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Politics of Nature POLITICS OF NATURE POLITICS OF NATURE How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy ▲▲▲ Bruno Latour Translated by Catherine Porter HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England 2004 Copyright © 2004 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America This book was originally published as Politiques de la nature, by Editions La Découverte, Paris. library of congress cataloging-in-publication data Latour, Bruno. [Politiques de la nature. English] Politics of nature : how to bring the sciences into democracy / Bruno Latour ; translated by Catherine Porter. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-674-01289-5 (cloth) — ISBN 0-674-01347-6 (pbk.) 1. Political ecology. I. Title. JA75.8.L3813 2004 320.5′8—dc22 2003057134 For Isabelle Stengers, Vinciane Despret, and David Western, three true practitioners of cosmopolitics Acknowledgments The French Ministry of the Environment, through its Division of Studies and Research, has generously supported this unconventional basic research project that aimed from the outset at the production of a book (contract no. 96060). It goes without saying that the ministry is in no way responsible for the result. I have benefited throughout from the indispensable support of Claude Gilbert, whose liaison work made it possible to create a French environment conducive to original re- search on collective risk. I thank the students of the London School of Economics, and especially Noortje Marres, for helping me during two courses I taught there on the politics of nature and for giving this en- terprise its definitive form. I am immensely grateful to the experts who first agreed to put my drafts to the test, especially Marie-Angèle Hermitte, Gérard de Vries, and Laurent Thévenot. To name all the others would mean prematurely exposing the extent of my limitations and my debts. Their most important contributions are included in the notes. I also thank Graham Harman for many witty comments on the French edition. This book could not have progressed without the invaluable work done by Florian Charvolin on the Ministry of the Environment, by Rémi Barbier on waste products, by Patricia Pellegrini on farm ani- mals, by Elizabeth Rémy on high-tension power lines, by Jean-Claude Petit on nuclear reactors, by Yannick Barthe on the burial of radioac- tive waste, and by Vololona Rabeharisoa and Michel Callon on the French Muscular Dystrophy Association. I have dedicated this work to Isabelle Stengers and Vinciane ACKNOWLEDGMENTS viii Despret. I shamelessly looted Stengers’ Cosmopolitics, as well as Callon’s research on the anthropology of the market. During the two years I spent writing this book, my constant aim was to do justice to the truly historic experience of my friend David Western, then direc- tor of the Kenya Wildlife Service at a critical juncture—although I re- mained well aware of the immense distance separating the politics of nature that I was drafting in my study among the meditative cows of the Bourbonnais from the politics of nature that he practices every day in the field among elephants, Masai, tourists, international donors, lo- cal politicians, and herds of buffalo and gnus—not to mention his “dear colleagues” and other meat-eating species...FortheEnglish edition, I abstained from making any major modifications, except for deleting the annex to Chapter 1. I edited and updated some of the foot- notes, deleted those relevant only for the French, and added a few to address objections made since the original publication. I made very few changes in the body of the text, except for clarification. Those mi- nor deletions and additions are entirely due to me and not to the translator, Catherine Porter, from whose remarkable skill and benevo- lence I was fortunate enough to profit once again. Contents Introduction: What Is to Be Done with Political Ecology? 1 1. Why Political Ecology Has to Let Go of Nature 9 First, Get Out of the Cave 10 Ecological Crisis or Crisis of Objectivity? 18 The End of Nature 25 The Pitfall of “Social Representations” of Nature 32 The Fragile Aid of Comparative Anthropology 42 What Successor for the Bicameral Collective? 49 2. How to Bring the Collective Together 53 Difficulties in Convoking the Collective 57 First Division: Learning to Be Circumspect with Spokespersons 62 Second Division: Associations of Humans and Nonhumans 70 Third Division between Humans and Nonhumans: Reality and Recalcitrance 77 A More or Less Articulated Collective 82 The Return to Civil Peace 87 3. A New Separation of Powers 91 Some Disadvantages of the Concepts of Fact and Value 95 The Power to Take into Account and the Power to Put in Order 102 The Collective’s Two Powers of Representation 108 CONTENTS x Verifying That the Essential Guarantees Have Been Maintained 116 A New Exteriority 121 4. Skills for the Collective 128 The Third Nature and the Quarrel between the Two “Eco” Sciences 131 Contribution of the Professions to the Procedures of the Houses 136 The Work of the Houses 164 The Common Dwelling, the Oikos 180 5. Exploring Common Worlds 184 Time’s Two Arrows 188 The Learning Curve 194 The Third Power and the Question of the State 200 The Exercise of Diplomacy 209 War and Peace for the Sciences 217 Conclusion: What Is to Be Done? Political Ecology! 221 Summary of the Argument (for Readers in a Hurry...) 231 Glossary 237 Notes 251 Bibliography 287 Index 301 POLITICS OF NATURE Introduction What Is to Be Done with Political Ecology? What is to be done with political ecology? Nothing. What is to be done? Political ecology! All those who have hoped that the politics of nature would bring about a renewal of public life have asked the first question, while not- ing the stagnation of the so-called “green” movements. They would like very much to know why so promising an endeavor has so often come to naught. Appearances notwithstanding, everyone is bound to answer the second question the same way. We have no choice: politics does not fall neatly on one side of a divide and nature on the other. From the time the term “politics” was invented, every type of politics has been defined by its relation to nature, whose every feature, prop- erty, and function depends on the polemical will to limit, reform, es- tablish, short-circuit, or enlighten public life. As a result, we cannot choose whether to engage in political ecology or not; but we can choose whether to engage in it surreptitiously, by distinguishing between questions of nature and questions of politics, or explicitly, by treating those two sets of questions as a single issue that arises for all collectives. While the ecology movements tell us that nature is rapidly invading politics, we shall have to imagine—most often aligning ourselves with these movements but sometimes against them—what a politics finally freed from the sword of Damocles we call nature might be like. Critics will argue that political ecology already exists. They will tell us that it has countless nuances, from the most profound to the most superficial, including all possible utopian, rational, or free-market forms. Whatever reservations we may have about them, these move- 1 POLITICS OF NATURE 2 ments have already woven innumerable bonds between nature and politics. Indeed, this is just what they all claim to be doing: finally un- dertaking a politics of nature; finally modifying public life so that it takes nature into account; finally adapting our system of production to nature’s demands; finally preserving nature from human degrada- tion through a sustainable politics. In short, in many often vague and sometimes contradictory guises, concern for nature has already been introduced into political life. How could I claim that there is a new task here, one that has not yet been taken up? People may argue over its usefulness, they may quibble over its applications, but we cannot behave as if the task has not al- ready been addressed, as if it had not already been to a considerable extent accomplished. If political ecology has turned out to be such a disappointment, it is not because no one has tried to make a place for nature within public life. If political ecology is losing its influence, ac- cording to some, this is simply because the interests lined up against it are too powerful; according to others, it is because political ecology has never had enough substance to compete with the age-old practice of politics as usual. In any event, it is too late to reopen the issue yet again. We need either to bury the movement in the already well- stocked cemetery of outdated ideologies, or else we need to fight still more courageously to ensure that the movement will triumph in its present form. In either case, the die is cast, the concepts are identified, the positions are known. You are showing up too late for a debate whose terms are already set in concrete. The time for reflection is past. You should have spoken up ten years ago. In this book, I should like to propose a different hypothesis that may justify my ill-timed intervention. From a conceptual standpoint, polit- ical ecology has not yet begun to exist. The words “ecology” and “poli- tics” have simply been juxtaposed without a thoroughgoing rethinking of either term; as a result, we can draw no conclusions from the trials that the ecology movements have gone through up to now, either about their past failures or about their possible successes. The reason for the delay is very simple. People have been much too quick to be- lieve that it sufficed to recycle the old concepts of nature and politics unchanged, in order to establish the rights and manners of a political ecology.
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