Freedom and constraint: Generative expectations in the US stream restoration field

Abstract

The modern holistic wave of stream restoration was born in the 1970s from the combined support of a strong grassroots movement and new federal environmental legislation, most notably the Clean Water Act. Before holistic stream restoration could properly start, however, it was stopped in its tracks by two big issues: were the far more intensive interventions necessary to holistic restoration actually doable; and was it possible to reconcile the ecological goals of setting streams and rivers free with the powerful economic demands to minimize impacts from flooding and erosion? Taken together, these two issue called the whole project of stream restoration into doubt. But then a consultant, Dave Rosgen, stepped up with a restoration approach that promised both freedom and constraint: picturesque rivers teaming with game fish in a channel that stayed where it was put. Drawing on the sociology of expectations literature within STS, I argue that it was the expectations raised by this apparent resolution of the contradiction at the heart of stream restoration that transformed both Rosgen and the restoration field from shaky prospects into contenders, setting the stage for the exponential growth of stream restoration, and Rosgen’s success within in it.