Nature and Social Theory [Paperback]

This book asks the questions can `Man' be separated from `Nature'? Is it valid to seek to `control' Nature? It argues that the firm modern boundaries between nature and culture have been breached and pulls together new strands of thinking about nature which suggest that humanity and nature have never been separate. The argument is developed through a critical discussion of the Romantic ideal of pure nature, unsullied by humanity and largely confined to fragile margins in need of protection and more recent discourses which identify nature with environment, and cast man in the role of a polluter and destroyer.

This book asks the questions can `Man' be separated from `Nature'? Is it valid to seek to `control' Nature? It argues that the firm modern boundaries between nature and culture have been breached and pulls together new strands of thinking about nature which suggest that humanity and nature have never been separate. The argument is developed through a critical discussion of the Romantic ideal of pure nature, unsullied by humanity and largely confined to fragile margins in need of protection and more recent discourses which identify nature with environment, and cast man in the role of a polluter and destroyer.

`Written with clarity and sophistication, it is not just an original argument about relationships of nature and culture, but also a useful text' - Keith Tester, University of PortsmouthIntroduction
PART ONE
Thinking about Nature 1
Disciplinary Beginnings
Thinking about Nature 2
The Nature Crisis?
A New Anthropology of Nature
PART TWO
Naturalization
Hybridity
Embodiment
Politicising Nature