Not upward or downward, backward or forward, but awkward. Awk-wards: a vector. The (now obsolete)... more Not upward or downward, backward or forward, but awkward. Awk-wards: a vector. The (now obsolete) word awk means out of the way, strange, even sinister in nature and disposition. As an adverb, awkward suggests an action in the wrong, or at least a tangential direction. It evokes disjuncture, discord and incompatibility. Things have gone awry. As an adjective, awkward describes the unfamiliar, the clumsy and the unskilled. It conveys embarrassment, inconvenience and risk. To be awkward is to be ill at ease, uncomfortable or untoward.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 2014
This paper draws together recent literatures on the geography of experiments and the potential of... more This paper draws together recent literatures on the geography of experiments and the potential of experimental modes of conducting science and politics. It examines their implications for environmentalism in the Anthropocene. We differentiate between two different conceptions of an experiment, contrasting the singular, modern scientific understanding of an experiment with recent appeals for deliberative public experiments. Developing the concept of wild experiments we identify three axes for critical enquiry. These relate to the status of the nonhuman world as found or made, the importance afforded order and surprise in the conduct of any experiment and the degree and means by which publics are included in decisionmaking. We then illustrate the potential of this framework through a case study investigation of nature conservation, critically examining efforts to rewild and de-domesticate a polder landscape and its nonhuman inhabitants at the Oostvaardersplassen in the Netherlands. This is a flagship example of the wider enthusiasm for rewilding in nature conservation. In conclusion we reflect on wider significance and potential of these wild experiments for rethinking environmentalism in the Anthropocene.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 2010
This paper aims to open conversations between human and physical geographers interested in the di... more This paper aims to open conversations between human and physical geographers interested in the diversity and dynamics of life and ways of ensuring their future flourishing. It brings together a revitalised human geography with recent work in bio-geography to develop lively ...
Since their inception in 1980 the concept of biodiversity and the practical techniques of biodive... more Since their inception in 1980 the concept of biodiversity and the practical techniques of biodiversity conservation have experienced a meteoric rise in popularity as a mode of understanding and governing the environment. This paper draws on concepts from science studies and ...
... Similar experimental epistemologies are presented by Hinchliffe and Whatmore (2006) in their ... more ... Similar experimental epistemologies are presented by Hinchliffe and Whatmore (2006) in their work on vernacular urban ecologies in the UK and by Kezia Barker (2008) in her explorations of the management of invasive species in New Zealand. ...
... tourist mobilities are figured as a catalyst for modern cosmopolitanism ([Franklin, 2003] and... more ... tourist mobilities are figured as a catalyst for modern cosmopolitanism ([Franklin, 2003] and ... relevant here, and these apply equally to the discourse of global environmental citizenship. First, these approaches pay little attention to the material assemblages of objects, bodies ...
Abstract Increasing numbers of fee-paying volunteers now travel from the UK to work on conservati... more Abstract Increasing numbers of fee-paying volunteers now travel from the UK to work on conservation projects in middle and low income countries. The time and resources they commit have important implications for international conservation practice. This article provides an overview of ...
This paper draws on and develops a range of concepts and methodologies from 'more-than-human' and... more This paper draws on and develops a range of concepts and methodologies from 'more-than-human' and animal geographies to map some embodied historical geographies of elephant hunting in mid-nineteenthcentury Ceylon. It focuses in particular on the exploits of Samuel Baker and some of his contemporaries. The paper attends to the attachments, crossings and ethics that passed between hunted and hunting bodies to flesh out the colonial visions of these 'seeing men' of empire. It critically engages with existing work on hunting and colonial natural history by examining interwoven human and nonhuman experiences, exploring elephant hunting as a collection of embodied and co-evolutionary processes with complex material histories. Drawing out the importance of embodiment, affect and intercorporeal exchange the paper then reflects on the performance, epistemology and ethics of hunting practice and traces the role played by a code of sportsmanship in orientating and legitimating the ethical sensibility of hunting. In conclusion the paper details what is gained from this style of embodied historical analysis which unsettles any simple spatio-temporal territorialisation of (post-) colonial historical geographies.
Reconciling human and non-human use of urban regions to support biological conservation represent... more Reconciling human and non-human use of urban regions to support biological conservation represents a major challenge for the 21st century. The concept of reconciliation ecology, by which the anthropogenic environment may be modified to encourage non-human use and biodiversity preservation without compromising societal utilization, potentially represents an appropriate paradigm for urban conservation given the generally poor opportunities that exist for reserve establishment and ecological restoration in urban areas. Two habitat improvement techniques with great potential for reconciliation ecology in urban areas are the installation of living roofs and walls, which have been shown to support a range of taxa at local scales. This paper evaluates the reconciliation potential of living roofs and walls, in particular highlighting both ecological and societal limitations that need to be overcome for application at the landscape scale. We further consider that successful utilization of li...
In the early 1980s the Dutch ecologist Frans Vera began an ambitious ecological restoration exper... more In the early 1980s the Dutch ecologist Frans Vera began an ambitious ecological restoration experiment on a polder in the Netherlands. He introduced herds of 'back-bred' Heck cattle and other large herbivores and encouraged them to 'de-domesticate' themselves and 'rewild' the landscape they inhabit. His intervention has triggered a great deal of interest and controversy. It is being replicated and adapted across Europe as part of a wider interest in 'rewilding' in nature conservation. This innovative approach rubs up against powerful and prevalent practices of environmental management. This paper examines these frictions by mapping the character and exploring the interface between different modes of nonhuman biopolitics -in this case the powerful ways in which modern humans live with and govern cattle. Focusing on the story of Heck cattle and the bovine biopolitics of their rewilding it attends in particular to the character, place and promise of monsters. It first outlines a conceptual framework for examining nonhuman biopolitics and teratology (the study of monsters), identifying fertile tensions between the work of Haraway, Derrida and Deleuze. It then provides a typology of four prevalent modes of bovine biopoliticsnamely agriculture, conservation, welfare and biosecurity -and their associated monsters. This paper identifies rewilding as a fifth mode and examines frictions at its interfaces with the other four. Developing the conceptual framework the paper examines what these frictions tell us about the understandings of life that circulate in the ontological politics of contemporary environmentalisms. In conclusion the paper critically examines the monstrous promise of rewilding, in relation to tensions between the convivial aspirations of Haraway and Deleuze.
Interdisciplinary conversations on interspecies encounters
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 2010
Review: When Species Meet by DJ Haraway; University of Minnesota Press, MN, 2008, 423 pages, US $... more Review: When Species Meet by DJ Haraway; University of Minnesota Press, MN, 2008, 423 pages, US $75.00 cloth, $24.95 paper (£ 46.50,£ 15.50) ISBN 9780816650453, 978081665060.[J. Lorimer & G. Davies, 2010]. The definitive, peer-reviewed and edited ...
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 2007
Introduction This paper starts in the Hebrides, where Craig and I are out counting corncrakes (Cr... more Introduction This paper starts in the Hebrides, where Craig and I are out counting corncrakes (Crex crex). On a dark and windy night on the machair of Tiree we wait. Thigh deep in flag irises we listen. Around us echo the deafening crakes of a male corncrake, returned from its ...
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 2010
The biophilosophies of Gilles Deleuze (and Fe¨lix Guattari) get a mixed review in When Species Me... more The biophilosophies of Gilles Deleuze (and Fe¨lix Guattari) get a mixed review in When Species Meet. In the main they interweave and overlap with Haraway's approach and she explicitly acknowledges her indebtedness to them (and others) for providing us with the radical conceptual ...
I took the photograph in figure 1 while standing fifty storeys up on top of a skyscraper in Centr... more I took the photograph in figure 1 while standing fifty storeys up on top of a skyscraper in Central London with Dusty Gedgeöformer circus performer, keen amateur birder, and cofounder of `LivingRoofs', an organisation dedicated to `greening' UK roof spaces. Around us tower ...
The recent renaissance within animal geography has tended to focus on the spatial orderings of an... more The recent renaissance within animal geography has tended to focus on the spatial orderings of animals by humans, rather than on the lived geographies and experiences of animals themselves. We suggest that one reason for this imbalance is methodological -a persistent commitment to human-centred methods somewhat at odds with the more-than-human aspirations of the sub-discipline. In this paper we review and critically assess methodological developments in three areas that we consider to be especially significant for developing animals' geographies: (i) techniques for tracking the spatialities of animal culture; (ii) scientific and artistic engagements in inter-species communication; and (iii) geographic tools afforded by genetic analyses. In conclusion, we reflect on the promise and some of the challenges to developing these methods within (what is still largely known as) human geography. Downloaded from cultural geographies 22 The second -'beastly places' -refers to the lived geographies and experiences of animals. In the former the concern is primarily with people, in the latter it is the animals themselves. In this paper we want to suggest that progress in these two strands has been unequal. Geographers now know a lot more about animal spaces; but relatively less about beastly places -or what we here refer to as animals' geographies. This formulation extends beyond the intimate intimations of 'beastly places' to encompass a wider diversity of spatialities of animals' existence; it seeks to pluralize the categories 'animal' and 'geography' to recognize the differences they subsume.
Everyday environmentalism: creating an urban political ecology by Alex Loftus Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012, 165 pp notes, ref and index, £18.50 paperback ISBN 0816665729
This short commentary briefly flags and develops three dimensions of an 'aesthetics for post-huma... more This short commentary briefly flags and develops three dimensions of an 'aesthetics for post-human worlds', which are suggested by Dixon et al.'s (2012) paper. The first relates to questions of non-human difference -encouraging the authors to focus on what might be gained from comparing the different ontologies offered in their two case studies. The second examines questions of expertise, dwelling on the skills recounted in the paper under discussions and the epistemological politics that underpin science-art collaboration. The third observation explores the relationships between post-human aesthetics, ethics and politics. In short this commentary suggests that the authors have perhaps been a little humble about the import of their analysis. There are wider implications for geographical thought and practice after the relational turn raised here that are worthy of more extensive discussion.
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