Unfamiliar Territory_Research

1.0 introduction to research
⚮
The aim of this introduction is to present the background insights from which the research stems.
On nature / on wilderness
“Human beings and their productions are not separate from Nature; they are just as much, or as little, 'natural'
as everything else.“ 2
Today we can no longer think of nature as opposing to culture, of nature as separate and external to the human
world, as mere raw material in service of human needs. Living and non-living, human and non-human entities
are embedded within a mesh of relations, constantly in movement, in transition - nature is an ongoing process.
Its unknowability, uncertainty and constant dynamism are not to be seen as constrains but as positive and
productive characteristics striving towards novelty and change. While nature encompasses milieus, rhythms,
refrains and territories that really are out there, it is not an absolute given - it is always a social construction that
is historically specific and culturally determined.
For the past decade the understanding of nature as the ‘other’ against which the human is defined has become
more and more unstable. With crisis came the recognition of our species' de-centrality and while it seemed
promising to expose the fallacies of anthropocentrism, such debunking often only reinforced the ‘specism’ of the
human species as it assigned human the supremacy over species vulnerability. Finding an ethical way of
approaching the non-human from a human perspective turned out to be no easy task.
Now we find ourselves inside an unfamiliar territory, feeling vulnerable and threatened. Always in search of
clarity, stability and comfort, the collapse of distance and the disturbing proximity to what we considered as ‘the
other’ has troubled our domesticity, making us feel not quite at home in what we long thought was secure, stable
and comfortable place serving as a backdrop for our actions.
What is clear is that there is no ‘outside’ anymore, there is just one big and complex inside. We are starting to
acknowledge that we have always been embedded in an interdependent dialogue with our environment, that
'human realm' has actually never been exclusively ours, and importantly, never exclusively human.
“What she had seen from that building at Aldgate was a city that stretched to the ends of the earth . . . Madelene
saw that . . . any zoo, any game reserve, any safari park . . . was now contained within the bounds of civilization. .
. . She turned to face the ape. 'There's no such thing as outside now,' she said. 'If there's any freedom to be found
it'll have to be on the inside.“ 3
2 Shaviro, S. (2014). Twenty-two theses on nature. [Blog] The Pinocchio Theory. Available at:
http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=1253 [Accessed 2 Apr. 2016].
3
Høeg, P. (1996). The Woman and the Ape: A Novel. p.74.
7