Description
Book SynopsisThis edited collection explores the relationships between humans and nature at a time when the traditional sense of separation between human cultures and a natural wilderness is being eroded. The Anthropocene,' whose literal translation is the Age of Man,' is one way of marking these planetary changes to the Earth system. Global climate change and rising sea levels are two prominent examples of how nature can no longer be simply thought of as something outside and removed from humans (and vice versa). This collection applies the concepts of ecology and entanglement to address pressing political, social, and cultural issues surrounding human relationships with the nonhuman world in terms of working with nature.' It asks, are there more or less preferable ways of working with nature? What forms and practices might this work take and how do we distinguish between them? Is the idea of nature' even sufficient to approach such questions, or do we need to reconsider using the term nature in f
Trade ReviewEcological Entanglements in the Anthropocene travels across the planet, offering critical analysis of the multiple contexts which define the ecological mess we are in; these travels from British coal mines to Antarctica, across oceans and seas to New Zealand and many other localities provides an interdisciplinary and convincing argument to approach the Anthropocene along the lines of the (post-)colonial legacies and the current political economy of disaster capitalism. -- Jussi Parikka, Professor in Technological Culture and Aesthetics, University of Southampton
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Ecological Crises, Nonhumans and the Age of Man - Sy Taffel and Nicholas Holm Part One: Nonhuman Agency Chapter One – Carbon Bonds: Coal Economics and Aesthetics – Sean Cubitt Chapter Two – Consider the Lawnmower: Aesthetics, Politics and Entanglements of Suburban Nature – Nicholas Holm Chapter Three – Learning with the River: on Intercultural Gifts from the Whanganui – Charles Dawson Chapter Four – From Wai 262 to Water: Towards Postcolonial Property Right in Aotearoa New Zealand – Jacob Otter Part Two: Cultivation and Culture Chapter Five – The Plough as Settler Colonial Cultural Icon: Voices from the Other Side of the Blade – Victoria Grieves Chapter Six – Conserving Land through Kindly Use and Reciprocity: Using the Land and Being Used by the Land – Anne O’Brien Chapter Seven – “One Loaf of Bread at a Time”: System Change through Community Food Initiatives – Sharon Stevens Chapter Eight – In Different Voices: Engaging with Human-Non-Human Entanglements – Sita Venkateswar Part Three: Epistemology, Aesthetics and Mediation Chapter Nine– Photographic Reflections on Landscape Change in Regional Australia – Christopher Orchard and James Holcomb Chapter Ten – Nature as Creative Catalyst: Building Poetic Environmental Narratives through the Artists in Antarctica Programme – Octavia Cade Chapter Eleven – Mediating the ‘Deep’: Media Work with Oceans and Seas – Gareth Stanton Chapter Twelve – Exiled in the Bush: A History of Landscape Transformation in Post-European Settlement New South Wales – David Orchard and Peter Orchard Chapter Thirteen – Mapping the Anthropocene – Sy Taffel
