This dissertation addresses the question of why there is a seemingly intractable conflict over efforts to restore salmon habitat on farmland in the Skagit River Valley of northwestern Washington ...State. At stake are some of the healthiest remaining wild runs of Pacific salmon in the contiguous United States, some of the richest arable soils in the world, and the survival of local tribal and agricultural communities. Using primarily ethnographic interviews and experimenting with a participatory approach, research followed the conflict among three groups: farmers and farm advocates, Native Americans, and restoration advocates and scientists. Qualitative analysis was informed by literature spanning environmental anthropology, environmental history, political ecology, science and technology studies, interdisciplinary studies on trust, conflict and cooperation, and the environmental sciences. The dissertation argues that the conflict is most obviously the result of ongoing legal disputes and conflicting governmental mandates concerning two complex challenges, namely salmon recovery and farmland preservation. Ethnographic evidence suggests that the drama may also be understood as a legacy of colonialism, which resulted in inequitable access to natural resources between the tribal and agricultural communities; different ideas for what counts as legitimate knowledge between farmers and restoration advocates; different senses of place and ideas of nature among all three groups; and a combination of prejudice and changing relationships of power which have led to a climate of bitterness and mistrust. This ethnography presents a case in which indigenous groups use scientific and legal strategies to revive traditional fishing practices, while descendants of Euro-American settlers resist these efforts with multi-generational and place-based arguments. As such, the study complicates the dichotomies of oppression versus resistance and science-based conservation versus traditional ecological knowledge that are commonly found in the related literature. This case study suggests that solving complex socioecological problems will require better integration of knowledge and management systems currently fragmented into disparate academic disciplines and governmental agencies, and closer attention to relationships among contemporary people, such as between urban and rural people and between Native and non- Native Americans. The dissertation concludes with a reflection on the experience of making a play based on this research.
Making a theatrical documentary from interviews about conflict surrounding salmon habitat restoration and farmland preservation in the Skagit Valley of Washington State was originally conceived as a ...way to present my ethnographic results in a transformative medium for my research subjects.
When I started writing this chapter, in the midst of making the play, it was a huge relief to have the excuse to sit down, tell the full story, and pour out the chaos of feelings and thoughts it was ...provoking. It felt like a form of witness and therapy. Revising the chapter for this book, however, meant revisiting some painful memories, and navigating the expectations of yet another discipline—this time, performance studies.
