Handelsman, Jo. 2021. A World Without Soil: The Past, Present, and Precarious Future of the Earth Beneath our Feet. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Evans, Matthew. 2021. Soil: The Incredible Story of What Keeps the Earth, and Us, Healthy. Australia: Murdoch Books.
{"title":"A Chef, a Scientist, and Soil Erosion","authors":"D. Montgomery","doi":"10.3167/nc.2023.180205","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/nc.2023.180205","url":null,"abstract":"Handelsman, Jo. 2021. A World Without Soil: The Past, Present, and Precarious Future of the Earth Beneath our Feet. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.\u0000Evans, Matthew. 2021. Soil: The Incredible Story of What Keeps the Earth, and Us, Healthy. Australia: Murdoch Books.","PeriodicalId":46069,"journal":{"name":"Nature + Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46646520","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
C. Granjou, J. S. Cavin, V. Boisvert, Maud Chalmandrier, Silvia Flaminio, C. Kull, M. Moretti
In the last two decades, new academic journals, textbooks, and research networks attest to ecologists’ rising interest in cities. How did ecologists come to enter cities and to view them as places worth studying? To what extent does this new interest launch a broader redefinition of the type of knowledge that matters in ecology? Drawing on the new political sociology of science, and using a review of publications in urban ecology, we argue that the politics of urban ecological knowledge does not merely correspond to the promotion of a new subfield of ecology dedicated to cities: it has launched instead a broader, contested redefinition of the goals, practices, and relevance of ecology as a whole. We unpack the tensions between a “city-driven agenda” aiming to integrate ecological science into the interdisciplinary field of urban sciences, and an “ecology-driven agenda” aiming to research cities as part of ecological discipline.
{"title":"Researching Cities, Transforming Ecology","authors":"C. Granjou, J. S. Cavin, V. Boisvert, Maud Chalmandrier, Silvia Flaminio, C. Kull, M. Moretti","doi":"10.3167/nc.2023.180202","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/nc.2023.180202","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In the last two decades, new academic journals, textbooks, and research networks attest to ecologists’ rising interest in cities. How did ecologists come to enter cities and to view them as places worth studying? To what extent does this new interest launch a broader redefinition of the type of knowledge that matters in ecology? Drawing on the new political sociology of science, and using a review of publications in urban ecology, we argue that the politics of urban ecological knowledge does not merely correspond to the promotion of a new subfield of ecology dedicated to cities: it has launched instead a broader, contested redefinition of the goals, practices, and relevance of ecology as a whole. We unpack the tensions between a “city-driven agenda” aiming to integrate ecological science into the interdisciplinary field of urban sciences, and an “ecology-driven agenda” aiming to research cities as part of ecological discipline.","PeriodicalId":46069,"journal":{"name":"Nature + Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44467630","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the current study, we depart from migration biographies of first-generation Moroccan migrants living in Belgium to understand how environmental factors interfere in migration decision making and how its importance varies over life stages. Most Moroccan migrants came to Belgium as labor migrants or family “reunifers,” so little research has inquired whether and how environmental changes have played a role in making migration more appealing, at least during certain stages of people's lives. By applying a case study approach to three selected Moroccan migrants’ biographies, we aim to meticulously demonstrate how peoples’ migration aspirations have gradually developed over the life course and cannot be pinned down to either natural, cultural, or socio-economic factors. Rather, they should be understood within the wider changing socio-economic and natural environment while considering the interplay of factors within these environments.
{"title":"“You Can't Even Predict the Rain Anymore”","authors":"L. Ou‐Salah, L. V. Praag, G. Verschraegen","doi":"10.3167/nc.2023.180204","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/nc.2023.180204","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In the current study, we depart from migration biographies of first-generation Moroccan migrants living in Belgium to understand how environmental factors interfere in migration decision making and how its importance varies over life stages. Most Moroccan migrants came to Belgium as labor migrants or family “reunifers,” so little research has inquired whether and how environmental changes have played a role in making migration more appealing, at least during certain stages of people's lives. By applying a case study approach to three selected Moroccan migrants’ biographies, we aim to meticulously demonstrate how peoples’ migration aspirations have gradually developed over the life course and cannot be pinned down to either natural, cultural, or socio-economic factors. Rather, they should be understood within the wider changing socio-economic and natural environment while considering the interplay of factors within these environments.","PeriodicalId":46069,"journal":{"name":"Nature + Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47516730","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article presents the Hudson Valley of New York State as a broadly relevant case study to explore how the introduction of non-native species has historically served as a crucial facet of US (and pre-US) settler colonialism, undermining the more-than-human worlds tended by Native peoples and replacing them with assemblages of species conducive to European settlement. In it, I draw from long-term fieldwork with (non-Native) anti-invasive species practitioners who are increasingly doubtful about their ability to protect already stressed habitats from the ever-accelerating tide of new invasive organisms, despite their dogged efforts. In these desperate circumstances, what would it mean to shift from the prevailing approach that treats each new species in isolation and instead address the factors that enable invasiveness in the first place?
{"title":"Reframing the Invasive Species Challenge","authors":"Daniel Schniedewind","doi":"10.3167/nc.2023.180203","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/nc.2023.180203","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article presents the Hudson Valley of New York State as a broadly relevant case study to explore how the introduction of non-native species has historically served as a crucial facet of US (and pre-US) settler colonialism, undermining the more-than-human worlds tended by Native peoples and replacing them with assemblages of species conducive to European settlement. In it, I draw from long-term fieldwork with (non-Native) anti-invasive species practitioners who are increasingly doubtful about their ability to protect already stressed habitats from the ever-accelerating tide of new invasive organisms, despite their dogged efforts. In these desperate circumstances, what would it mean to shift from the prevailing approach that treats each new species in isolation and instead address the factors that enable invasiveness in the first place?","PeriodicalId":46069,"journal":{"name":"Nature + Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48086510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Faced with the ecological crisis, it is necessary to elaborate a cosmopolitical stance. Such a cosmopolitics indicates the degree to which traditionally political categories are in fact products of the ecological landscape. Bruno Latour helps us theorize just such a cosmopolitics. I argue that Latour allows us privileged access to the diverse agencies composing our ecological condition. Latour is primarily an ecological thinker. I explore Latour's own formulations of a cosmopolitics and points of contact between Latour and the broader tradition of political ecology as exemplified by the American environmental theorist Aldo Leopold. I claim that Latour's cosmopolitical program benefits from being placed into dialogue with classic ecological formulations such as Leopold's conception of the land community and its various normative implications—his so-called “land ethic.”
{"title":"Dark Laboratories of the Soil","authors":"Michael Uhall","doi":"10.3167/nc.2023.180201","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/nc.2023.180201","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Faced with the ecological crisis, it is necessary to elaborate a cosmopolitical stance. Such a cosmopolitics indicates the degree to which traditionally political categories are in fact products of the ecological landscape. Bruno Latour helps us theorize just such a cosmopolitics. I argue that Latour allows us privileged access to the diverse agencies composing our ecological condition. Latour is primarily an ecological thinker. I explore Latour's own formulations of a cosmopolitics and points of contact between Latour and the broader tradition of political ecology as exemplified by the American environmental theorist Aldo Leopold. I claim that Latour's cosmopolitical program benefits from being placed into dialogue with classic ecological formulations such as Leopold's conception of the land community and its various normative implications—his so-called “land ethic.”","PeriodicalId":46069,"journal":{"name":"Nature + Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47928708","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
When we started to plan this special issue, shale gas extraction and hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) as a technology and its related social conflicts seemed to be—except in very few countries, such as the United States—an environmental issue in a state of “fading away,” while still being of historical interest. However, things changed after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Beyond creating immense human suffering and massive destruction of Ukraine's infrastructures, the invasion has affected, and is affecting, distant countries, their peoples, and economies around the world, in various ways. One major issue at stake is the effect on energy markets and energy mixes in European countries, where strong dependencies on Russian fuels exist. Energy prices have skyrocketed, and several European governments (especially, Germany) had to reconsider their past politics of energy supply and transition. The war, so to speak, has unexpectedly opened a new window of opportunity for re-evaluating shale gas as a player in the energy transition (Teuffer 2022). This is mainly due to economic questions regarding energy prices, and political questions regarding energy autonomy and mixes.
{"title":"Introduction: What is Fracking a Case of?","authors":"R. Cantoni, Claudia Foltyn, R. Keller, M. Klaes","doi":"10.3167/nc.2023.180101","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/nc.2023.180101","url":null,"abstract":"When we started to plan this special issue, shale gas extraction and hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) as a technology and its related social conflicts seemed to be—except in very few countries, such as the United States—an environmental issue in a state of “fading away,” while still being of historical interest. However, things changed after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Beyond creating immense human suffering and massive destruction of Ukraine's infrastructures, the invasion has affected, and is affecting, distant countries, their peoples, and economies around the world, in various ways. One major issue at stake is the effect on energy markets and energy mixes in European countries, where strong dependencies on Russian fuels exist. Energy prices have skyrocketed, and several European governments (especially, Germany) had to reconsider their past politics of energy supply and transition. The war, so to speak, has unexpectedly opened a new window of opportunity for re-evaluating shale gas as a player in the energy transition (Teuffer 2022). This is mainly due to economic questions regarding energy prices, and political questions regarding energy autonomy and mixes.","PeriodicalId":46069,"journal":{"name":"Nature + Culture","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44152211","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The article presents a comparative study of shale gas media debates in Germany and Poland. Drawing from the Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse (SKAD), it addresses discursive conflicts over the use of hydraulic fracturing and its environmental impacts in both countries. The authors relate their analysis to the theoretical debate that emerged in the 1990s in French sociology concerning the question of “green justifications” that form a specific way of how social actors intervene, dispute, and build compromises in public discussions to protect non-human entities. Referring to these discussions, this article identifies several ecological justification clusters and the associated social actors that are ‘compromised’ or enclosed in existing orders of worth.
{"title":"The Ordering of Green Values","authors":"Claudia Foltyn, R. Keller, M. Klaes","doi":"10.3167/nc.2023.180105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/nc.2023.180105","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The article presents a comparative study of shale gas media debates in Germany and Poland. Drawing from the Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse (SKAD), it addresses discursive conflicts over the use of hydraulic fracturing and its environmental impacts in both countries. The authors relate their analysis to the theoretical debate that emerged in the 1990s in French sociology concerning the question of “green justifications” that form a specific way of how social actors intervene, dispute, and build compromises in public discussions to protect non-human entities. Referring to these discussions, this article identifies several ecological justification clusters and the associated social actors that are ‘compromised’ or enclosed in existing orders of worth.","PeriodicalId":46069,"journal":{"name":"Nature + Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45838517","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Our empirical study tackles the definition of shale gas within the French administration and gas companies before social mobilization erupted in 2011. We analyze how and why shale gas was neither considered problematic nor perceived as part of the political agenda, even though it was the object of policymaking. We argue that shale gas was caught up in a regime of invisibility shaped by the actors in charge of dealing with license requests. Invisibility was made possible by the administration's cadastral department, which considered itself as the sole expert in granting licenses, and because of the department's marginal position within the administration, which rendered shale gas proponents invisible to their own hierarchy. This regime of invisibility helped define shale gas as a “non-problem.”
{"title":"The Regime of Invisibility in Closed Spaces of Debate","authors":"Sébastien Chailleux, Philippe Zittoun","doi":"10.3167/nc.2023.180102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/nc.2023.180102","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Our empirical study tackles the definition of shale gas within the French administration and gas companies before social mobilization erupted in 2011. We analyze how and why shale gas was neither considered problematic nor perceived as part of the political agenda, even though it was the object of policymaking. We argue that shale gas was caught up in a regime of invisibility shaped by the actors in charge of dealing with license requests. Invisibility was made possible by the administration's cadastral department, which considered itself as the sole expert in granting licenses, and because of the department's marginal position within the administration, which rendered shale gas proponents invisible to their own hierarchy. This regime of invisibility helped define shale gas as a “non-problem.”","PeriodicalId":46069,"journal":{"name":"Nature + Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49172715","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The framing of shale gas development has received widespread attention, especially in the UK, United States, and throughout Europe. However, little has been said about what lessons can be learned from the shale development case about the role of language in use in the construction, contestation and closure of environmental problems. This article teases out and clarifies the subtle variations in the way the concept of the “frame” has been interpreted and operationalized; puts forward an analysis of the difficulty of achieving discursive closure in the UK shale development policy debate; and identifies possible implications of the failure of the “bridging fuel” argument for environmental discourse more broadly, asking in particular if this failure represents a challenge to ecological modernization or its continuation.
{"title":"Lessons from the Framing Contest over UK Shale Development","authors":"Laurence Williams","doi":"10.3167/nc.2023.180103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/nc.2023.180103","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The framing of shale gas development has received widespread attention, especially in the UK, United States, and throughout Europe. However, little has been said about what lessons can be learned from the shale development case about the role of language in use in the construction, contestation and closure of environmental problems. This article teases out and clarifies the subtle variations in the way the concept of the “frame” has been interpreted and operationalized; puts forward an analysis of the difficulty of achieving discursive closure in the UK shale development policy debate; and identifies possible implications of the failure of the “bridging fuel” argument for environmental discourse more broadly, asking in particular if this failure represents a challenge to ecological modernization or its continuation.","PeriodicalId":46069,"journal":{"name":"Nature + Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48524042","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The article presents an analysis of the use of Facebook on the over 400-day-long anti-fracking protest by farmers in the village of Żurawlów in Poland against the global corporation Chevron. Analysis of this case study was used to discuss the deliberative potential of social media and their power in countering hegemonic discourse and providing visibility in the public sphere to actors and arguments marginalized or excluded by the traditional media. The results discuss Facebook's potential for mobilizing and providing identity while emphasizing the problem of visibility in the public sphere, which was key to the inclusion of discourse in public debate. Harnessing emotions and legitimizing minority interests helped create counter-power, while polarization and “homophile acts” against deliberation geared toward arriving at an agreement.
{"title":"Does “Social” Mean “Public”?","authors":"Wit Hubert, A. Wagner","doi":"10.3167/nc.2023.180104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/nc.2023.180104","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The article presents an analysis of the use of Facebook on the over 400-day-long anti-fracking protest by farmers in the village of Żurawlów in Poland against the global corporation Chevron. Analysis of this case study was used to discuss the deliberative potential of social media and their power in countering hegemonic discourse and providing visibility in the public sphere to actors and arguments marginalized or excluded by the traditional media. The results discuss Facebook's potential for mobilizing and providing identity while emphasizing the problem of visibility in the public sphere, which was key to the inclusion of discourse in public debate. Harnessing emotions and legitimizing minority interests helped create counter-power, while polarization and “homophile acts” against deliberation geared toward arriving at an agreement.","PeriodicalId":46069,"journal":{"name":"Nature + Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45946063","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}