An ethnography of the political and cultural investments in contestations between environmentalists, Chicanos, Native Americans, and government officials over the northern New Mexico forests.

Preface vii
Acknowledgments xvii
Introduction 1
1. The Cultural Politics of Memory and Longing 30
2. Sovereign Natures 62
3. Passionate Attachments and the Nature of Belonging 103
4. Racial Degradation and Environmental Anxieties 142
5. “Smokey Bear is a White Racist Pig” 183
6. Nuclear Natures: In the Shadows of the City on a Hill 228
Conclusion: On Piñon and Politics 276
Notes 289
Works Cited 345
Index 371

Jake Kosek is Assistant Professor of American Studies and Anthropology at the University of New Mexico. He is a coeditor of Race, Nature, and the Politics of Difference, also published by Duke University Press.