Exploring Submerged Resilience

Abstract Submerged under the reservoirs for large dams lie the remains of displaced communities that reveal the depths of “resilience.” Exploring the histories of such places brings to the surface not only a wide spectrum of resistance (the most common yet most limited definition of “resilience”) but also resilience in two forms: (1) an insistence on the value of inundated communities and the perspectives of people who call them home, and (2) the persistence of such places and people. These ideas have emerged out of the Atlas of Drowned Towns (drownedtowns.com). This digital public history project creates processes and spaces in which communities affected by dam-induced displacement can participate in finding, remembering, and making sense of the histories of such places. Currently under development with a focus on thirteen dams in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, the project’s processes include community outreach, engagement, and archiving events called “History Jamborees,” which help build a digital archive that contributes to the Atlas’s website. The artifacts, stories, and memories shared with the Atlas of Drowned Towns reveal acts of resistance, insistence, and persistence in the past, and those acts of sharing and participation themselves provide opportunities to express and define resilience in the present.