Settler colonialism as recurrent disasters: Jennifer Anne Jensen, Echoes of Trauma: Changing Perceptions of Disaster and the Erasure of Space in Idaho’s backcountry, PhD dissertation, University of Delaware, 2024 | settler colonial studies blog

Settler colonialism as recurrent disasters: Jennifer Anne Jensen, Echoes of Trauma: Changing Perceptions of Disaster and the Erasure of Space in Idaho’s backcountry, PhD dissertation, University of Delaware, 2024

05Mar24

Abstract: This dissertation examines the interaction between Euro-American settlers and miners and the unique environment of central Idaho from 1863 to 1964, highlighting how cultural and social frameworks imported by these settlers led to recurrent disasters. The settlers’ adaptation to these disasters, in turn, reshaped their cultural values and land-use practices. Focusing on the cultural impact of recurring small-scale disasters, or ‘chronic traumas,’ this work explores how Euro-Americans’ settlement and early industrial activities in central Idaho led to a cycle of disaster and adaptation, including significant shifts in their collective identity and practices. The dissertation contends that vulnerability in relation to disasters is a dynamic, long-term process that reshapes communities beyond any recovery phase. Focusing on central Idaho, the thesis explores how a century of ‘chronic traumas’ influenced the evolving collective perception of disaster, beginning with a sense of necessary hardship, but later shifting to apathy and resignation. This dissertation also traces the interplay between culture and nature in central Idaho, revealing how their cultural imprints and the natural world’s demands co-constructed the historical landscape and perceptions of wilderness. The research outlines how modernity’s push on boundaries and the resulting disasters influenced the Euro-Americans’ relationship with central Idaho’s wilderness, culminating in a changed perception of disaster and use of the land over time.

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