Uncommon Ground Analysis

In her groundbreaking work, “Trace,” Lauret Savoy argues that land and regional social norms are deeply intertwined with the past. Within a conception of Nature that is predominantly ecological and anthropocentric, Savoy’s contention that racial minorities and people of mixed heritage are disposed to feelings of alienation and struggles of identity, because of a long history of cultural erasure and suppression, is undeniably valid. She revises Alexander Cronon’s argument, in his work “Uncommon Ground,” whereby people who fail to identify with a specific home may not be willing take responsibility for environmental degradation, and they might even feel excluded from nature itself. Throughout “Trace,” Savoy argues that minority cultural histories …show more content…
Is it the place for which we take responsibility, the place we try to sustain so we can pass on what is best in it (and in ourselves) to our children" (Cronon, 89). Here he argues that our homes, and in turn humanity, should be included under the umbrella of nature for the sake of environmental betterment. Unfortunately, he fails to account for those who struggle to identify with a “home,” and have been deprived of its benefits due to cultural erasure. In describing her childhood feelings of alienation in the face of cultural erasure, Savoy shares, “My parents’ muteness once seemed tacit consent that generational history was no longer part of life or living memory…But unvoiced lives cut a sharp-felt absence…My greatest fear as a young girl was that I wasn’t meant to exist” (Savoy, 28). In the same chapter, Savoy also discusses the inhabitants of Boley, a historically black town, with whom she felt an “unabridged distance” (Savoy, 26). She writes, “These people know. They were born here they’ve lived here all their lives. They know their past. They know home” (Savoy, 26). Unlike Savoy, the people of Boley shared deep known roots in a single place. At the end of “Trace,” after uncovering many important fragments of her own heritage, Savoy writes, “To reach from California, the place of my birth, to this place of deeper origins, where roots began to twine, is a belated coming home” (Savoy, 181). As Cronon argues for the inclusion of “home” in nature, many racial minorities remain excluded from his imagining as their histories have been erased and suppressed. Therefore, in order for Cronon’s inclusive view of nature and its positive environmental ramifications to be fully realized, it is necessary for forgotten pasts to be uncovered or at least defragmented, and for horrendous acts of erasure to be recognized. Only then might all people identify with a