Nature - autonomous learning

234 after naturefrom the idea of a ‘social construction’ because Harvey insists that thematerial properties of non-human things used for human purposes have anot-always-predictable role to play.The ‘dialectical’ element of all this isthat from time to time particular moments (physical things) contradictthe ‘demands’ being placed on them by the logic of process. For instance,from Harvey’s Marxist perspective, most fish-farming can be seen as an economicallyrational response to overfishing in the high seas. Farmed fishthus become physical means to realise profits for fishing firms at a timewhen the ‘natural’ fishing industry faces a profitability crisis in many partsof the world. But farmed fish are forced to behave in ways rather differentfrom their ‘natural’ brethren, not least because they are concentrated in largenumbers in small pens.This has already led to serious disease outbreaksamong fish-farm populations and has been an unintended consequenceof fish-farming as a relatively new technological practice.There is thus herea contradiction – an internal one – between the ‘logic of capital’ and thephysical means through which that logic is being expressed in this case.Diseased fish can cut into profits and, if not properly controlled, underminefish-farming both economically and biologically as an ‘unnatural’ alternativeto open-ocean fishing.Harvey’s ‘new’ dialectics is more subtle than older Marxist modes ofdialectical thinking. It has been taken up by other Marxist geographers,like Erik Swyngedouw, but has thus far proved less influential than nonrepresentationaland actor-network theory. In part, this reflects the currentunpopularity of Marxism within human geography.The new ecologyThe fourth body of relational thinking about society and nature I wantto briefly discuss is called the ‘new ecology’.This has been advocated by,and is quite influential among, environmental geographers. One of theseis the American Karl Zimmerer, co-editor of Nature’s Geography:New Lessons forConservation in Developing Countries (1998). In this book and a set of publishedessays, Zimmerer (1994; 2000) has proselytised on behalf of the newecology, which has emerged from the disciplines of biology, zoology andbotany over the past twenty years.The ‘old’ ecology was characterised bytwo main things. First, it believed that species existed in relatively stable,predictable relationships both with one another and their surroundingbiophysical environment. Second, it tended to treat humans either as well-