New Nature Writing

Who do you picture when you hear the phrase “nature writing?” The genre has become synonymous with the 19th century pioneers. American writers like Thoreau, Emerson and Whitman were the transcendentalists that brought nature to the forefront of the cultural ethos through their writing. 

It was revolutionary to suggest at the time when the protestant church represented the place of salvation and spiritual grounding that these qualities could, in fact, be better represented by elements of nature. 

Looking back, we see this in the context of white, male privilege. Who, just prior to the American Civil War, were free enough to find themselves at peace in nature?

(This conversation also includes the disenfranchisement of indigenous people but that is explored in greater depth here.)

The genre of nature writing has carried into the 21st century the same stereotype of privileged white man that it acquired in the 19th century. 

The difference is, while those who sought solace in nature and returned to right about it were able to do so from a position of privilege in the past. Today the experience of nature impacts everyone on the planet in ways that people from a position of privilege are able to remove themselves from. 

Climate change is expected to impact those in poverty and to greater significance than those who are more affluent. 

People without the means to move away from areas impacted by the climate crisis will feel the changes worse that those who can migrate to other areas. Highly populated and low lying areas that are more exposed to sea level rise are among the most obvious examples.

Since the transcendentalists created the nature writing genre, the demographic of those most impacted by nature has shifted from those who sought it from a place of privilege to those who are able to flee it from a place of privilege. 

But, if you ask a person today what nature writing looks like, the demographic has likely not shifted in peoples’ minds. The work of old white men is commonly the first demographic associated with the genre. But, this too can change. 

The voices of those impacted by climate change can represent a wide group of people and experiences. Nature writing is changing just as our place in nature changes too. Writers like Elizabeth Rush, Robin Wall Kimmerer and Terry Tempest Williams are reclaiming the genre of nature writing.

It isn't necessary to reinvent the genre but suffice to reclaim it through inclusion and lifting the voices of those on the front lines of our new environmental reality.