{"id":2568,"date":"2016-10-14T18:11:59","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T18:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/?p=2568"},"modified":"2016-10-17T17:04:58","modified_gmt":"2016-10-17T17:04:58","slug":"unexpected-media-blitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/?p=2568","title":{"rendered":"Unexpected media blitz"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week the press department at my university published a write-up in Swedish about this project based on an interview with me:\u00a0Utrotade arters \u00e5terkomst v\u00e4cker k\u00e4nslor<\/a>. The university press\u00a0contact Sofia Stridsman had seen that I had an article in The Washington Post<\/em><\/a> and wanted to find out more about my research. I thought it was a nice gesture, so I quickly agreed to the interview.<\/p>\n

\"Muskox<\/a>
A Swedish muskox? One of the muskoxen at Myskoxcentrum in T\u00e4nn\u00e4s.\u00a0Photo by D J\u00f8rgensen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sofia set up her piece with a\u00a0question that has driven much of this\u00a0project: Why do we see specific animals as typically Nordic and will reintroduce them, even though they have been gone for thousands of years? (“Varf\u00f6r ser vi p\u00e5 vissa djurarter som typiskt nordiska och vill \u00e5terinf\u00f6ra dem, trots att de kan ha varit borta i tusentals \u00e5r?”)<\/p>\n

As we discussed that question, we honed in\u00a0on the emotions that come along with reintroduction projects, which is a focus that the book I’m currently writing will also have. Guilt, hope and fear all enter into the picture in the histories of the beaver and muskox returns to Scandinavia. As I told Sofia, “It’s about more than biology and ecosystems and economic calculations. There are many emotions blended in.” (“Det handlar om mer \u00e4n biologi och ekosystem och ekonomiska kalkyler. Det \u00e4r mycket k\u00e4nslor inblandade.”) Uncovering those kind of motivations is what\u00a0makes humanities research on this kind of topic necessary.<\/p>\n

What I had not expected was that this article would lead to a number of local media appearances over the week.\u00a0I was interviewed by a local newspaper reporter on Tuesday, did\u00a0an television interview with SVT on Wednesday and a live radio interview with SverigesRadio P4 on Thursday. I was nervous about the TV and radio\u00a0because they were in Swedish and wouldn’t involve being able to ‘fix’ my speaking like a print reporter can. Amazingly, I made it through both ok. The Norrbottens-Kuriren<\/em> newspaper article “Forskare: ‘Vi lyssnar inte p\u00e5 de som p\u00e5verkas'” is online<\/a>. You can see the TV report<\/a>\u00a0(which includes both text and video) and\u00a0listen to my full radio interview<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a serendipitous\u00a0convergence, a reporter from Atlas Obscura<\/em> also contacted me this week about my work on the history of muskox. Cara\u00a0Giaimo had found my blog and was interested in writing about the geopolitics of muskoxen on the Norwegian-Swedish border. I was delighted to have her\u00a0interview me and use my research to write a fantastic article “The Great Scandinavian Musk Ox War”<\/a>. It ties together many strands I’ve had on this blog since 2013. It’s quite an entertaining read and I highly recommend it.<\/p>\n

One lesson we historians can\u00a0learn from my experience this week\u00a0is that the media is<\/span>\u00a0interested in humanities research, regardless of what we may hear from politicians. Environmental humanities research tackles the basic question of how humans get along with the non-human other, something which all humans do on a daily basis, whether or not they consciously think about it. This means we have something foundational to offer the public through our research. So we need to not be afraid to publicise our work by talking to our university press contacts, answering inquiries from reporters, and having a research blog that gets our work out into the world in real-time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week the press department at my university published a write-up in Swedish about this project based on an interview with me:\u00a0Utrotade arters \u00e5terkomst v\u00e4cker k\u00e4nslor. The university press\u00a0contact Sofia Stridsman had seen that I had an article in The Washington Post and wanted to find out more about my research. I thought it was a nice gesture, so I quickly agreed to the interview.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8,5,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beaver","category-muskox","category-reintroduction-news","category-publication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2568"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2577,"href":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2568\/revisions\/2577"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}