Undergraduate Research: An Archive - 2022 Program

Hannah Reynolds ’22
ANTHROPOLOGY
Certificate in Environmental Studies; Smith
Newton Scholar
THESIS TITLE
Defining the Tongass
National Forest: Land
Rights and Forest
Management in
Southeast Alaska
ADVISERS
Jerry Zee, Assistant
Professor of
Anthropology and the
High Meadows
Environmental
Institute; Christiane
Fellbaum, Lecturer with
the Rank of Professor in
the Council of the
Humanities, the
Program in Linguistics,
and Freshman
Seminars
My senior thesis centered around the question
of “What is a forest?” with the focus on the
United States’ oldest and largest national forest
— as well as the only remaining unfragmented
temperate rainforest in the world — Tongass
National Forest in Southeast Alaska. I sought
to understand how the forest is constituted
and valued by different groups of people who
live in, work in and depend upon the Tongass,
from tribal leaders to elected officials and
conservationists. At present, much of the
political discourse related to managing the forest
is framed in economic terms, whether related
to roadbuilding, timber, tourism or commercial
fishing. The Tongass, however, also is a huge
source of resilience, culture and community for
the people who live there. Through this thesis,
I hoped to highlight the nuances of life in the
Tongass through ethnographic methods and by
analyzing prior discourse on settler colonialism,
ecological knowledge and Indigeneity with the
intent of providing a new path for managing the
Tongass that prioritizes the needs of local and
Native peoples.
CONSERVATION
AND BIODIVERSITY
14