Rochelle Bloom

I am a PhD student under the supervision of Dr. Brian Thom. I have spent the last several years conducting ethnographic research on traditional Native American land and resource use in lands currently occupied by national parks in the U.S. Projects have included ethnographic overviews and assessments, ethnohistories, traditional use studies, and development of ethnographic databases.

My interests lie in exploring ways researchers might bridge the gap between academic objectives and the legal mandates of land management agencies in collaboration with associated Indigenous communities. Much of this concerns issues relating to state occupation and management of Indigenous lands and how colonial narratives, methods of mapping, and decisions on what to protect have both physically shaped the landscape, public perception, and interpretation. I particularly gravitate toward interdisciplinary research examining multiple lines of evidence to explore the divergent narratives projected onto contested landscapes, seeking to develop context and nuance.

Publications

Bloom, Rochelle and Douglas Deur

2021    Through a Forest Wilderness: Native American Environmental Management at Yosemite and Contested Conservation Values in America’s National Parks. Public Lands in the Western U.S.: Place and Politics in the Clash between Public and Private. Kathleen M. Sullivan and James H. McDonald, editors, pp. 151-173.

2020    Reframing Native Knowledge, Co-Managing Native Landscapes: Ethnographic Data and Tribal Engagement at Yosemite National Park. Parks and Protected Areas: Mobilizing Knowledge for Effective Decision-Making, special issue of Land, edited by Glen Hvenegaard, Elizabeth Halpenny, and Jill Bueddefeld. https://doi.org/10.3390/land9090335.

Deur, Douglas and Rochelle Bloom

2020    Fire, Native Ecological Knowledge, and the Enduring Anthropogenic Landscapes of Yosemite Valley. The Routledge Handbook of Indigenous Environmental Knowledge. Thomas F. Thornton and Shonil A. Bhagwat, editors, pp. 299-313.