Knowing Nature

by Goldman, Mara J.; Nadasdy, Paul; Turner, Matthew D.

• ISBN13: 9780226301419
• ISBN10: 0226301419
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-04-15
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Political ecology and science studies have found fertile meeting ground in environmental studies. While the two distinct areas of inquiry approach the environment from different perspectivesone focusing on the politics of resource access and the other on the construction and perception of knowledgetheir work is actually more closely aligned now than ever before. Knowing Naturebrings together political ecologists and science studies scholars to showcase the key points of encounter between the two fields and how this intellectual mingling creates a lively and more robust ecological framework for the study of environmental politics. The contributors all actively work at the interface between these two fields, and here they use empirical material to explore questions of theoretical and practical import for understanding the politics that surround nature-society relations, from wildlife management in the Yukon to soil fertility in Kenya. In addition, they examine how various environmental knowledge claims are generated, packaged, promoted, and accepted (or rejected) by the different actors involved in specific cases of environmental management, conservation, and development. Finally, they ask what is at stake in the struggles surrounding environmental knowledge, how such struggles shape conceptions of the environment, and whose interests are served in the process.

Author Biography

Mara J. Goldman is assistant professor of geography and faculty associate in the Institute for Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Paul Nadasdy is associate professor of anthropology and American Indian studies at Cornell University. Matthew D. Turner is professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
Production of Environmental Knowledge: Scientists, Complex Natures, and the Question of Agency
Introduction	p. 25
Politicizing Environmental Explanations: What Can Political Ecology Learn from Sociology and Philosophy of Science?	p. 31
Debating the Science of Using Marine Turtles: Boundary Work among Species Experts	p. 47
Technobiological Imaginaries: How Do Systems Biologists Know Nature?	p. 65
Agency, Structuredness, and the Production of Knowledge within Intersecting Processes	p. 81
Fermentation, Rot, and Other Human-Microbial Performances	p. 99
Ferricrete, Forests, and Temporal Scale in the Production of Colonial Science in Africa	p. 113
Application of Environmental Knowledge: The Politics of Constructing Society/Nature
Introduction	p. 129
ôWe Don't Harvest Animals; We Kill Themö: Agricultural Metaphors and the Politics of Wildlife Management in the Yukon	p. 135
Political Violence and Scientific Forestry: Emergencies, Insurgencies, and Counterinsurgencies in Southeast Asia	p. 152
Spatial-Geographic Models of Water Scarcity and Supply in Irrigation Engineering and Management: Bolivia, 1952-2009	p. 167
The Politics of Connectivity across Human-Occupied Landscapes: Corridors near Nairobi National Park Kenya	p. 186
Circulation of Environmental Knowledge: Networks, Expertise, and Science in Practice
Introduction	p. 203
Rooted Networks, Webs of Relation, and the Power of Situated Science: Bringing the Models Back Down to Earth in Zambrana	p. 209
Circulating Science, Incompletely Regulating Commodities: Governing from a Distance in Transnational Agro-Food Networks	p. 227
Reclaiming the Technological Imagination: Water, Power, and Place in India	p. 244
Circulating Knowledge, Constructing Expertise	p. 263
Experiments as ôPerformancesö: Interpreting Farmers' Soil Fertility Management Practices in Western Kenya	p. 280
Conclusion	p. 297
References	p. 305
List of Contributors	p. 343
Index	p. 345
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