We listen to a cacophony of voices instructing us how to think and feel about nature, including our own bodies. The news media, wildlife documentaries, science magazines, and environmental NGOs are among those clamouring for our attention. But are we empowered by all this knowledge or is our dependence on various epistemic communities allowing our thoughts, sentiments and activities to be unduly governed by others? Drawing on over 30 years on research into the 'social constitution of nature', Making Sense of (...) Nature shows that what we call 'nature' is made sense of for us in ways that make it central to social order, social change and social dissent. By utilising insights and extended examples from anthropology, cultural studies, human geography, philosophy, politics, sociology, science studies, this interdisciplinary text asks whether we can better make sense of nature for ourselves, and thus participate more meaningfully in momentous decisions about the future of life - human and non-human - on the planet. This book shows how 'nature' can be made sense of without presuming its naturalness. The challenge is not so much to rid ourselves of the idea of nature and its 'collateral concepts' (such as genes) but instead, we need to be more alert to how, why and with what effects ideas about 'nature' get fashioned and deployed in specific situations. (shrink)

This book critically interrogates the work of David Harvey, one of the world’s most influential geographers, and one of its best known Marxists. Considers the entire range of Harvey’s oeuvre, from the nature of urbanism to environmental issues. Written by contributors from across the human sciences, operating with a range of critical theories. Focuses on key themes in Harvey’s work. Contains a consolidated bibliography of Harvey’s writings.

This essay offers a critique of environmental ethics and argues that a post-environmental ethics may be unavoidable. It does so by exposing and questioning the ontological assumptions common to otherwise different modalities of environmental ethics. These modalities, it is argued, rest upon an implicit or explicit 'material essentialism'. Such essentialism entails the belief that putatively 'environmental' entities have discrete and relatively enduring properties. These properties 'anchor' ethical claims and permit the objects of ethical considerability to be named. Against this, it (...) is argued that a non-essentialist ontology is preferable. This ontology presumes neither that environmental phenomena are simply environmental nor that their properties can be 'fixed' under some determinate description. Drawing on recent 'hybrid' research in human geography and elsewhere, it is suggested that the motility and mutability of ostensibly environmental entities be recognised. This recognition, I conclude, desta bilises conventional environmental ethics and calls for a more supple mode of ethical reasoning. (shrink)