Nature - autonomous learning

de-naturalisation 175when they arise then we may be slow to act and may suffer theconsequences later.• Do you think that factual claims about what is (or is not) ‘natural’ canbe disentangled from moral claims about nature? Consider the issue of‘race’, for instance. Racial differences between people are often thoughtto be biological differences (of genotype and/or phenotype). If, associal constructionism argues, racial differences are not given in naturethen what, if anything, follows morally from demonstrating this? Doesit automatically follow that we should condemn or criticise people whohold on to naturalistic views of racial difference?FURTHER READINGObviously, readers should consult the works by Harvey, Watts, Forsyth,Moore, Cronon, Braun, Bartram and Shobrook, Castree, and Kloppenburg(1988: chs 1 and 2) discussed in this chapter.These are best read immediatelyafter the section of the chapter in which they are summarised. Forfurther information on the social construction of nature debate see thereadings cited in Box 3.5.The follow-up readings for the various parts ofthis chapter are extensive and relate to its main sections on the discursiveand material construction of nature. Some of these readings are also citedin Box 3.5.For more on the relationship between population and resourcessee Woods (1986), Bradley (1986), Findlay, (1995), Halfon (1997),Maclaughlin (1999), Norton (2000), Petrucci (2000), and Taylor andGarcia-Barrios (1999). Natural-hazards research in the post-Hewitt periodis well discussed by Abramovitz (2001), Blaikie et al. (1994) and Pelling(2001; 2003).There is now a tremendous volume of research by geographers intorepresentations of nature. Often this research mixes and matches the fourapproaches to representation I’ve identified in this chapter (plus someothers). Geography journals that have routinely published this researchfor a decade are Environment and Planning D:Society and Space,Geoforum and Ecumene(now called Cultural Geographies). For more on post-structural and Foucauldiantheories of the environment see Conley (1997) and Darier (1999). Formore on Marxist ideas about the society–environment dialectic (‘internal’and ‘external’) as well as the material ‘production of nature’ see Castree(2000; 2001a) and Boyd et al. (2001).