Nature - autonomous learning

236 after naturetrace the varied ecological impacts of different human actions (distinguishedby type, frequency and magnitude) upon the non-humandomain, and vice versa. As with the three modes of relational thinkingsummarised above, it is charter for a more ‘joined-up’ geography.Clearly,there are strong family resemblances between non-representationaltheory, ANT, new dialectics and the new ecology.The following Activitylinks all this back to the conventional definition of nature laid out in Chapter1 and so reinforces the ways the four bodies of thinking are ‘after-’ or ‘postnatural’.ACTIVITY 5.2From the foregoing summaries, can you identify how the new post-naturalthinking in geography takes issue with the three conventional definitionsof the term ‘nature’ laid out in Chapter 1?The quartet of approaches discussed above challenge all three maindefinitions of nature identified in Chapter 1: nature as the non-human,nature as the essence of something and nature as an overarching force. Inthe first case, these approaches all cross the ‘social–natural divide’ in ourthought by arguing that what we call ‘social’ actors, representations, institutions,and so on, depend thoroughly on the existence and agency of whatwe call ‘natural’ phenomena.As such, they are ontologically ‘symmetrical’and make few, if any, assumptions about which social and non-humanphenomena have (or don’t have) the power to influence the others.Theymostly take each case on its merits and seek to identify the specific ties thatconnect and condition the actors in question. Second, the four approachesdiscussed above are all non-essentialist. For instance, rather than assumethat shrill carder bees are the same wherever and whenever they can befound, ANT would suggest that their behaviour and its effects might vary(albeit within limits) depending on the context. Finally, while none of theapproaches discussed deny that universal forces like gravity cross-cut thehuman and non-human worlds, they all take issue with the idea that thereis some single transcendental principle that governs how the world works(like equilibrium and balance).