The Trouble with Wilderness: Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature

Re-examining culture/conservation conflict: the view of anthropology of conservation through the lens of environmental ethics

“…However, the author calls for a radical departure from the mainstream postmodern preoccupation with the social construction of ''nature'' (among other things; Escobar 1996) or ''wilderness'' (Cronon 1996;Neumann 1998;Whatmore and Thorne 1998) and, by implication, ''environmental problems.'' Conservational anthropology calls toward the conscious realization that extinction of species is not just socially constructed but needs to be ethically addressed; much in the same way the more traditional anthropological subjects -the local, the indigenous, the minority, and the poor -have been addressed.…”

Toward conservational anthropology: addressing anthropocentric bias in anthropology

“…Yet the remarkable omission in this discussion are the implications of human-animal conflict for the (very existence) of non-human actors (Zerner 2000;Eckersley 2004). Anthropologists seem to be preoccupied with the symbolic creation of environments (Zerner 2003), social construction of 'nature' (Escobar 1996;Smith 1996), or 'wilderness' (Cronon 1996;Neumann 1998;Whatmore and Thorne 1998) and by implication 'environmental problems.' Conservational anthropology calls toward conscious realization that extinction of species is not just socially constructed but needs to be ethically addressed, the way the more traditional anthropological subjects, the local, the indigenous, the minority, the poor have been addressed.…”

Marine Protected Areas: Territorializing Objects and Subjectivities

“…Nietschmann's case is included in a volume that argues for indigenous homelands as "…often the last remaining places of rich wildness and biological diversity" (Stevens, 1997, 1, emphasis mine). This human ecology model that puts the people 'back into' a wild nature (Cronon, 1995) arguably simplifies socio-natural interactions and is in danger of reifying the "ecological native" myth (Krech, 1999).…”