Summary: The Oquirrh Mountains are a 30-mile-long range that rise just west of Salt Lake City, visible to millions of residents along Utah’s bustling Wasatch Front, but obscure in public consciousness. Overlooked for the ecological, hydrological, and recreational roles they play in the Valley, the range has been defined by extractive industry and is home to the largest open-pit copper mine in the world. Our research project, entitled “Hidden in Plain Sight,” addresses critical gaps in knowledge about the Oquirrh Mountains by making visible the histories, realities, and futures of access and environmental health in the region through the lens of political ecology. With interviews, field site visits, and archival research, we explore themes of identity, industry, and obfuscation in local land politics.

Bio: Cait Quirk is a Masters student in Environmental Humanities. She researches socio-environmental restoration, land relations, and political ecologies of climate change.

Bio: Mara Scallon is a Masters student in Environmental Humanities. She researches and is interested in political ecologies of landscapes, cultural adaptation to climate change, and how humans develop attachment to place.

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Summary: For their research project, they are collaborating with Utah Japantown Advocates to collect oral histories about Salt Lake City’s Japantown. In this instance, oral histories contribute to the archive of Japanese American history in the American West as well as support the organizing efforts of contemporary activists to resist displacement from Japantown Street. What Jack finds particularly meaningful about this project is that it facilitates intergenerational conversations while highlighting the diversity of perspectives on Japantown’s past, present, and future. This enables a new generation of activists to learn from and honor the experiences of their elders.

Bio: Jack Rouse is a master’s student in the Environmental Humanities. They grew up in Richardson, Texas and received a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Texas at Austin. Their research interests include faith-based activism, public history, and the rhetoric of social movements.

John Flynn is a PhD candidate in History at the University of Utah. His dissertation focuses on conflict over land use in the Great Basin during the Cold War. In the latter half of the twentieth century, the Great Basin became a contentious area as local resistance arose against the federal government's use of public lands for "wastelanding" projects. John’s research explores the environmental histories of wastelanding, anti-federal resistance, and sovereignty through case studies of land use conflicts in the American West during this period. With the generous support of the Floyd O’Neill Fellowship, John will fund a research trip to the National Archives in Washington, DC, where he will conduct archival research for his dissertation.

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Sarah Dyer is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Utah. Her dissertation focuses on the impact contemporary water rights in the Colorado River Basin have on Native nations within the region. Her research focuses on the ways in which the social and ecological conditions associated with how water rights and water infrastructure are currently structured in the basin affect the social, cultural, health, and environmental conditions for these nations, in addition to examining how these nations and peoples are responding to the current structure of water rights and attendant issues and concerns. She is especially interested in examining whether nations with unresolved water rights face different social and environmental outcomes than those with resolved water rights. Her dissertation utilizes both historical analysis and formal interviews to explore these questions.