This incisive book explores the implications of the nature–culture binary and how it impacts the ways in which we think about nature. Bringing together and building on extensive work from varied fields, E. C. H. Keskitalo maps the many understandings of nature across diverse traditions and histories, and demonstrates that nature relations must be understood in connection to power. Focusing on five key binaries – nature–culture, urban–rural, productivism–landscape, leisure–work, and wilderness–civilization – the book unpacks how discussions and conceptions of nature shape our actions towards nature. It examines the role of classification and categorization in language, and reflects on how to limit the overuse of natural resources. Looking beyond theory, Keskitalo examines the practical implications of understandings of nature relations on key topics including property systems, globalisation, planning, and management. Rethinking Nature Relations will be an accessible entry point for students and scholars in the social and natural sciences to begin critically examining nature relations. It will also be an invaluable resource for those working in environmental policy, sociology, geography, and development studies.

This book analyses not only Arctic organisation and background but also the way in which current regional development draws upon the extensive history of polar research and exploration. The book defines the discourse of the Arctic as it is manifested in the political region-building of the area, in the boom from the 1970s to the present, and traces this development and related conceptions historically, into polar history and the period of romanticism in the 1800s and earlier.

The Social Aspects of Environmental and Climate Change critically examines the prominence of natural science framing in mainstream climate change research and demonstrates why climate change really is a social issue. The book highlights how assumptions regarding social and cultural systems that are common in sustainability science have impeded progress in understanding environmental and climate change. The author explains how social sciences theory and perspectives provide an understanding of institutional dynamics including issues of scale, possibilities for learning, and stakeholder interaction, using specific case studies to illustrate this impact. The book highlights the foundational role research into social, political, cultural, behavioural, and economic processes must play if we are to design successful strategies, instruments, and management actions to act on climate change. With pedagogical features such as suggestions for further reading, text boxes, and study questions in each chapter, this book will be an essential resource for students and scholars in sustainability, environmental studies, climate change, and related fields.

The Social Aspects of Environmental and Climate Change critically examines the prominence of natural science framing in mainstream climate change research and demonstrates why climate change really is a social issue. The book highlights how assumptions regarding social and cultural systems that are common in sustainability science have impeded progress in understanding environmental and climate change. The author explains how social sciences theory and perspectives provide an understanding of institutional dynamics including issues of scale, possibilities for learning, and stakeholder interaction, using specific case studies to illustrate this impact. The book highlights the foundational role research into social, political, cultural, behavioural, and economic processes must play if we are to design successful strategies, instruments, and management actions to act on climate change. With pedagogical features such as suggestions for further reading, text boxes, and study questions in each chapter, this book will be an essential resource for students and scholars in sustainability, environmental studies, climate change, and related fields.

This topical and engaging Research Handbook illustrates the variety of research approaches in the field of climate change adaptation policy in order to provide a guide to its social and institutional complexity. A range of international expert contributors offer interdisciplinary explorations of climate change adaptation policy from policy sciences, legal, and practitioner perspectives. Using examples from a variety of sectors including water, health and land use, and multiple levels of governance and country contexts, from international to local, and developing to developed countries, the chapters examine a wealth of theoretical orientations towards climate change adaptation policy and their underpinnings. In doing so, this Research Handbook provides an understanding of the complexity of the institutions, decision-makers and assumptions that are involved in adaptation research as well as adaptation policy development and implementation. This Research Handbook will be an indispensable resource for both researchers and practitioners in climate change adaptation with an interest in the research methods and policies that support and advance it. Undergraduate and postgraduate students of environmental studies, public policy and politics will also find this book provides a valuable foundation for building a deeper knowledge of adaptation science and policy. Contributors include: A. Atteridge, J. Bergh, R. Biesbroek, K.J. Bowen, D. Burton, S.N. Chau, C. Clar, S. Connor, G. Cundill, A. Dertinger, K.L. Ebi, S. Fritzen, K. Grecksch, F. Groundstroem, B. Harvey, M. Howlett, D. Javeline, S. Juhola, A. Jurgilevich, R.J. Keenan, E.C.H. Keskitalo, J. Klein, J. Lawrence, E. Lisa, J. McDonald, I. Mukherjee, M. Mullan, J. Munck, L.O. Naess, J. Nalau, H. Nelson, I. Noble, T. O'Donnell, A. Oels, M. Parsons, A. Persson, B.L. Preston, M. Purdon, M. Rahman, A. Rasanen, D. Russel, F. Schipper, T.F. Smith, C.A. Sova, R. Steurer, R. Swart, P. Thornton, M. Twena, A. Wellstead, J. Wenta

This work draws upon the history of Arctic development and the view of the Arctic in different states to explain how such a discourse has manifested itself in current broader cooperation across eight statistics analysis based on organization developments from the late 1970s to the present, shows that international region discourse has largely been forwarded through the extensive role of North American, particularly Canadian, networks and deriving form their frontier-based conceptualization of the north.