Nature Flashcards
1
Q
What might we think about in terms of where people live?
A
- Relationship between climate change and mass migration.
- Economic circumstances also have a big impact on where people live- some people have no choice but to live in places of vulnerability.
2
Q
What is nature?
A
- very complicated. We use it as a term all the time
- Nature contains a large amount of human history (Williams).
- Places of great natural beauty like National Parks actually have a lot of human influence.
- Act of deciding what nature is is a political statement
- Nature can be much more than just countryside e.g. Diseases can also be considered a part of nature.
3
Q
What does Castree claim that nature refers to?
A
- Non- human world
- Essence of something
- Inherent force
4
Q
What is anti-modernism?
A
- Desires nature as an antidote to modern alienation.
5
Q
What is an essential component in the relationship between nature and society?
A
- Capital is essential
6
Q
What is the posthumanist view of nature?
A
- Nature and society are not discrete categories of experiences.
- Humans and non humans are mutually constitutive.
7
Q
How are epistemological involved in nature?
A
- Similar to the work on landscape.
- Viewing subject- knowledge filter- understanding of nature- nature
- Epistemologies of nature might include science, aesthetic, recreational, embodied.
8
Q
Are human beings inherently competitive?
A
- Capitalism has a competitive nature
- Species which work together- are humans one of them
9
Q
What is the wilderness?
A
- American concept
- When we construct wilderness as something external to society, we blind ourselves to the fact that we are a part of nature.
10
Q
What is nature not?
A
- Politically neutral knowledge
- Nature is an element in the exercise of power.
11
Q
What is accumulation by dispossession?
A
- An accumulation strategy in which people (peasants, indigenous, poor) are disposed by their land and belongings as a precondition for assigning private property rights.
- Nature is an important concept in the strategy of accumulation by dispossession.
12
Q
How is nature related to Boreal Forest, Canada?
A
- Iconic Canadian symbol featured on money
- Presence of aboriginals often almost completely erased.
- Brings up questions about who owns nature.
- Boreal Forest was politicised as being very important for carbon. The construction of this carbon area gave a justification for poor treatment of Aboriginal people.
13
Q
What is neoliberalism?
A
- An economic ideology that gives primacy to markets as the best institution for allocation of resources- best way of generating desirable social outcomes.
- Can we still afford the welfare state? Let the markets decide the division of resources rather than the state.
- Do we need environmental regulations through the state?
- Neoliberalism intensifies pressure on ecosystems- deforestation.
14
Q
How is green environmental policy affected by neoliberalism?
A
- The idea that the use of markets should be used to overcome environmental problems. Idea is that if people really wanted to look after the environment, people would be willing to pay through all the markets.
- FSC is a good example of market environmentalism. Allows brands to show consumers that products are from sustainably managed sources.
15
Q
Describe the FSC in market environmentalism
A
- Example of a commodity agreement is for timber.
- FSC formed in the face of state and international opposition to having an environmental trade agreement.
- Has become a global brand.
- FSC has been formed without any state regulation or involvement. It is a market brand and therefore a neoliberal policy. It takes into consideration the individual and consumer rather than the state.
- Furthermore it doesn’t hinder trade.
16
Q
What does postcolonial theory seek to understand?
A
- persistence of colonial power after colonialism- tracing the way power is maintained even after a country has gained independence.
- how past organises experience in the present- understand how contemporary political relations are affected by history.
- how the other is represented- nature is other
- how knowledge is created in relation to otherness
17
Q
Describe Edward Saids view of nature
A
- Important figure in Human Geography with a particular focus on literature and orientalism.
- Felt that orientalism didn’t reflect his upbringing, in Asia.
- Orientalism is not a coherent entity and there is an element of imagination within literature.
- The Orient is far too diverse to be able to understand through the terms.
- A construction by Europeans to help themselves to understand Orientalism
18
Q
What are the agencies of nature?
A
- Water moves through the water cycle
- Forests burn
- Earthquakes
- Microbes- parts of nature that we cannot see
19
Q
Describe wolf packs in Algonquin Park?
A
- Wolves follow deer migration in winter
- Wolf call is now banned
- Local politics is partly constituted by deer migration
20
Q
Describe Puerto Rico Hurricane Maria
A
- Human vulnerability is a socially produced issue
- Unsuitable housing
- Uneven development caused by capitalist society/productions
21
Q
What are the consequences of greenhouse gases in relation to nature?
A
- Greenhouse gases are resulting in an increase in extreme events.
- One the one hand these are physical problems, but then clearly there is a human element and cause.
22
Q
What is relational ontology in relation to nature?
A
- In order to understand humanity, we need to understand the history of human and companions e.g. Dogs
- What it means to be human can no longer be disconnected from technologies. They are part of who we are.
- Coal mining enabled electrification in the mid twentieth century.
- During the 1980s, coal was vital. This also had implications for the labour movement and therefore politics and society- increase in trade unions.
- Coal mining became a political agent partly through the trade unions.
- This way coal mining shapes the landscape
