Nature - autonomous learning

226 after nature‘post-natural’ analyst views the world, after which I discuss the main linesof a non-dualistic, relational mode of thinking in contemporary geography.Thereafter, I focus on the work of Sarah Whatmore and inquire into themoral implications of the seamless ontology being advocated.This leadsto some speculations on what motivates geographers like Whatmore tomake the arguments they do.NEITHER NATURAL NOR SOCIALSo ingrained is the tendency to employ the society–nature dualism in ourWestern way of thinking that we forget that it’s anything but natural. Notonly do many non-Western societies not carve the world in two in this way,if we look back historically we also see that Westerners themselves onlybegan to employ the dichotomy from the eighteenth century, during theso-called Enlightenment period.The nature–society dualism implies the mutual exclusivity of its twosides. So long as we operate with this dualism we are forced to concede that(i) society and what we call nature are different and can be studiedseparately, and that (ii) the study of society–nature relations must resortto notions like ‘construction’,‘interaction’ and ‘interrelation’ (see Figure2.1 again). But what would it mean to do away with the society–naturedualism? What would it mean to question the idea of a non-natural societyand a material nature that is autonomous from (or else a product of) socialrepresentations and forces?We can begin to answer these questions by revisiting the second of theseven vignettes presented in Chapter 1.This was the story about Britain’s‘rainforest’, a biodiverse brownfield site that is currently slated fordevelopment as a light industry park.ACTIVITY 5.1Read this story on pp. 2–3 once again. In light of what you’ve learnt in theprevious two chapters jot down (i) how a human geographer mightexplain the ‘nature’ in question, and (ii) how a physical geographer mightapproach the issue.