NATURE IS HERE, THERE AND EVERYHERE.
Do you have a love of nature? Perhaps you're worried about the destruction of the Amazon rainforest or the over fishing of our oceans.Perhaps you've swum on the Great Barrier Reef or hiked in the Himalayas. Conversely, maybe you think too much nature is a bad thing. After all,who wants hurricanes,earthquakes, tsunamis or the Ebola virus? Maybe you appreciate the benefits afforded by controlling nature,human and non-human.In this case,you might be excited by the potentialities contained in new nature-altering technologies like gene-splicing,which permits the species barrier to be breached.Whatever your attitude,if you're interested in nature-what it is,what it does and what we do to it-then this book should interest you.
However,my approach to the topic will probably differ from other things you've read on the subject. This book explores how what is called 'nature is made sense of for you by a myriad of others who daily seek to shape your thoughts,feelings and actions.I use the scare quotes because I'm not alone in insisting that nature isn't natural, even though continued use of the word-and its collateral terms like 'race'-suggests the contrary. In the chapters to come,I'm less interested in what nature is and more in what it's consideredto be,as well as what the effects of this are.My eye will be trained on all those who speak for nature, or who make significant reference to it in what they do. This is why I say nature is made sense of for you, not b you.I believe that the vast majority of people's beliefs and sentiments about everything from climate change to their own genes are derivative. They result from an epistemic dependence'that makes us all potentially subject to the claims and aims of others. This is a situation in which a rel- ative minority of the global workforce is employed to create information, knowledge, arguments, symbols,etc.to which the majority of people are exposed - and usually reliant upon.
I belong to this workforce. If you're reading this book as a university student or member of the public then you're relying on me to enlighten you-even though you may lack all the tools necessary to critically evaluate the claims that I make. This puts me at a distinct advantage. I'm one of countless 'epistemic workers'who together comprise a large and diverse set of 'epistemic communities'.These communities utilise largely one- way communication channels to shape societal ideas, tastes and practices.
They inhabit institutions like universities, think tanks, non-governmental organisations,private research laboratories,newspapers and advertising agencies.Their members often have impressive skills, expertise or creden- tials like my PhD and professorial title).They devote enormous amounts of time and energy to representing different aspects of reality to the rest of ociety,utilising a range of genres and media,from 'serious'bookslike this one to political cartoons and television wildlife documentaries. They clam- our for people's attention,together enriching their understanding of life or perhaps manipulating, confusing and overwhelming them (by design or unwittingly). Because of the latter,people at times feel the need to ignore much of what is thrown their way.
References to nature,I will argue,are a significant preoccupation of a surprisingly large and diverse set of epistemic communities.It'snot only,or mainly,the likes of geneticists, atmospheric scientists or environmental activists who incite us to think or care about natural phenomena. Many others insinuate references to things like elephants, water resources and stem cells into their discourses and images. They do it even when nature is not their primary concern. For instance,for years beer adverts in North America have featured snow-capped mountains and blue skies to make consumers think of pure ingredients and ice-cold refreshment. Though many of these references to nature are of little consequence in the short term, others have important medium-and long-term effects-or so I will claim. They're a key part of the ongoing process of governing the thoughts,emotions and behaviour of hundreds of millions of people worldwide. While many of these references occur outside the domains of 'government' and 'politics'proper,my argument will be that they are political nonetheless,often profoundly so. This means that-even when not designed to-these references contribute to the quality of collective deliberation and decision- making, known in much of the world as 'democracy.And any democracy is only as good as the semiosphere'its citizens inhabit. This is the world of information, knowledge, debate, signs and symbols that we daily navigate through. It's a world most ofus play no role whatsoever in creating.Like the weather, it appears as something we have to live with,for better or worse.
I'll explain why I think that what we call 'nature'is not natural in the first chapter. For now,let me quickly illustrate just how pervasive references to nature are in our everyday lives,and why some of these references might be highlyimportantforall ofus(atleastsomeofthetime).Considerthefollowing.
HYBRID ORGANISMS
In November 2009, the British television station Channel 4 broadcast a science documentary entitled Is it better to be mixed race? It was part of a series of six programmes whose theme was Race:science's last tabo(see http://raceandscience.channel4.com/). The documentary examined the suggestion that'mixed race'individuals enjoy certain biological advantages over those who descend from genetically similar populations. For instance, it assessed evidence that they might be perceived by others to be better looking facially.It reproduced the common belief that there are significant genetic differences among bomo sapiens,even as it partly challenged that belief. A year later, and several newspapers ran stories about cross-species(rather than imtra-species)hybridisation. Their focus was on an American biotechnology company called AquaBounty that had sought government permission to sell transgenic salmon (grown in fish farms) to humans. If granted alicence,the firm would have been the world's first to sell a geneti- cally modified organism directly to consumers.Some environmentalists and organic food campaigners argued that these artificial, fast-growing salmon posed an environmental threat if they escaped and reproduced. For others, there was also the yuk factor'of encouraging people to eat a biologically engineered hybrid reared on manufactured feed in small marine enclosures.
ECOLOGICAL COMPENSATION
A few months before the AquaBounty story was reported, several news television programmes in the United Kingdom reported on the new Futurescapes programme announced by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB)(see http://www.rspb.org.uk/futurescapes/). This long-term programme is devoted to protecting wildlife outside the nature reserves already managed by the RSPB.For example,a new port able to (unload large container ships is currently being constructed on the lower River Thames, 50 kilometreseast of central London. The port's developers have been legally obliged to purchase a large area of land upstream, which will be flooded to create compensatory habitat for that lost during the construction process downstream. Thousands of water birds will benefit, most of them migratory species. Meanwhile, thousands of water voles,grass snakes and crested newts are being relocated to avoid the planned inundation. The RSPB will manage this artificially 're-wilded'estuarine site.
NATURAL. ADVERTS
In 2011, the fruit juice firm Innocent ran an ad-campaign in magazines, on billboards and using flyers.Its tag line was 'Nature,bottled'. The two words were written inlarge,dark green letters against a blue-sky background with a see-through plastic green-capped bottle of squeezed orange juice next to them. Clearly, the intended message was that Innocent juice is pure and unprocessed-in short, good to drink in both taste and nutritional terms. Meanwhile, in the same year the fashion companies Louis Vuitton and Edun ran an ad-campaign in which nature was foregrounded, but in a very different way. The one-(sometimes two)page adverts were placed in magazines mostly read by affluent consumers(e.g. The Economis). They comprised 'spontaneous'(but clearly staged) photographs of world-famous stars known to have a personal interest in addressing problems in the so- called developing world. For instance,in one the U2 lead singer Bono and his fashion designer wife Ali Hewson are seen stepping off a small planeina savannah landscape in eastern Africa. The landscape is empty,and hills can be seen on the far horizon. Wading through yellow grasses reaching up to their knees, Bono and Ali carry expensive designer bags on their shoulders(to accompany their expensive hair cuts and fashionable clothes). Beneath the photo is the tag line 'Every journey begins in Africa.
This is clearly a reference to the fact that homo sapiens are thought to have first evolved in that part of the world. Bono and Ali are not only making a symbolic journey back to humanity's common roots in a time where planes and fashion did not exist. They're also urging consumers to spend money on 'ethical'commodities,like the bags both advertise on their shoulders. The overt message is that some of the money spent will flow back from wealthy consumers'pockets to (in this case) cotton growers in rural Uganda. The implicit message is that those of us who have no first hand knowledge of poverty or living directly off the land need reminding that there are costs, borne by people and the non-human world, when we urbanites fail to pay the 'proper'price for the many things we consume.We are encouraged to show our concern by closing income gaps and bridging geographical divides.
CRIMES AGAINST NATURE
In September 2012,a Nigerian court sentenced an actor to a 3-month prison sentence. His crime was to have sex with another man. The pros- ecution lawyer and sentencing judge made reference to a British colonial law that deems sodomy a transgression against the order of nature. Indeed, imprisonment aside, in some parts of Nigeria sodomy is pun- ishable by whipping or stoning. The Nigerian government also recently tried to pass a new law that makes shows of same-sex affection a crime,while banning same-sex marriages. Gay rights activists were understand- ably outraged. In a satirical riposte to the lawmakers,a popular comedian(John Okafor) called gay actors a virus'and said publicly, 'If there is any way in this world that people can make them stop it or kill it, please do it'(see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/21/nigeria-court-jails-actor-gay-offence).
SCIENCE FICTION AND THE LAWS OF NATURE
Such is the technical wizardry now employed in the film and television industries that patently fictional creatures or events can be represented in highly realistic ways.Even so,in early 2010 an American physics professor, Stanley Perkowitz, complained that too much science fiction was insuffi- ciently tethered to the known facts of biophysical science. For instance, he complained that the giant killer bugs menacing the universe in the Hollywood blockbuster Starship Toopers were physically impossible.If you scaled up a similarly designed realinsect to the size of the fictional bugs, Perkowitz argued,it would collapse under its own weight.He suggested that sci-fi depictions of biophysical processes and phenomena would be taken more seriously by audiences if they possessed greater scientific verisimili- tude. Relatedly, the US National Academy of Science announced that it wanted its 'Science and Entertainment Exchange'to be more frequently consulted by sci-fi film and programme makers.
WILD BEHAVIOUR
Among the more notable events in recent British history were the govern- ment rescue of severallarge banks in 2008-9 and the urban riots of summer 2011. Subsequent to the latter,a feature writer employed by the British broadsheet The Guardian noticed a linguistic pattern emerging in the criti- cisms made ofbankers and rioters.Jon Henley suggested that the word 'feral was being repeatedly selected by otherwise different politicians and politi- cal commentators.According to the OxordEnglishdictionary,feral means(1) Existing in a wild oruntamed state,(2)Having returned to an untamed state from domestication,and(3)Suggestive of a wild animal; savage. Among others using the term,Henley cited the London Mayor Boris Johnson and the former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.In a news interview, Johnson described the(mostly young, working-class)rioters as a"feral crim- inal underclass", while Prescott talked of"feral bankers"on Twitter.In both cases, the word feral was being used normatively and metaphorically.People were being compared to animals and being criticised for failing to observe the rules and norms that supposedly distinguish humans from the rest of nature (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2011/sep/06/use-of- feral-suddenly-everywhere?INTCMP=SRCH).
HOW TO BUILD A HUMAN
The turn of the millennium saw biologists publish the first ever'map'of the human genome. But how do the 25,000 or so identified genes work together to create a healthy (or in some cases diseased)person? This has been the focus of the international Human Epigenome Project (http:/ www.epigenome.org/). The project has focused on how chemicals attach to different parts of DNA strands so as to differentiate human cells and per- mit their growth into body parts from birth to adulthood.In late 2009, the frst fruits of the project were published in the world-famous science journal Nature.A team led by Joseph Ecker at the Salk Institute in California issued a press release describing their research into the development of healthyskin cells. Theirs was an example of'basic science,inquiring into the functionng of processes we currently know little about.It will form part of the foundation for future research into what causes 'malfunctions'in the epigenome This research will, in turn,reshape preventative medicine.
These seven vignettes are just some of a great many I could've presented On the face ofit theyre very different-indeed seemingly unrelated.Yet all involve literal or metaphorical references to natural phenomena. What can we learn from them? First, references to nature are extraordinarily diverse. In the cases earlier,everything from orange juice to salmon to human genes is encompassed.Second,a remarkably wide array of people are referring to nature when addressing the rest ofus: scientists,politicians, celebrities, hlm directors,judges, comedians and private firms(to name but a few). Third, they address us in every imaginable medium and genre of communication- from press releases to movies to websites, from realism to fantasy,from entertainment to edification. Fourth,their references to nature together span all three of our faculties, namely cognition, moral reasoning and aesthetic experience. They speak to head and heart, reason and emotion. Finally,the seven cases suggest howimportant the issues often are when nature orits col lateral terms are invoked. For instance,a proper understanding of the human epigenome might allow diseases like cancer to be prevented,rather than cured after the fact.Likewise, to label some sections of a society as 'feralis one way of highlighting a fundamental problem with their behaviour that the rest of us are enjoined to care about. Similarly, if you're not 'mixed race', how would you feel about a scientist telling you that you might be at a genetic disadvantage? If you're gay, do you think it right for homosexual intercourse to be classified as 'unnatural?
Perhaps all of the above reflects the simple fact that nature is promis- cuous in a real (or'ontological')sense.It seems to be a large and diverse phenomenon that is literally everywhere-imnus, as well as all around us In all seven cases, nature is assumed to be a thing unto itself.It is,variously,something to be investigated,protected,properly understood,tamed, restored or modified. But is this really so?Is nature natural? Or is the id of naturalness a convention that speaks volumes about the diverse values and goals of those who represent it to us day-in and day-out?I will answer this last question in the affirmative.In so doing,I hope this book will give you some important tools with which to understand your own relationship with what we call nature. Whatever your current attitude towards things like tigers or ice sheets,and however much ((or little!) the topicinterests you,Im hopeful you'll learn something new and important by reading this book As the chapters to come demonstrate amply, Making sense ofnature builds on over 30 years of academic and more popular writing about what is sometimes called'the social construction of nature. This is an ambiguous term that, these days, has a range of meanings-hence the scare quotes. However,in a broad sense it conveys the idea that what we consider to be 'natural'always bears the (usually) hidden or forgotten trace of partic- ular assumptions,agendas and desires specific to a social group or a wider community, culture or society. I use the word'social'to designate a wide array of shared imaginings,ideas,beliefs,norms, propositions and practices that different people employ in their everyday existence. The contents of'the social'tend to alter slowly, usually because the words and deeds of a plethora of influential groups and institutions nudge us all into changing. ButI don't naively presume there's a thing called 'society'that is a coher- ent,closed system and that'ssomehow separate from the biophysical world. Indeed, without a non-social domain perceived to be 'out there'in the first place, the epistemic communities to which I referred previously would be rendered largely silent. They would have nothing to tether their references to. In short, there's certainly more to the world than we humans are aware of, can imagine or can control. But the fact that we group so much of that world together and call t 'nature'is,I maintain,anything but natural.
There have been a number of books about nature's'social construction' over the past 20 years.This one differs from those ina fewkey respects.First, I cover the full range of things signified by the term nature and its'collat- eral concepts. For instance,I don't just focus on the natural environment. Second, I'm interested in the full range of epistemic communities that make sense of nature. For example,whereas some authors will devote a book to news reporting of recent developments in human genetics, I cast my net much wider. Finally, I link representations of nature in all their forms to big issues that seem largely separate from such representations-at least at first sight. These are issues of people'sidentities and actions:how they are produced,governed and changed over time. It's not just what the likes of climate scientists or human biologists say to us that makes nature relevant to understanding who we (think we) are,how we treat each other and what sort of world we wish to inhabit going forward.
By insisting that references to nature and its collateral terms matter greatly in our lives,I'm being a little unfashionable.Many researchers whose pub- lications I read these days argue that we need a new vocabulary to make sense of the world. They argue that reality does not comprise two great domains that interact(the social and the natural).Instead,it's fabricated out of all sorts of interrelations between human and non-human entities. These connections, they suggest, are so intimate that our current dichotomies(or dualisms) fail to do themjustice.My own response is two-fold.First,a great many people continue to talk as if 'nature'is real.Second, in effect this makes naturereal, not least because of the effects on people and non-humans of nature-talk.I defend my approach atgreaterlengthin this book'sEndnote sections for those who are interested in knowing more.
I hope that degree students and their teachers in a wide range of social science and humanities subiects will find this text both relevant and stimulating. But it would please meno end ifsome of my readers were based in the various biophysical sciences(field,computational and laboratory)- even if they ultimately agree to disagree with my claims and contentions. I have drawn on the work of anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, cultural studies scholars, historians,literary critics, media analysts,linguistic theorists and many others who operate beyond the perimeters of human geography, my academic home turf. The topic of 'nature'does not respect disciplinary boundaries, in either the academic world or the wider world I have tried to honour this fact in the conception and writing of the present volume. Making sense ofnature is thus very different in its content and ams from either Socialnature(Castree and Braun,2001)or Nature(Castree,2005). Both of these books were strongly rooted in debates in my own discipline By contrast, this text is not.1
In fact,I have no particular desire to respect the niceties and nuances of academic debate about nature, whatever the field.If I did,I would simply repeat- and no doubt get bogged down in-what have,at times,become painfully esoteric discussions rendered in a language so rarefied that only the self-selected few can understand(and thus care) about them.In the fo lowing chapters,I prefer to draw liberally upon published research from a range of fields in the service of my major arguments.At times, this wl involve using others'ideas and findings in ways they did not necessarly intend or anticipate. I hope they will forgive me this licence,and tolerate my not recounting the fine details of intra-and inter-disciplinary discussions about 'nature'.2I also hope Ill be excused for the various simplificationsI make and the many argumentative shortcuts I take.At times,in my desireto speak to those new to the ideas contained in this book,I will make general claims that specialists may regard as old hat,trite or in need of more carefu elaboration.
I've written this book in what you might call an advanced introductory style. This is to say that students at, or beyond,an upper bachelor'sdegree level ought to find this book accessible,if not always easily so.At times, Makingsense ofnature will be a very challenging read for them,but always-I hope-readable.Part 1 presents all of my major arguments and claims,while the remaining chapters amplify, deepen and illustrate them by considering a range of extended examples and cases.A principal function of universities is not only to create new knowledge (concepts,arguments, evidence,etc) but also to ensure that this knowledge travels beyond its originators so as to participate in the drama that is human existence on the planet. Though the chapters are generally long ones, Ive broken the arguments down into dis- tinct chapter sections;so too the case material.Ifl can thereby engage those wholly new to this book's contents and claims,but still hold the interest of readers already steeped in some or all of the relevant literatures,then I wil have realised my own ambitions.3
These ambitions are anchored,largely,in what otherwise different readers of this book have in common.I want to address them you) not so much as professors or students(depending) but,les specifically,as members of a world in which we are all consumers of information,knowledge,experience and belief that we take largely on trust (happily or otherwise). Through- out the book, Im willing to take the risk that my frequent invocation of the collective first person-'we','us'-is presumptuous to the point of being thoroughly ill advised. It at least reminds us that we are members of a 'public,or rather publics in the plural, that need to be proactive in the face of a deluge of messages about our own 'nature'and that of the non-human world.
Student readers(and, I hope, their tutors)will benefit from the various study questions and exercises peppered throughout the chapters. Ideally, these should be undertaken at each stage before reading on. Numerous boxes offer an additional aid to learning, as do the several diagrams, tables and photographs. Throughout the book, terms appearing in bold font are defined in the glossary. Finally,a further reading section itemises my major sources for each chapter after Part 1 and the How touse this book'appendix may help tutors build their own module around this text, should they wish.
ENDNOTES
1 However,there is one strong point of connection with the book Nature: the present volume elaborates at length ideas sketched roughly in Chapter 1 of its more argumentatively circumscribed predecessor.
2 What I mean is that this book does not do what many survey texts do-such asJan Golinski's(2005)Makingnatural knowledge or my colleague Peter Wade's(2002) Race, nature andculure.I do not here present,systematically and critically, the findings and arguments of various interlocutors within defined disciplines and fields.Makimg semse ofnature is thus a 'textbook'with a twist. Unlike many literature-based books, it does not summarise ideas and findings within a single academic domain,and nor does it organise the research surveyed according to familiar categories. Instead, I package and arrange ideas, arguments and case material from a range of fields within a plenary framework that, in my view, adds value to the published work on which this book is otherwise dependent.In this endeavour, one of my models is Denis Wood's superb book Retbinking the powerofmaps(2010), based on his earlier Thepowerofmaps.My own book is not about maps, of course,but Itake inspiration from Wood's approach to a diverse and large body of theory and empirical research. Though I cannot match his pungent, often witty prose style,and while Makingsense ofnature is(I believe) pitched at a rather more accessible level than Rethinking the power ofmaps,I hope some of the strengths of Wood's approach to presenting material are evident in this book.Ishould declare that when I was halfway through writing this book (December 2011)Iencoun- tered Stephanie Rutherford's(2011)Goverming the wild.I also,belatedly, read David Delaney's(2003)superb bookLawandnature at the same time.There are some strong generic similarities between these monographs and my own book, but- equally- some significant differences in approach.
3 In a review of his book Geographiesofnaure(2007),I chastise geographer Steve Hinch- liffe for leaving novice readers adrift in his attempt to edify more expert readers(Castree,2009). I can only hope he doesn't think the compliment worth repaying should he ever review Making sense of nature!

List of illustrations ix

Acronym xii

Permissions xiv

Acknowledgements xv

Preface: Nature is bere, there and everywbere xvii

PART I MAKING SENSE OF SENSE MAKING 1

1 HOW WE MAKE SENSE OF(WHAT WE CALL)NATURE 3

2 REPRESENTING NATURE 37

3 GOVERNING SOCIETY WITHREFERENCE TO THE NATURAL 69

PART Il REPRESENTATIONS AND THEIR EFFECTS 103

4 UNNATURAL CONSTRUCTIONS 105

5 ENCLOSINGNATURE:BORDERS,BOUNDARIES AND TRANSGRESSIONS 148

6 THE USES OF NATURE:SOCIAL POWER AND REPRESENTATION 180

PART III KEY EPISTEMIC COMMUNITIES:THE MAKING, MOBILISATION AND REGULATION OF NATURE-KNOWLEDGE TODAY 213

7 NATURE'S PRINCIPAL PUBLICREPRESENTATIVE:THE MASS MEDIA 215

8 EXPERTISE, THE DEMOCRATISATION OF KNOWLEDGE AND PARTICIPATORY DECISION-MAKING:UNDERSTANDING THE NATURE OF SCIENCE 246

9 CONCLUSION: MAKINGBETTER SENSE OF SENSE MAKING 282

Glossary 286

Key sources and furthber reading 289

How to use tbis book 307

Endnote: Wby we (still) need to talk about nature 318

References 326

Index 345

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