Modes of Prophecy and Production: Placing Nature in History

Cronon, William

doi:10.2307/2936590

Cited by 74 publications

(29 citation statements)

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“…This opens up the quandary between materialist and idealist forces-in this case between a realist position (the belief in an ontologically material and real nature) and an epistemologically relativist position (nature is a relativist construct) (Castree, 1995;Cronon, 1990). It is taken as a given in this paper that the natural world does exist, but that we can never entirely 'know' it.…”

Section: Ideologies Of Naturementioning

confidence: 99%

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Is Emile in the Garden of Eden? Western ideologies of nature

Tulloch

2015

Policy Futures in Education

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This paper will explore ideologies of nature including the 'Garden of Eden' and 'wildernesses'. It locates these ideologies as morphing to accommodate the later trajectory of the Enlightenment Project and its endorsement of modern Western scientific and technological principles. Beginning with the premise that nature is unknowable, this paper offers a critique of dominant Western cultural ideologies that function to domesticate and order nature. This goes hand in hand with ideologies and practices of domination and control in the name of scientific, technological and capitalist neo-liberal economic 'development'. The assumption that the boundary between nature and humans is crossable through scientific and technological knowledge is one that can be explored and challenged by examining how such knowledge is from the outset ideologically constructed. This paper will look at the concept of alienation from nature (as expressed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in 'Emile' and Karl Marx) to explore how modern schooling and the capitalist economy shape human-nature relations.

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Section: Ideologies Of Naturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is taken as a given in this paper that the natural world does exist, but that we can never entirely 'know' it. Instead we can approach the question of nature by studying how nature and economies, as very real material processes, interact in a dialectical fashion with ideas about nature (Cronon, 1990).…”

Section: Ideologies Of Naturementioning

confidence: 99%

Is Emile in the Garden of Eden? Western ideologies of nature

Tulloch

2015

Policy Futures in Education

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“…In 1991 the environmental historian William Cronon called for a new attention to 'landscapes in which power and difference express themselves, even those that seem on the surface least natural: cities, highways, slums, factories, hospitals, corporations, military installations, all the many places that give shape to the modern world'. 15 Cronon's call was for the analysis of an urban or metropolitan nature of the type already indicated here, but he also sought to direct attention to the mundane spaces of everyday life. It corresponds partly to Gandy's notion of the 'zones of indistinction', the transitory, marginal sites of urban existence, sites of violence and exploitation that he locates in the interstices as well as on the margins of the global capitalist economy.…”

Section: Simon Gunn and Alastair Owensmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nature, technology and the modern city: an introduction

Gunn

Owens²

2006

cultural geographies

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O ne of modernity's most persistent examples of binary thinking has been its separation of 'the natural' from 'the social'. As Maria Kaika has noted, this ontological division has found a more precise spatial articulation in the nature/city dualism. 1 As nature's 'other', the modern city stands in stark opposition to the natural world, representing the triumph of human technology and reason over non-human environmental forces. Yet this insistence on the separation of nature from the modern city obscures the ongoing historical geographical processes of transformation which radically rework nature in the service of the city. In response, this issue of cultural geographies presents four articles that provide historical insights into the paradoxical relationship between nature and the modern city, revealing on the one hand how nature came to be discursively separated from (urban) culture and how, on the other, the production of modern city spaces was predicated on the coming together of human and non-human resources, leading to a fundamental remaking of what Erik Swyngedouw has termed 'socionatures'. 2 Of particular importance here is the idea of 'metropolitan' or 'urban natures', understood as hybrid products of nature, technology and design.Over the past two decades the nature/society dualism, along with what Kaika calls modernity's 'Promethean project' of taming and controlling natural processes, have been the focus of a good deal of critical theoretical and empirical enquiry among geographers, historians and others. 3 The notion that nature is somehow external to social worlds and cultural apprehensions has been the focus of a broad interdisciplinary critique. Nature has come to be understood as something thoroughly social, and consequently shown to be complicit with the power and interests of specific groups of individuals. From the construction of knowledges about nature, to human interactions with the environment and to the ways in which societies physically transform and

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“…When we say 'nature', we say as much about ourselves as about the things that we name with this word, we also talk about the society in which we live in and the many conflicts that it is comprised of, whether they are related to class, gender, race and/or ethnicity. (CRONON, 1990(CRONON, , p. 1122(CRONON, , 11281996, p. 25). In short, an awareness of impressive complexity and paradoxes involved in the role and place of nature in human life can become important tools for critical environmentalism, mindful of its historic character and its cultural assumptions.…”

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confidence: 99%

Scheherazade tropical: narrativas e diálogos da história ambiental no Brasil

Duarte

2013

História

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Abstract:Evoking narrative elements of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, this essay discusses the apperaring and development of environmental history since 1970, in consonance with serious natural imbalances that have threatened the contemporary society. Environmental history enables historians to dialogue with environmental groups, scientists and researchers from various fields of social, cultural and political history. Large and promising research opportunities provide transdisciplinary and transnational approaches. One of the stimulating approaches relates to heritage, opening up perspectives for the study of the urban environmental heritage -as in the case of the ficus in Belo Horizonte city -and also the natural heritage represented by protected areas, such as the Trindad Island, in Brazil. Keywords: historical narrative; environmental history; natural heritage Resumo: Por meio da evocação de elementos narrativos d'As mil e uma noites, este ensaio discute o surgimento e o desenvolvimento da história ambiental desde 1970, em consonância com graves desequilíbrios naturais que ameaçam a sociedade contemporânea. A história ambiental possibilita diálogos sociais com grupos ambientalistas, cientistas de diversas áreas e pesquisadores da história social, cultural e política. As amplas e promissoras possibilidades de investigação propiciam abordagens transdisciplinares e transnacionais. Um dos enfoques estimulantes diz respeito ao patrimônio. Abrem-se perspectivas para o estudo do patrimônio natural urbano -como no caso dos fícus de Belo Horizonte -e do patrimônio representado por áreas protegidas, a exemplo da ilha da Trindade. Palavras-chave: narrativa histórica; história ambiental; patrimônio natural.Scheherazade was a maiden with a thousand qualities. A lady of extraordinary beauty, it is said that she collected storybooks about races and ancient rulers, scrutinized the proceedings and legends of ancient kings and she knew the work of poets by heart. As well as having intimacy with written culture, she knew about the oral narratives of storytellers. She studied philosophy and science, the arts and techniques. She was pleasant and polite, wise and witty, educated and well brought up. The owner of a prodigious memory, her courage was not less admirable, because, as we can see, she faced and mastered the fury of the dreaded Sultan

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Modes of Prophecy and Production: Placing Nature in History

Cited by 74 publications

References 0 publications

Is Emile in the Garden of Eden? Western ideologies of nature

Is Emile in the Garden of Eden? Western ideologies of nature

Nature, technology and the modern city: an introduction

Scheherazade tropical: narrativas e diálogos da história ambiental no Brasil

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