Congratulations to Natalie Vena!

We are thrilled and proud to congratulate Natalie Bump Vena, ’03 and Gaius Charles Bolin Fellow in Anthropology and Environmental Studies, on the successful defense of her doctoral dissertation in Anthropology at Northwestern University! Dr. Vena’s dissertation is entitled, “Preservation’s Loss: The Nature of Bureaucracy in the Cook County Forest Preserves”

Here is Dr. Vena’s summary of her work:

My dissertation concerns the paradoxes inherent to natural resources preservation. Why has preservation, a term that suggests stasis, in fact changed in the Chicago region over time? And why has every stage of preservation actually entailed loss? Drawing on archival and ethnographic research, I answer these questions by examining land management practices in the Forest Preserve District of Cook County—a local government with jurisdiction encompassing Chicago—over the past century.

The dissertation details the institutional practice of preservation, by analyzing the relationships between statutory language and forestation, volunteerism and ecological restoration, as well as intergovernmental partnerships and the alteration of water levels in wetlands. In so doing, I reveal how each bureaucratic development has led to the protection of one kind of landscape at the expense of another.

This Spring, Dr. Vena is teaching ANTH 332, Environmental Justice.