Critical Studies of Nature

The different ways in which people understand nature have been at the heart of struggles over what kind of discipline geography ought to be. Recent years have seen the emergence of a range of critical approaches to the study of nature that seek to critique and change it. Nevertheless, conceptually, nature remains notoriously difficult to define, and as will become clear, definitions often reveal much more about an overall political position—and a view about what geography ought to be—than they do about plants, animals, landscapes, and the many things we think of as nature.

In its earliest manifestations, geography was defined by an emphasis on the manner in which natural environments shaped and determined human societies. Here, nature assumed a determining role over the social: Differing levels of civilization were interpreted through this deterministic lens. This position was brought into question by those who sought to place a greater influence on the role of culture as a mediating factor between the social and the natural. Nature, in the process, came to be understood as something imbued with a variety of social and cultural characteristics. Rather than being seen as a pristine realm, devoid of human influence, nature was viewed as a product or construct. These constructions of nature have varied historically and geographically. Subsequent debates have followed similar lines to these first confrontations, with contemporary critical work increasingly assuming an antiessentialist or denaturalizing track. To put things crudely, the aim has been to show that nature is anything but natural.

As several authors have noted, the dominant view of nature has served to deepen the gulf between human and physical geography. However, more recent critiques have sought to establish the myriad ways in which apparently discrete social and natural entities are actually co-constitutive. Although in according nature a greater agency this might seem to be a move back toward the ground of environmental determinism, the thrust of this work is entirely different. Instead, the aim has been to dismantle the false dichotomies through which nature and society have been read and interpreted. Perhaps here, there may be more grounds for a conversation, and it is perhaps no surprise that environmental geographies seem to be undergoing a minor renaissance. In what follows, this shifting focus from the social construction of nature toward a growing recognition of the mutually constitutive relationships between nature and society is charted. At the same time, the important synergies with other approaches, from feminism to Marxism, are captured.