Remaking Reality: Nature at the Millenium/Edited by Bruce Braun and Noel Castree
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Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 01:12 27 September 2013 REMAKING REALITY In the face of political-economic, technological and environmental changes of unrivalled scope, the matter of “nature” is high on the agenda as the new millenium approaches. From wilderness to the composition of the human body, nature is increasingly “artifactual”, a social product fashioned by economic, cultural and scientific practices. Rejecting apocalyptic pronouncements that the end of the millenium represents the “end” of nature as well, Remaking Reality brings together contributors from across the human sciences who argue that a notion of “social nature” provides great hope for the future. Applying a variety of theoretical approaches to social nature, and engaging with debates in politics, science, technology and social movements surrounding race, gender and class, the contributors explore important and emerging sites where nature is now being remade with considerable social and ecological consequences. The essays are organized around two themes: “capitalising and envisioning nature” and “actors, networks and the politics of hybridity”. An afterword reflects on the problems and possibilities of future natures. For critics and activists alike, Remaking Reality provides essential theoretical and political tools to rethink environmentalism and progressive social natures for the twenty-first century. Bruce Braun is a visiting scholar in the geography department at the University of California, Berkeley and Noel Castree is a lecturer in geography at the University of Liverpool. Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 01:12 27 September 2013 REMAKING REALITY Nature at the millenium Edited by Bruce Braun and Noel Castree Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 01:12 27 September 2013 London and New York First published 1998 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1998 Selection and editorial matter Bruce Braun and Noel Castree. Individual chapters © their authors. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopy ing and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Remaking reality: nature at the millenium/edited by Bruce Braun and Noel Castree. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Human ecology. 2. Nature—Effect of human beings on. I. Braun, Bruce, 1964–. II. Castree, Noel, 1968–. GF41.R45 1998 304.2–dc21 97–35301 CIP ISBN 0-203-98396-3 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-415-14493-0 (hbk) ISBN 0-415-14494-9 (pbk) Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 01:12 27 September 2013 CONTENTS List of figures vi List of contributors vii Foreword ix Preface xi PART 1 Introduction 1 1 The construction of nature and the nature of 2 construction: analytical and political tools for building survivable futures NOEL CASTREE AND BRUCE BRAUN PART 2 Capitalising and enframing nature 42 2 Whose nature, whose culture?: private productions 45 of space and the “preservation” of nature CINDI KATZ 3 Fluid bodies, managed nature 63 EMILY MARTIN 4 Moving on from both state and consumer eugenics? 83 HILARY ROSE 5 Reasserting nature: constructing urban 98 environments after Fordism ROGER KEIL AND JOHN GRAHAM 6 Environmentalism, Wise Use and the nature of 125 accumulation in the rural West Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 01:12 27 September 2013 JAMES McCARTHY 7 The nature of denaturalized consumption and 149 everyday life ALLAN PRED v PART 3 Actors, networks and the politics of hybridity 168 8 Science, social constructivism and nature 172 DAVID DEMERITT 9 Incorporating nature: environmental narratives and 193 the reproduction of food MARGARET FITZSIMMONS AND DAVID GOODMAN 10 To modernise or ecologise? That is the question 220 BRUNO LATOUR (translated by CHARIS CUSSINS) 11 Nature as artifice and artifact 242 MICHAEL WATTS PART 4 Afterword 268 12 Nature at the millenium: production and re- 269 enchantment NEIL SMITH Index 283 Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 01:12 27 September 2013 FIGURES 5.1 Toronto urban region: political boundaries 109 5.2 Toronto urban region: major watershed features 110 5.3 City of Vaughan 112 5.4 Mattamy Homes advertisement 116 5.5 Mattamy Homes advertisement 118 11.1 The geography of Nigerian oil production 249 11.2 Location of Ogoniland and Shell oilfields 251 11.3 Nigerian annual oil production and prices, 1966–96 255 Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 01:12 27 September 2013 CONTRIBUTORS Bruce Braun is a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley. His work addresses the cultural politics of nature, social and cultural theory, and environmental and anti-colonial politics in Canada. Noel Castree is Lecturer in Geography at the University of Liverpool. His work addresses contemporary social theory and environmental thinking, with a particular focus on Marxist and post-Marxist thought. Charis Cussins is Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University. She has written on human reproductive technologies and the politics of conservation in both the developed and developing worlds. David Demeritt was until recently Post-Doctoral Fellow with the Sustainable Development Research Institute at the University of British Columbia. He is now a Lecturer in Geography at the University of Bristol. Margaret FitzSimmons is Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has written extensively on the political economy of modern agriculture. David Goodman is Professor and Chair of Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is the author of Refashioning Nature (with Michael Redclift, 1991) and From Farming to Biotechnology (with B.Sorj and J.Wilkinson, 1987). John Graham is a contract researcher for the Deutsches Institute für Urbanistik of Germany and planner with Berridge Lewinberg Greenberg Dark Gabor, an international urban design/planning firm based in Toronto. He is an associate editor of Alphabet City. Cindi Katz is Chair of the Environmental Psychology Programme and on Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 01:12 27 September 2013 the Women’s Studies and Cultural Studies Faculty at the Graduate School of the City University of New York. She is author of the forthcoming Disintegrating Developments: Global Economic Restructuring and the Struggle Over Social Reproduction, and is editor (with Janice Monk) of Full Circles: Geographies of Women Over the Life Course (1993). viii Roger Keil is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, Toronto. His research has centred on world city formation, urban ecology and urban politics, particularly in Los Angeles, Frankfurt and Toronto. His most recent book is Globalization, Urbanisation and Social Struggles (1998). Bruno Latour is a philosopher and sociologist and author of We Have Never Been Modern (1993). He lectures at the Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation of the École des Mines de Paris and at the London School of Economics. James McCarthy is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley, working on the political ecology of resource exploitation and the Wise Use movement. He has published on issues specific to the American West as well as on more general questions of nature and capitalist modernity. Emily Martin is Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. She has written on ideology and power in Chinese society (The Cult of the Dead in the Chinese Village and Chinese Ritual and Politics) and more recently on the anthropology of science and reproduction in the USA in The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction (1987) and Flexible Bodies (1994). Allan Pred is Professor of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley. He is author of Making Histories and Constructing Human Geographies (1990), Reworking Modernity (with Michael Watts, 1992) and most recently Recognising European Modernities (1995). Hilary Rose is Emerita Professor of Social Policy at the University of Bradford. Author of Love, Power and Knowledge: Towards a Feminist Transformation of the Sciences (1994), she has established herself as a leading critic of modern science. She is currently working on a book on human genetics. Neil Smith is Professor of Geography and Fellow at the Centre for the Critical Analysis of Contemporary Culture at Rutgers University, New Jersey. He is author of Uneven Development: Nature, Capital and the Production of Nature (1984), co-editor of Geography and Empire with Anna Godlewska, (1994) and author of New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City (1996). Michael Watts is Director of the Institute of International Studies and Chancellor’s Professor of Geography and Development Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He is author