Chasing Flames: Racial Capitalism in Fire Ecology Research and Praxis

Abstract

This dissertation explores fire ecology and its applications in settler colonial environments. It introduces the framework of pyrosociality to understand fire’s role in ecosystems, guided by an analysis of racial capitalism. Fire ecology has traditionally been framed within positivist scientific methodologies that separate human and natural worlds, yet this framing fails to account for the historical, cultural, and relational dynamics of fire. Rooted in colonial histories, these scientific paradigms often overlook the entangled relationships between fire, ecosystems, and the social, political, and economic systems that shape them. By situating fire within the context of racial capitalism - a system of racialized and capitalist exploitation of both human and more-than-human worlds, this dissertation challenges the dominant frameworks of fire science and introduces a new analytic that integrates fire’s ecological and social dimensions.

This dissertation draws from science and technology studies (STS), environmental humanities, anthropology, Black studies, and decolonial scholarship. Through ethnographic fieldwork at a fire ecology laboratory in northern California, discourse analysis, and a review of grey literature and archival sources, the dissertation argues that fire ecology, as a scientific discipline, continues to perpetuate colonial and capitalist logics that shape environmental governance. These logics are deeply embedded in the ways fire regimes are studied and managed, particularly within the context of settler colonialism and the racialized politics of environmental governance.

A central contribution of this dissertation is the use and the expansion of the framework of pyrosociality, a theoretical approach that positions fire as part of multispecies, more-than-human networks, in order to appraise the conditions in which fire ecology emerged as a discipline. This framework shifts the focus from fire as a destructive, isolated event to an ongoing, relational process that is intertwined with human and ecological communities. By framing fire as a companion reaction, the dissertation challenges the reductionist, mechanistic approaches of fire ecology and highlights the social, cultural, and ecological dimensions of fire. This perspective illuminates how fire is both shaped by and shapes the complex dynamics of racial capitalism, colonialism, and environmental governance.

Drawing on case studies from California, the Amazon, and Greece, the dissertation explores how fire regimes in these regions reflect different facets of racial capitalism and colonial histories. In particular, it examines how fire is managed in ways that reinforce the separation between “wild” and “domestic” spaces - an ideological division that underpins both fire ecology and colonial land management practices. This critique extends to the concept of the wildland-urban interface (WUI), revealing how it both challenges and reinforces colonial and capitalist frameworks by obscuring the historical and racialized dynamics of land ownership and environmental management.

Additionally, the dissertation makes a significant methodological contribution by integrating arts-based approaches alongside established frameworks of research within the STS. By incorporating embodied and sensory knowledge into the study of fire, the research offers new ways of understanding fire’s socioecological impacts and emphasizes the importance of relational knowledges in confronting the complex challenges of climate change and ecological crises.

Ultimately, this dissertation argues that fire ecology, when viewed through the lens of pyrosociality and racial capitalism, offers a powerful site for rethinking the relationships between humans, ecosystems, and the more-than-human world, and the epistemological foundations of the natural sciences themselves. By reimagining fire as a relational force rather than a natural or social problem to be controlled, this work opens up new possibilities for imagining coexistence with ecosystem fires that are more attuned to the complexities of colonial history, racial justice, and the dynamics of ecological pasts and possible futures.