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Foundational Stories: Performing the Origins of US Field Geology
  • Tamara Pico
Tamara Pico
UC Santa Cruz

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Abstract

Stories about the foundation of US geology as a discipline are prominent in the culture of field geology today. This article traces the threads of such “origin stories” through field geology practices and undergraduate training. The repetition of these origin stories obfuscates the colonialist and race-fueled motives that underpin the actions of the US geologist characters featured in these stories. I extend concepts of performativity from feminist theory to interrogate the role of such stories in constructing an idealized field geologist’s body. I theorize the field geologist as a social construction forged through repeated practice ingrained within narratives about the origin of US geology. Increasingly, the field is recognized as a site of sexual and racial harassment and abuse. By making visible the racialized subplots in the history of US geology, which include entrenchment in racial science and land dispossession, I posit that the curated origin stories repeated today perpetuate processes of exclusion and subjugation in field geology.