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1STRANGE NATURES‘To dictate definition is to wield . . . power’.(Livingstone 1992: 312)TALES OF NATUREThis is not the first book about nature and it will not be the last.To writesuch a book is, in one sense, to write about everything.After all, one familiardefinition of nature is ‘the entire physical world’ (Habgood 2002: 4).<strong>Nature</strong> is an all-pervasive aspect of our lives. In fact, it’s difficult to thinkof anything else that’s as promiscuously evident in all that we think, sayand do.Where previous writers have waxed philosophical about nature itseems to me better to approach it through the concrete forms in whichit’s routinely experienced and discussed.The following vignettes remindus just how central nature is to our everyday thought and practice – whoeverwe are and wherever we are.Blood-ties 1In mid-2003 a 13-year-old English boy took his own father to court.‘Daniel’ (his real name can’t be disclosed for legal reasons) questionedthe biological link tying him to his supposed father. Born in 1988 asa result of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), he spent alternate weekends with
2 strange natureshis dad subsequent to his parent’s divorce when he was just three. But acourt-ordered test of Daniel’s biological patrimony revealed that a mix-upoccurred with his mother’s original IVF treatment. The man who wassupposed to be his biological father turned out to share no chromosomeswith Daniel. His mother’s eggs, it transpires, were accidentally fertilisedwith the sperm of another man. On this basis, a judge ruled that Daniel neednever again spend time with the person who, for thirteen years, acted as hisfather. What has this got to do with nature? In Daniel’s case, thelack of a biological link between a father and son was used to terminate athirteen-year social relationship between a boy and a man. As his motherexplained,‘The older he grew the less he looked like or behaved like hisso-called father . . . The damage done to that ...boy is unfathomable’(theGuardian, 23 August 2003).What’s interesting here is the suggestion that theabsence of a natural (that is, biological) connection has been fundamentallydamaging to Daniel’s well-being. In effect, his mother argued that this tiealone is more important than the years of time, love and emotional energythat her former husband invested in her son.Britain’s rainforest 2<strong>Nature</strong> can appear in the most unlikely places. Who would’ve thoughtthat a derelict oil terminal could be one of the most biodiverse sites inWestern Europe? In May 2003 an abandoned Occidental facility on CanveyIsland, in southern England, was found to contain numerous plant andinsect species – many of them endangered and some of them thoughtto be extinct.These included the shrill carder bee, the emerald damsel flyand the weevil hunting wasp, as well as familiar fauna like badgers andskylarks. Overall, the 100-hectare Occidental site is home to some 1,300species. But it is threatened with redevelopment as part of the UK government’sThames Gateway expansion plan for nearby London. Intriguingly,nature has returned to this former industrial site because of, not despite,human influence. Some years ago, Occidental dredged thousands of tonnesof silt from the Thames estuary and dumped it over former fields andmarshes. It did so to provide foundations for a proposed expansion of theoil terminal that did not, in the end, occur. Then, when the site wasabandoned in the early 1970s, it was frequented by children (who playedon the site and lit fires) and by bikers (who created trails).The result hasbeen constant disturbance of the plant life growing on the site’s fertile soils.
Page 2 and 3: NATURESome of the most exciting, al
Page 4 and 5: NATURENoel Castree
Page 6: ‘If I ask about the world, you ca
Page 10 and 11: ILLUSTRATIONS AND TABLESPLATES1 Wil
Page 12 and 13: BOXES1.1 Academia and the study of
Page 14 and 15: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSWriting this book h
Page 16: acknowledgementsxvNeil Coe, Peter D
Page 19 and 20: xviii prefaceother things), the sta
Page 21 and 22: xxprefaceexpect it to do. First, it
Page 23 and 24: xxii prefaceintroduction’ to how
Page 25 and 26: xxiv prefaceIt describes more than
Page 30 and 31: strange natures 3In particular, tre
Page 32 and 33: strange natures 5ahead as planned,
Page 34 and 35: strange natures 7mould-breaking boo
Page 36 and 37: strange natures 9in rural areas and
Page 38 and 39: strange natures 11are. If you think
Page 40 and 41: strange natures 13knowledge has a p
Page 42 and 43: strange natures 15Box 1.3 THE ‘PU
Page 44 and 45: strange natures 17physical play in
Page 46 and 47: strange natures 19Box 1.4 HEGEMONYT
Page 48 and 49: strange natures 21ACTIVITY 1.2Read
Page 50 and 51: strange natures 23GeomorphologyFigu
Page 52 and 53: strange natures 25consequences. Unl
Page 54 and 55: strange natures 27Box 1.5 DE-NATURA
Page 56 and 57: strange natures 29Table 1.3 Geograp
Page 58 and 59: strange natures 31geneous (see Chap
Page 60 and 61: strange natures 33knowledge is (or
Page 62 and 63: strange natures 35- despite the BSE
Page 64 and 65: strange natures 37Habgood (2002: 11
Page 66 and 67: strange natures 39Box 1.8 THE INVEN
Page 68 and 69: strange natures 41ACTIVITY 1.4Can y
Page 70 and 71: strange natures 43of species, landf
Page 72 and 73: 2THE ‘NATURE’ OF GEOGRAPHY‘Wh
Page 74 and 75: the ‘nature’ of geography 47wit
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the ‘nature’ of geography 51cha
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the ‘nature’ of geography 53in
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the ‘nature’ of geography 55[an
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the ‘nature’ of geography 57Ref
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the ‘nature’ of geography 59als
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the ‘nature’ of geography 61cou
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the ‘nature’ of geography 63the
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the ‘nature’ of geography 65rap
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the ‘nature’ of geography 67Box
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the ‘nature’ of geography 69mig
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the ‘nature’ of geography 71The
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the ‘nature’ of geography 73Box
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the ‘nature’ of geography 75lab
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the ‘nature’ of geography 77A n
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the ‘nature’ of geography 79tat
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the ‘nature’ of geography 81ina
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the ‘nature’ of geography 83lan
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the ‘nature’ of geography 87wom
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the ‘nature’ of geography 89dev
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the ‘nature’ of geography 91for
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the ‘nature’ of geography 93loc
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the ‘nature’ of geography 95by
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the ‘nature’ of geography 97ove
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the ‘nature’ of geography 99res
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the ‘nature’ of geography 103on
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the ‘nature’ of geography 105re
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the ‘nature’ of geography 107FU
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de-naturalisation 109‘real’ dom
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de-naturalisation 111in a relativel
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de-naturalisation 113depicted the W
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de-naturalisation 115population-res
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de-naturalisation 117that material
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de-naturalisation 119and rural labo
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de-naturalisation 121hazards was de
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de-naturalisation 123control of the
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de-naturalisation 125Truth, falsity
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de-naturalisation 127MYANMAR(BURMA)
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de-naturalisation 129(iii) the cult
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de-naturalisation 131open conflict
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de-naturalisation 133[A] local herd
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de-naturalisation 135With this very
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de-naturalisation 137for example, t
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de-naturalisation 139bad’. Agains
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de-naturalisation 141For Derrida al
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de-naturalisation 143Map 3.2 Clayoq
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de-naturalisation 145Plate 3 Clayoq
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de-naturalisation 147the book shows
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de-naturalisation 149Baudrillard (1
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Plate 4 The Eden Project: nature pr
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de-naturalisation 153street in old
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de-naturalisation 155therefore, be
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Map 3.3 The migratory path of the N
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de-naturalisation 159Here, a firm a
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de-naturalisation 161mining, fishin
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de-naturalisation 163‘naturally s
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de-naturalisation 165Figure 3.2 See
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de-naturalisation 167Box 3.5 IS NAT
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de-naturalisation 169The moral impl
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de-naturalisation 171However, as we
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de-naturalisation 173marginalisatio
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de-naturalisation 175when they aris
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4TWO NATURES?The dis/unity of geogr
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the dis/unity of geography 179less
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the dis/unity of geography 181Box 4
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the dis/unity of geography 183betwe
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the dis/unity of geography 185ACTIV
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the dis/unity of geography 187the n
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the dis/unity of geography 189David
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the dis/unity of geography 191It’
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the dis/unity of geography 193In th
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Issues and principles of scientific
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the dis/unity of geography 197of th
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the dis/unity of geography 199-Figu
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the dis/unity of geography 205Figur
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Table 4.1 (a) The status of river v
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the dis/unity of geography 209ACTIV
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the dis/unity of geography 211bioph
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the dis/unity of geography 213‘na
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the dis/unity of geography 215conju
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the dis/unity of geography 217Figur
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the dis/unity of geography 219these
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the dis/unity of geography 221geogr
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5AFTER NATURE‘it’s terribly imp
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after nature 225our noses but one w
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after nature 227If we employ the di
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after nature 229geographers adherin
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after nature 231non-representationa
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after nature 233the most vocal expo
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after nature 235adapted parts of wi
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after nature 237MORALITY AFTER NATU
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after nature 239Thrift, she reminds
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after nature 241will be ultimately
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6CONCLUSIONGeography’s natures‘
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conclusion 245environmental issues
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conclusion 247of ourselves and othe
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essays and exam questions 249‘Who
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essays and exam questions 251‘Bio
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essays and exam questions 253‘Hum
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notes 2558 I will say more about sc
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notes 257teaching (Gregory et al. 2
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ibliography 259Bassett, K. (1999)
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ibliography 261Callicott, J.B. and
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ibliography 263Eden, S. (1996) ‘P
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ibliography 265Haggett, P. (1965) L
Page 294 and 295:
ibliography 267Kuhn, T. (1962) The
Page 296 and 297:
ibliography 269Myers, N. (1979) The
Page 298 and 299:
ibliography 271Roberts, R. and J. E
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ibliography 273Strahler, A.N. (1952
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ibliography 275of animals in the Br
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author index 277Dilthey, W. 61, 77,
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actor-network theory 230, 234abduct
Page 308:
subject index 281North Pacific fur
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