts.²

However, this volume still holds immense value for Latin American STS scholars. Beyond the contributions already highlighted, the Handbook's novel engagement with decolonial approaches to digital media is noteworthy. This is particularly relevant for those of us studying instances where the question about the dimensions of Modernity remains tangled, unresolved, and paradoxical. The volume may shed light on our current political milieu by intertwining an analytical scaffold of decolonial theory with studies focusing on the uses and practices of digital media and technology. In Latin America, local, Indigenous, and grassroots communities are not only engaging with these tools to bring territorial lifeways and knowledge to the forefront but also as platforms for political activism. Communities deploy digital technologies to expose violence, challenge prevailing power dynamics, and recalibrate communal values and norms – a theme that demands our analytical attention. Furthermore, this volume offers pedagogical tools to bridge the gap in understanding the dimensions of environmental violence between the wider society and marginalized communities, underscoring their challenges, practices, and forms of resistance.

In sum, The Routledge Handbook of the Digital Environmental Humanities stands out as an exceptional resource for scholars across fields of practice. Its contributors explore the intersections between digital media and technology, the environment, and society not only to shed light on strategies that foster rich, more-than-human connections but also have the potential to reshape how we interact with the world around us. As a field-defining volume, the Handbook introduces a comprehensive toolkit of methods and practices with the potential to become instrumental in analyzing resistance to our current environmental debacle. By weaving a broad spectrum of conversations attuned to earthly processes, digital tools, and socio-cultural formations, the Handbook lays down a shared methodological groundwork for novel and generative interdisciplinary collaboration in the Environmental Humanities.

Notes

1 Finn Arne Jørgensen's essay, reprinted in this volume, has played a pivotal role in shaping the contours of this emerging conversation. However, it is important to acknowledge some other initiatives that also gave it grounding and context. I want to mention two. First, the Digital Environmental Humanities portal, housed at McGill University, was a platform for exploring the convergence of digital technologies and Environmental Humanities research, led by Stephanie Posthumus and Stéfan Sinclair. Second is the blog (now an e-book) “Ant Spider Bee,” supported by the Rachel Carson Center, which aimed at inviting academics and practitioners to explore, discuss, and reflect on digital practices, methodologies, and applications within the Environmental Humanities.

2 I thank Azucena Castro for this powerful insight.