Contested Nature

Demonstrating that all notions of nature are inextricably entangled in different forms of social life, the text elaborates the many ways in which the apparently natural world has been produced from within particular social practices. These are analyzed in terms of different senses, different times and the production of distinct spaces, including the local, the national and the global. The authors emphasize the importance of cultural understandings of the physical world, highlighting the ways in which these have been routinely misunderstood by academic and policy discourses. They show that popular conceptions of, and attitudes to, nature are often contradictory and that there are no simple ways of prevailing upon people to `

How can the international conservation movement protect biological diversity, while at the same time safeguarding the rights and fulfilling the needs of people, particularly the poor? Contested Nature argues that to be successful in the long-term, social justice and biological conservation must go hand in hand. The protection of nature is a complex social enterprise, and much more a process of politics, and of human organization, than ecology. Although this political complexity is recognized by practitioners, it rarely enters into the problem analyses that inform conservation policy. Structured around conceptual chapters and supporting case studies that examine the politics of conservation in specific contexts, the book shows that pursuing social justice enhances biodiversity conservation rather than diminishing it, and that the fate of local peoples and that of conservation are completely intertwined.

Organized around issues, debates and discussions concerning the various ways in which the concept of nature has been used, this book looks at how the term has been endlessly deconstructed and reclaimed, as reflected in anthropological, scientific, and similar writing over the last several decades. Made up of ten of Roy Ellen’s finest articles, this book looks back at his ideas about nature and includes a new introduction that contextualizes the arguments and takes them forward. Many of the chapters focus on research the author has conducted amongst the Nuaulu people of eastern Indonesia.

A philosophical account of human nature that defends the concept against dehumanization, Darwinian, and developmentalist challenges. Human nature has always been a foundational issue for philosophy. What does it mean to have a human nature? Is the concept the relic of a bygone age? What is the use of such a concept? What are the epistemic and ontological commitments people make when they use the concept? In What's Left of Human Nature? Maria Kronfeldner offers a philosophical account of human nature that defends the concept against contemporary criticism. In particular, she takes on challenges related to social misuse of the concept that dehumanizes those regarded as lacking human nature (the dehumanization challenge); the conflict between Darwinian thinking and essentialist concepts of human nature (the Darwinian challenge); and the consensus that evolution, heredity, and ontogenetic development result from nurture and nature. After answering each of these challenges, Kronfeldner presents a revisionist account of human nature that minimizes dehumanization and does not fall back on outdated biological ideas. Her account is post-essentialist because it eliminates the concept of an essence of being human; pluralist in that it argues that there are different things in the world that correspond to three different post-essentialist concepts of human nature; and interactive because it understands nature and nurture as interacting at the developmental, epigenetic, and evolutionary levels. On the basis of this, she introduces a dialectical concept of an ever-changing and “looping” human nature. Finally, noting the essentially contested character of the concept and the ambiguity and redundancy of the terminology, she wonders if we should simply eliminate the term “human nature” altogether.

This work shows how expectations about land use, combined with interactions with nature have defined the Adirondacks. Outlining the disputes for the control of the land, the author introduces the key players from the residents, landholders, to preservationists and developers.

Contested Terrain explores the competing understandings of how best to manage this spectacular natural resource. Terrie introduces the key players and events that have shaped the region and its use, from early settlers and loggers to preservationists, year-round residents, and developers. This new edition includes a comprehensive account of the Pataki years, an era of stunning conservation triumphs combined with unprecedented pressures on the region’s ecological integrity.

Exploring the changing significance of nature in daily life, this text demonstrates that nature is irreducibly contested and embedded in highly diverse and ambivalent social practices.

This book is about how we have treated nature in some of the most valued landscapes in Europe. Combining social and cultural history with ecology and geography, T.C. Smout has written an environmental history that is both profound and accessible.The Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland, the Lake District and the northern moors and plains of England form a natural region. The crags, moorland, woods and wetlands have been both treasured for their beauty and biodiversity and reviled as unproductive deserts to be improved and reclaimed. The fields have been made more fertile for production and the waters tapped for industrial use, but at a certain cost. The contest between two views of nature - conservation versus development; use versus delight - is at the centre of the book. The author begins by taking a hard look at our encounters with the natural world. He shows how the Scots and the northern English never shared the southerner's view of their environment as intimidating, and describes how conflict between using and enjoying the land gradually arose and gave birth to modern conservation ideas. He reveals how the history of the woods - especially the 'Great Wood of Caledon' - is quite different from popular myth, and examines the history and fate of the soil and the fields; of the rivers, lakes and lochs; of the hills and mountains; and of the modern quarrel over the countryside.'By the end,' the author writes, 'I hope to have presented on my theatre a dramatic tale that tells us a fair amount not only of northern Britain, but something about the globe and the European west as a whole over the last four hundred years.'