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Books > Science & Mathematics > Science: general issues > Philosophy of science
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Imagining Nature - Practices of Cosmology & Identity (Paperback)
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Imagining Nature - Practices of Cosmology & Identity (Paperback)
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During the last decade, many social scientists have sought to show
that nature is not an eternal constant but an intrinsically
unstable concept - a historical, cultural and social construct with
powerful emotional, moral and political connotations. Imagining
Nature sets out to explore some of the implications of and lacunae
in this recent push to denaturalise nature. But rather than asking,
What is nature? as many academic writers have been doing, the
contributors here ask, How is nature established as an entity?
Through what processes and practices does nature achieve reality?
The editors provide a synthetic introduction to the dozen
contributions which comprise the volume. Of particular interest is
their account of how the dismantling of nature as an unquestioned
given, echoes and was triggered by a similar dismantling of culture
as an anthropological concept. The book's first half, Cosmologies,
focuses on ways the practices of nature are embedded in overarching
conceptual worldviews. Papers range from a sweeping critique of how
neo-Darwinian biology, cognitive psychology and cultural theory
have colluded to create the dominant narrative of human nature
today, to an examination of Estonian wooded meadows as a mosaic of
nature and culture that supports high diversity in both. Other ways
to reconcile traditional and modern cosmologies emerge in
comparative studies of economists and Algonquin hunter-gatherers,
Danish biologists and Inuit fishermen. Chapters in the second half
illustrate some of the means by which identity unfolds and becomes
established in interacting with and imagining nature. The chapters
examine nature and identity in the national mythologies of
Scandinavia and Germany; two Fulani status groups in Burkina Faso;
the confrontational Sami community of Manndalen, Norway; the
spatial world of the Tsaatang nomads in Mongolia; and two
neoclassic houses by Le Corbusier and Wright. While the individual
contributions here will certainly interest specialists in the
particular fields they represent, Imagining Nature is broadly
interdisciplinary in appeal, and it is especially recommended to
anyone intrigued by recent constructivist debate and the
multiplying conceptions of nature in the social sciences.
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