Jacob Tropp
Jacob Tropp has taught in the History Department since 1999. He received his B.A. from Haverford College and his Ph.D. in African history, with a secondary field in Native American history, at the University of Minnesota, where he was a funded scholar in the MacArthur Interdisciplinary Program on Global Change, Sustainability, and Justice. His dissertation research on social and environmental history in the Eastern Cape of South Africa was the basis for his 2006 monograph Natures of Colonial Change: Environmental Relations in the Making of the Transkei (Ohio University Press) as well as several articles published in African history journals. Over the past several years, his research has concentrated on the transnational dimensions of particular Native American histories in the mid- to late 20th century – focusing on health, the environment, and development. This work has appeared in the Journal of Global History, Comparative Studies in Society and History, and the Journal of World History, and has been supported by the American Philosophical Society, the American Council of Learned Societies, and visiting fellowships at the Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape (Bellville, South Africa) and the Rachel Carson Center (Munich, Germany). At Middlebury he teaches a wide range of courses related to African history, from introductory survey courses on early and modern Africa to topical seminars on women and gender, human-environmental interactions, popular culture, everyday life in South Africa, and liberation struggles in southern Africa.
Middlebury College
Session
The traumatic health and environmental impacts of uranium mining on the Diné (Navajo) peoples of the American Southwest in the late 20th century have become well-known cases of radioactive injustice. Yet much less recognized is how Diné experiences with uranium were also significant on a global stage. This paper examines the revealing trans-Pacific and trans-Indigenous networks forged among Diné and allied activists from Japan and various Pacific Island nations in the late 1970s and early 1980s. First, through their shared experiences of nuclear suffering, Diné anti-uranium activists found common ground with Japanese actors from an array of environmental, anti-nuclear, and peace movements. Solidarities and personal bonds were developed at rallies, workshops, and conferences across the U.S. and Japan – from the Navajo Reservation to Nagasaki. Moreover, through these exchanges, Diné participants’ personal accounts of uranium mining’s toxic toll had a transformative effect on many Japanese activists’ understanding of the nature and scope of global nuclear problems. These dialogues helped foster a growing awareness within Japanese anti-nuclear and peace organizations of the need to expand activist efforts beyond conventional concerns over bombs and energy production, to confront all stages of the nuclear fuel cycle and their toxic impacts – from uranium mining on Indigenous lands in North America to nuclear waste dumping’s effects on Pacific Islanders. At the same time, Diné activists worked alongside Indigenous actors from across the Pacific, at international fora in Japan and beyond, to highlight for global audiences the unique toxic predicaments and vulnerabilities of Indigenous people worldwide.