Week 06 – the Production of Nature
einat manoff
All,
This week’s reading put forward a few approaches relating the notion of nature to urbanism, environmentalism and to social theory. Please deposit your thoughts below
Wilson, A. 1992. The Culture of Nature, Chapter 3 ‘Nature at Home: A Social Ecology of Postwar Landscape Design.’ Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 88-115.
Katz, Cindi. 1998. Whose Nature, Whose Culture? Private Productions of Space and the Preservation of Nature, in B. Braun and N. Castree (eds) Remaking Reality: Nature at the End of the Millenium. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 46-63.
Additionally, we will pick up one or two of the discussion questions that we left hanging last week (Neighborhoods) and we will have a little meeting of the minds around the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Lots to discuss!
Looking forward,
Einat
Simon Mertner Vind
I would like to continue the analysis of nature in modern cities and how nature is a tool to produce a specific and “desirable” behavior. As I’m not from New York I’ll base my points mainly on Danish examples (though I’m pretty sure that the following tendencies are general in western developed countries). The urban nature has gone through an evolutionary development dependent on what men of power wanted it to signal. We still have the ‘old English gardens’ which signals conservative and classic virtues such as absorption and decency:
(‘HC Ørstedsparken’ in Copenhagen landscaped in 1876-1879, a City Beautiful park in Denmark – now it’s a meeting place for homosexuals at night, but that’s a completely different story)
I will now jump 110 year forward - a little detour maybe, because the next thing I want to present is not directly a ‘nature design’:
In the 1990s the term ‘city life’ didn’t exist in Danish town planning. But then the (public) City Hall and the (private) restaurant business/sector allied in a plan that killed two birds with one stone: The City Hall allowed restaurants and café’s to service outdoor which was productive for both ‘city life’ and of course for business. This development is a part of the economic strategy/discourse called experience economy (or leisure economy) that have become extremely popular in the administration of cities the last 20 years. We can thank the author Richard Florida for that.
(Outdoor serving – good for city life, good for business)
In the recent years the men of power in the City Hall is apparently no more just satisfied by us spending a lot of money on café latte and cupcakes. Now they want us to be healthy and sweat out the café latte milk. This discourse is evident in present urban design: The new park design is a design who invites to active behavior and bikeways are planned throughout New York.
Parkour in Carlsberg, Copenhagen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWjmPNatbbo
Bikeway, New York:
Urban design tells a lot about the dominant discourses in modern society, both Cindi Katz and Alexander Wilson clarifies. Modern design is maybe not rational in a modernistic way, but it certainly is not random how the built environment takes form. Urban Design has another and more modern rationality but it is as purpose-oriented as before.
But what do planners, landscape architects and architects come up with after we are all healthy and skinny?
Simon Mertner Vind
in 'Google Groups' - in Gmail it looks must better...
On 17 Okt., 13:13, Simon Mertner Vind <simon.mertner.v...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> *“Changing environmental and cultural circumstances have brought changing
> aesthetics”* Alexander Wilson wrote in his interesting and sometimes
> of the gender swap in suburban gardens curious and funny).
>
> I would like to continue the analysis of nature in modern cities and how
> nature is a tool to produce a specific and “desirable” behavior. As I’m not
> from New York I’ll base my points mainly on Danish examples (though I’m
> pretty sure that the following tendencies are general in western developed
> countries). The urban nature has gone through an evolutionary development
> dependent on what men of power wanted it to signal. We still have the ‘old
> English gardens’ which signals conservative and classic virtues such
> and decency*:
> [image: image.png][image: image.png]
>
> (‘HC Ørstedsparken’ in Copenhagen landscaped in 1876-1879, a City Beautiful
> park in Denmark – now it’s a meeting place for homosexuals at night, but
> that’s a completely different story)
>
> I will now jump 110 year forward - a little detour maybe, because the next
> thing I want to present is not directly a ‘nature design’:
>
> In the 1990s the term ‘city life’ didn’t exist in Danish town planning. But
> then the (public) City Hall and the (private) restaurant business/sector
> allied in a plan that killed two birds with one stone: The City Hall allowed
> restaurants and café’s to service outdoor which was productive for both
> ‘city life’ and of course for business. This development is a part of the
> economic strategy/discourse called experience economy (or leisure economy)
> that have become extremely popular in the administration of cities the last
> 20 years. We can thank the author Richard Florida for that.
>
> [image: image.png][image: image.png]
>
> (Outdoor serving – good for city life, good for business)
>
> In the recent years the men of power in the City Hall is apparently no more
> Now they want us to be *healthy* and sweat out the café latte milk. This
> design who invites to active behavior and bikeways are planned throughout
> New York.
>
> Parkour in Carlsberg, Copenhagen:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWjmPNatbbo
>
> Bikeway, New York:
>
> [image: image.png]
>
> Urban design tells a lot about the dominant discourses in modern society,
> both Cindi Katz and Alexander Wilson clarifies. Modern design is maybe not
> rational in a modernistic way, but it certainly is not random how the built
> environment takes form. Urban Design has another and more modern rationality
> but it is as purpose-oriented as before.
>
> But what do planners, landscape architects and architects come up with after
> we are all healthy and skinny?
>
> - Simon
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > All,
>
> > This week’s reading put forward a few approaches relating the notion of nature
> > to urbanism, environmentalism and to social theory. Please deposit your
> > thoughts below
>
>
> > Katz, Cindi. 1998. Whose Nature, Whose Culture? Private Productions of
> > Reality: Nature at the End of the Millenium*. New York and London:
>
> > Additionally, we will pick up one or two of the discussion questions that
> > we left hanging last week (Neighborhoods) and we will have a little meeting
> > of the minds around the Occupy Wall Street movement.
>
> > Lots to discuss!
>
> > Looking forward,
>
> > Einat
>
>
>
> 100KVisDownload
>
> image.png
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William Cawthern
Cindi Katz’s “Whose Nature, Whose Culture” draws attention to the motivations behind “environmentalism.” She argues that there are ulterior motives behind certain expressions of concern for environmental health and sustainability. After the age of exploitation followed a series of natural resource crises, particularly with oil in the 1970s. These crises alerted people to the apparent need to preserve or restore natural environments or else our Western systems of economics will not be supported. Katz sees preservation movements as symbolic of the ownership that people claim to have over nature; in a word, she is suspicious of what motivates people (and corporations under the same banner) to advocate that natural areas be preserved. According to Katz, this is the privatization of the environment, and is no good for either society or the environment.
I find Katz’s analysis to be a little too eager to find dishonesty in Western society’s concern for the environment. While it is certainly true that to buy up land in poor, far-away countries for the purpose of “conservation” is just another form of colonization, and that corporate interest in environmental health is preening for good public relations, I am not so quick to judge every act to sustain or improve the environment as disingenuous. The wars over preservation and restoration are indeed highly politicized, but it is hard for me to imagine a world where such movements did not exist. These movements are necessary (no matter how helpful they are) because ours is an age where we cannot revert to pre-colonial times. I think Katz is disgusted with the fact that colonization and industrialization led us to where we are today, and she blames environmental preservation as just another mission of those eras, when in fact it is more like a reaction to them.
Wilson, in “The Culture of Nature,” has feelings similar to Katz about humans’ want to transform their landscapes. Wilson’s critique of environmental management is different from Katz’s in that it is more specific about what about landscaping is wrong: that people transplant foreign elements into an environment. Wilson here makes an important point that the simultaneous rises of suburbia and commercialism led to solidified norms that dictated how “nature” should look. For example, the desire for a green lawn has led people living in arid regions to paint their dry, dusty lawns green. It is these sorts of things – the acts of people to live up to expectations about nature – that reflect cultural understandings of the environment.
bradley brashears
Nature changed in the 1970s. However we ‘value’ nature, our conventions and practical engagements with the external world – ‘the environment’ or ‘nature’ – under capitalism have operated as if nature were given, a free good or source of wealth, an unlimited bounty awaiting only the ‘hand of man’ to turn it into a bundle of resources. – Katz p.46
The urban landscape of North America has been at the mercy of profit-mongers and exploitation resulting in numerous environmental concerns. The nature of capitalism has acted as a destructive machine, which has exploited the environment all in the name of profit and “human advancement”.
During the last century, many Americans left the farms of the countryside and headed toward cities and suburbs as the economy gradually shifted from agriculture, industrial and manufacturing to becoming more focused around the service and support industries. According to Alexander Wilson: “By 1970 almost 40 percent of U.S. citizens lived in the suburbs, which became, ideologically at least, the dominant land form on the continent.” From this point on, the American suburb had spread like wildfire, consuming land and transforming the natural environment into a man-made “natural” environment. Landscape design became increasingly profitable and could be witnessed everywhere from front and back yards, shopping centers, highways and freeways, suburban office complexes, schools and governmental offices. From a capitalistic standpoint the lawn care industry had become quite profitable. Selling lawn equipment and supplies such as lawnmowers, leaf-blowers, pesticides and fertilizers had become increasingly profitable as America moved to the suburbs and wanted a bit of “nature” for themselves.
Modernism focused on the standardization of landscape design that could be replicated from one suburban community to the next. If properly maintained, lawns, whether they be private or public, became indistinguishable from each other. Lawns were perfectly cut, bordered with trimmed shrubs and trees, exotic flowers, and lawn furniture – all of which turned a good profit but resulted in a homogenous suburban landscape that could be seen from backyards to community shopping centers. These perfectly maintained and uniformed landscaped lawns required large amounts of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers and water, which led to an increased concern for the environment. “The ‘byproducts’ of the regime are now familiar: given the intensive inputs of water and fossil fuels, there’s a related output of toxins that leach into the water table” (Wilson, p.93). Also, many different foreign species of plants, grasses and flowers were introduced, threatening the natural plant species and giving no individuality to cities and regions.
As environmental concerns increased in the 1980s, capitalism embarked on a new approach, which Cindi Katz termed “Corporate Environmentalism”. “The environmental language of nature as an ‘investment’ in the future took on an explicitly capitalist meaning with increasing privatization, whether in the form of ‘preserves’ or as a component of intellectual property rights, and as a result, nature was scrutinized and ‘mapped’ in wholly new ways” (Katz, p.47). In order for capitalism to turn a profit the environment would be exploited in new and different ways, all in the name of preservation and restoration. “…clean capitalism is better than dirty to be sure…” (Katz, p.52). Under this new capitalistic approach exploitation of the environment involved two conflicting sides. “Corporations curry favor with the public by funding various environmental projects from biodiversity protection efforts through watershed preservation to wildlife conservation. These companies may be among the world’s biggest polluters or habitat destroyers, but their environmentalism buys a protective if not mystifying shield for their actions” (Katz, p.52). Many companies will trade “pollution credits” in order to keep their exploitative activities while masquerading as supporters of the environment.
Today many cities and regions, especially in the western U.S., have set policies and regulations on water usage and have been reintroducing native plant species to areas to protect the environment and provide individuality to these regions. After years of standardized landscape design – causing great environmental stress – that physically defined the suburban American landscape, a return to what was “natural” is now gaining traction in many regions throughout the country. Hopefully this trend will continue to expand throughout the country even if corporate environmentalists continue to disguise themselves as proponents for the environment all in the conquest for exploitation.
- Bradley
Juan Carlos Quiridumbay
suburb influenced modern landscaping, in a way providing a better
physical environment for citizens in a community. Wilson gives the car
as a example to the transformation of landscaping design development.
He explains that the car was a big influence and part of many such as
giant boulevards and expressways. However, I think that this
developments have not only created damage to nature but also had
diminish the sense of what nature is.
Furthermore, the development of this “large-scale development” and
landscape design created lawn-care business, which profited from this
new develops and its need to take care the new landscaping design.
From what I see, nature provided us a land to work and live on and
gave us the opportunity to cultivated to make it better, but have we
respect our nature? Cidi Katz tells that this new developments created
a lot of damage to our ecosystem. For example, the usage of chemicals
to well preserve this landscaping was a major concern to communities
towards environmental problems.
However, the environmental issues of the 1970s have made the world
aware that we need better methods of building and protecting our
environment. Also, Katz states that preservation is a way for people
to have ownership of nature. However, I disagree with this because, if
people care for nature, they should protect it and not create more
environmental problems. I also think that since the 1970s agriculture
and landscaping design has made a huge impact to the world, because we
are using nature to the fullest in order to create spaces for people
to live in, but we all should be aware not to damage our nature that
has provided us with a land to live in.
On Oct 17, 2:27 pm, bradley brashears <bl.brashe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> *Nature changed in the 1970s. However we ‘value’ nature, our conventions and
> ‘nature’ – under capitalism have operated as if nature were given, a free
> good or source of wealth, an unlimited bounty awaiting only the ‘hand of
>
> >> All,
>
> >> This week’s reading put forward a few approaches relating the notion of nature
> >> to urbanism, environmentalism and to social theory. Please deposit your
> >> thoughts below
>
>
> >> Katz, Cindi. 1998. Whose Nature, Whose Culture? Private Productions of
> >> Reality: Nature at the End of the Millenium*. New York and London:
Tess Bath
This week’s texts address the differing social constructions of nature in an attempt to expose what we often assume to be an inherent understanding of what is ‘natural.’ I resonated with much of Cindi Katz’s analysis of the environmental movement and the new ways nature is being constructed to perpetuate uninterrupted profit. Asking “WHOSE?” and “FOR WHOM?” is forever an important question and ties into all of the issues we’ve discussed so far, whether it be whose public space, whose transportation, or whose plan. As important as it is to consider our localities, in the context of deep and extensive global relations it is equally important to understand the ways in which we are shaping spaces all over the world.
Katz lays out the ways in which capitalists were able to absorb the critique in order to maintain exploitative power dynamics. As opposed to structural change, there was an image change, and the marketing strategies were designed to target those aiming to ethicize their consumerism. I think this idea ties into what’s been going on at Occupy Wall Street, and what the hopes are for the future of the movement. As we are now at the one month anniversary of the occupation I find it significant and refreshing that there are no explicit demands being made. It has attracted a diverse group of people and while I think some are hoping for “reform” a good deal are hoping for “revolution.” Whether or not the latter is possible, especially with the unfortunate fact that many who are most affected by the structural inequities are less able to participate, remains to be seen. What I think is striking is that continuing to occupy without a specific platform recognizes that the problem is systemic, and there is no quick fix. It also provides protection against the appropriation of the message to appease those who are perhaps more concerned with “reform.” By not saying one thing they are implicating everything, which is something that cannot be distorted into a marketing strategy.
Sara
while not consistently measured as a cost in production. As consumer
and later business sensibilities became increasingly sensitive to the
environment, Katz identifies negative impacts of the success of the
sustainability movement as adopted by producers. She claims a
dissonance between the negative environmental effects of production
and the positive, low impact marketing terms that helps consumers feel
better about purchasing green products. Consumers may feel less
comfortable with their decisions if they knew the true extent of the
production process. The perpetuation of consumer culture is in itself
environmental hazardous and cultivated by green marketers.
Katz challenges the use of preservation to protect nature with
arguments that have parallels to those made in debates on the
preservation of historic buildings, for example, the creation of an
uneven landscape and the influence on development by defining a space
for protection. In nature, it seems that preservation authorizes the
development of undesignated natural space whereas it increases
pressure for neighboring development in the built environment.
Similarities of preservation in both of these contexts supports the
notion that nature and built space should be a part of space broadly
considered rather than distinct and separable.
Wilson looks most broadly at the cultural trends that influence how
landscapes have been designed in American over time. She strikingly
labels the suburban lawn as a product of industrialization, which led
to monocultures in the vegetation and contrived treatments in the
layout and trimming of plants and trees. I had never before considered
the transcendence of design trends on suburban lawns, which I had
previously associated with lacking design. Ironically, suburbanites
who intend to breaking from urban life are truly a part of
industrialization, in the economy, the production of housing
construction, and transportation (by automobile). These points remind
me that suburbanization is a process of urbanization, a configuration
of the same forces that shape cities.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > *Nature changed in the 1970s. However we ‘value’ nature, our conventions
> > ‘nature’ – under capitalism have operated as if nature were given, a free
> > good or source of wealth, an unlimited bounty awaiting only the ‘hand of
>
> read more »
Richie Alicea
that she finds Western culture’s efforts towards conservation somewhat
dubious and ulterior. A series of environmental and natural resource
crises after the age of exploitation, culminating in the oil crises
of the 1970s highlighted the need to preserve the environment. The
problem here was that because this sudden need of the pubic to
preserve our natural resources, according to Katz, arose not because
of altruistic motives but because people were shaken by the idea that
their needs could no longer be met by the current system, then the
preservation movement would become corporate-driven. What it amounts
to, in the end, is a privatization of the environment, driven and
controlled by private enterprise in the name of preservation when, in
reality, the motives behind the movement are solely opportunistic.
Because of this, Katz explains, we must be skeptical of the
conservation movement.
I agree with William, that Katz is a bit too eager to criticize and
find fault with the conservation movement, and especially society’s
collective concern for the environment. While she may very well be
correct that it was the threat of no longer having access to natural
resources, or the realization that those resources aren’t limitless,
that was the driving force behind the genesis of the conservation
movement, I feel that the reasons are not very relevant to begin with.
The end result is a positive movement towards conservation, so
whatever path that lead people to take part in that movement, whether
it was a real love for the environment or somewhat selfish intentions
(preservation of natural resources for the sake of consumption), is
not important, because the end result is ultimately positive.
Still, I prefer to assume positive intent, especially with
individuals. With this in mind, it’s difficult to imagine that every
single positive movement throughout human history was also driven by
positive events, as Katz seems to prefer. I feel that, many times,
these movements are more reactionary than anything. Think of the
Occupy Wall Street movement, which many believe is a positive, and
think about the events that have driven that movement. Taking Katz’s
argument and applying it to OWS, one can say that people are
protesting out of a sheer self-service, especially since they have
failed to come up with a coherent plan or list of what exactly they
would consider a success. I should say that this argument is simply my
playing devil’s advocate. I stand with the general ides of what they
are doing (there is a system that needs massive overhaul, and it will
take time to do it), though I do not agree with the organizational
aspect of OWS. Just thinking logically, when a group stages an action
meant to draw attention to a problem, and continue to stage this
action until the problem is solved, yet does not offer a plan for a
possible solution of that problem or even the details of what has
created that problem, then there is no room for movement, negotiation,
or resolution. There is no direction to go. My background in politics
has made me somewhat cold to unabashed idealism, because I’ve always
seen that a more nuanced approach, with an actionable plan and an idea
of what would be considered a success, would be most favorable. I’m
not saying I’m right, just that I can’t help how I read situations
like this.
Back to the readings, still, while it is believable and realistic that
perhaps the initial feeling after these crises was of vulnerability
with regard to natural resources, it is equally realistic to believe
that that feeling of vulnerability also lead to a genuine appreciation
for the environment and a genuine interest in preserving it. While my
positive intent argument may be considered naïve, I do believe that
Katz’s argument is overly negative and skeptical of people. Maybe
somewhere in between is correct.
-Richie
A.Baruch Tauber
Katz: Who’s Nature...
- If Katz is rejecting resource-based preservation as well as questioning Wilson’s ecological restoration, what is she proposing we do instead? (I noticed last few pages of the reading are missing... perhaps her proposals are there?)
How to create “a political ecology that is rooted in productions of nature that hold environmental concerns in tension with social, cultural, and political economic considerations”?(48) How to find “meaningful ways” (52) to deal with the paradox of subjective goals designing public space? Today we are plagued by misnomers of ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ living. New parks in the city are needed but they don’t make the city more sustainable, and many new ones are socially polarizing, undermining Olmstead’s vision of a democratic space while at the same time trying to follow his lead in a design that removes one from the street (and the unwanted social elements of the streets?) Is the solution not getting fixated on time and space like a pastoral painting superimposed on active urban landscape? is it rethinking public-private partnerships like the Highline?
- Do recycling and other green efforts contain intrinsic moral value? If they help us better appreciate our limited resources, mortality, and the world’s fragility and infuse with a new sense of purpose and community, is the movement therefore a worthwhile cause worth the capitalist branding crimes needed to promote it? As Katz points out, (52) we love to recycle but it only makes us consume more, like an HOV lane intended to discourage excessive travel (*snort*)
- “As such, preservation is quite unecological, defying natural history and the vibrancy of borders (reference to Wilson?)- physical, temporal, spatial, - where evolution change, and challenge are worked out in nature as in culture.” (54) If there is no one gets to decide the “holy from the unholy” than who gets to decide what stays? You want to leave it up to debate, I can see capitalists determining your democracy of space. Isn’t Katz’s own challenge to great for her own argument?
- Katz quotes Wilson that we should work on making “intelligible connections with each other and our environments via active work in the landscape” (56) Sounds brilliantly poetic, but how? Community gardens? Love farms? I’m in...
Wilson; The Culture of Nature...
* (92) “Regional character... is now a matter of choice rather than necessity” unlike the good(?) old days when local materials used had “an organic relationship” to their (time) and place.
Is this good or bad? Nostalgia or “ecology” necessary to us? Does this debate reference back to our modernism discussions? How does one create a sense of identity and placement in a world where almost nothing is indigenous to one’s location? Through locovorism? community gardens? (again?!)
*(96) Loved the analogy of the “edges”. the tension between the park-(and the)-way is what makes cities alive. (Every time a passing stranger settles on my stoop for while I thank the Heavens I live in a city where property lines (the distinction between public and private) are softer than some burbs, where one friend told me he speaks to his neighbors when he has a disagreement to settle, because “why else would I talk to them”?) The edges also explain why we are obsessed with living on the coast (105). Yup, we like to live on the edge!
<Abraham Baruch Tauber>
Samuël Poisson
What do we call nature ? Whose nature ?, as expressed by Katz seems to be the most relevant question. It considers indeed from the beginning nature as a category that need to be constructed among other categories. �Nature� is then a tool allowing to read the world, and interacting with it, under various modalities.
Wilson starts with the most obvious instances of landscaped �nature�, showing how human habits are shaping it. Each tree, square foot of grass seen in an urban area is planed to be there, acknowledged as part of the designed environment, or considered as weed. �Between lawn and weed passes the limit of the wild. Looking at the urban evolutions linked to the car makes clear the weight of those habits: nature is designed to look like nature, to be an ornament, from a certain perspective. And the car becomes the major perspective.
But mobility is not the only modality of those
interactions. Katz emphasizes the role of capitalism
in the understanding of nature. Seen as an endless resource
until the 70�s, the
nature is still a resource, yet limited. And this grounds
protection policies.
Because what is being destructed has a value, it is worth
preserving it. Once
again, the ability (and necessity) of capitalism to
revolutionize itself is
made clear. What appears as an obstacle (environmental issues)
becomes a new
mean of power. Nature can mean protected enclaves if it is
economically
justified. Or mean homogenization of all suburbs because for a
nationwide
retailer, it is easier (more interesting from an economic
perspective) to sell
everywhere the same product
(a tree
that will decorate in a similar manner very similar houses).
(concerning nature as a resource, see the examples of the Svalbard global seed vault - http://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/lmd/campain/svalbard-global-seed-vault.html?id=462220 )
and, in a much more critical way, the art project �la banque du miel� � Honey Bank, proclaiming �time is honey� and proposing bee savings account. http://www.banquedumiel.org/home.html )
�
History and popular imagery play an important role, as seen in the example of lawns. There is a rational origin to their existence. They were the result of the presence of sheep in a meadow. But the image stays whereas the usage is forgotten. And in order to imitate sheep, thousands of people will climb on mowers and burn some gallons of gas, having the feeling to do something that has to be done. This picture is so deeply rooted that the definition of the beautiful garden is not questioned. The lawn can even be the last appearance of civilization that can be kept. In Detroit, inhabitants of empty streets cut lawns around abandoned houses.
�
It seems that the only nature that can be tolerated is the one of which we can precisely control both the definition and the shape. The good nature is domesticated.
Humans spontaneously consider themselves as out of the nature, as part of a separate category called culture. But nature, as defined by humans, is a part of the culture. Moreover, all the terrestrial space is covered by human -thus cultural- artifacts. Would �nature be only an entity of the past, surviving through some romantic conceptions ?
One element is still operating to distinguish between nature and culture: the law. Under culture we will find human laws, created and discussed by human, whereas nature has its own laws, not negotiable. We can understand the apparent fear of nature, fear of the wild : symbolically, it sends back to the limits of human power.
But this is while working on this limit that a political shift is possible. Because we consider nature as having other and autonomous rules, it appears as an object to which we don�t belong. But we are constantly acting with laws of nature to transform it, so that objects are hybrids of nature and culture. (B. Latour) Consider those hybrids as such would mean accompany them in the sphere of culture, imagining that persons can interact with them in that sphere, following human laws. The issue of considering the nature as a resource could be transformed through that shift, enabling an encounter between human and non-human.
Practically, this can mean experimenting other relationships to nature. Restoration of nature can be one of those experiments if we imagine people getting involved in such movements. The process of restoration is more important than its result, from a political point of view. Wilson underlines the value of the intervention, of the possibility to be active. Restoration can only be an aspect among others, but that invalidate it as Katz seems to argue ?
�
Le 17/10/11 10:20, einat manoff a �crit�:
All,
This week�s reading put forward a few� approaches relating the notion of nature to urbanism, environmentalism and to social theory. �Please deposit your thoughts below
�
Wilson, A. 1992. The Culture of Nature, Chapter 3 �Nature at Home: A Social Ecology of Postwar Landscape Design.� Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 88-115.
�
Katz, Cindi. 1998. Whose Nature, Whose Culture? Private Productions of Space and the Preservation of Nature, in B. Braun and N. Castree (eds) Remaking Reality: Nature at the End of the Millenium. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 46-63.
�
Additionally,� we will pick up one or two of the discussion questions that we left hanging last week (Neighborhoods) and we will have a little meeting of the minds around the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Marc Pearce
From the beginning of the XXth century to today, Wilson reminds us
that nature is a cultural construct. Many representations of nature
have followed one another, from the romantic obsession for
breathtaking vistas to the Modernist’s functional use of nature and to
the integrated development of the restorationists.
But today, nature has returned as an agent of human activity. The
ecological imperative that we face has brought us to resist the
mechanical, Descartien definition of nature that sees it as merely a
resource - however finite – to be consumed. We now realize that the
standardization of landscaping and of the horticultural industry has
led to the impoverishment of our ecosystems and to the fragility of
our natural resources.
Today, certain cultural trends such as the Hippy movement and maybe
today’s Bo-Bo (Boohemian Bourgeoisie) help sensitize our society to
the ecological emergency by introducing nature as a legitimate
cultural issue. These cultural trends introduce plants, medicines and
foods sourced in greater genetic diversity. These cultures as well as
the multitude of activist groups that have come about, emphasize
greatly on alternatives to the use of fertilizers, pesticides and
other practices damageable to local ecosystems.
But, for Katz, the realizations of the finite nature of the resources
that lie in the wildlife have led to the privatization of public
environments. Protecting the nature has become a strategy of
accumulation; biodiversity has become an investment. Nature is
introduced in the capitalist game and is being monopolized by greater
capital at the expense of local inhabitants and more generally what we
could call the 99%. While Wilson does point out the cultural
construction of nature, he fails to mention it’s social and economic
determination. Katz asks: who decides what is to be preserved or
nurtured? Who does it profit?
For Katz, the environmental culture Wilson was referring to has a
negative impact because it creates a moral shield around more
systematic ecological deteriorations. Recycling or buying “green”,
“eco-friendly” products alleviates our cares. The individualization of
ecological issues and their solutions strips us of our sense of
responsibility and allows the continual violence that is done to
nature and to men.
While I don’t completely agree with Katz’s criticism, it does address
a very relevant point. The incorporation of ecological concerns in our
cultural representation seems to me to be of paramount importance. The
advent of environmental or ecological culture is a historically
important one, comparable to the culture our society has cultivated
around other notions like human rights. Nevertheless, while it is
important for our society to fully integrate these issues, we are
confronted with their structural nature. Is recycling or donating to
humanitarian associations enough to solve the problems of society?
The Occupy Wall Street movement might be an alternate response. Born
from the general indignation of some (99%), it may be a response to
the inability of corporate governments - surpassed by the capitalist
system in which they are rooted - to answer in any meaningful way to
the structural ineptness of our society.
In light of these considerations, it seems designing more sustainable
landscapes could be thought in a more systematic way and should
question the fundamental economic and social mechanisms on which our
society is built.