Human-animal co-existence is central to a politics of life, how we order societies, and to debates about who 'we' humans think 'we' are. In other words, our ways of understanding and ordering human-animal relations have economic and political implications and affect peoples' everyday lives. By bringing together historically-oriented approaches and contemporary ethnographies which engage with science and technology studies (STS), this book reflects the multi-sited, multi-species, multi-logic and multiple ways in which lives are and have been assembled, disassembled, practised and possibly policed and politicized. Instead of asking only how control and knowledge are and have been extended over life, the chapters in this book also look at what happens when control fails, at practices which defy orders, escape detection, fail to produce or only loosely hang together. In doing so the book problematises and extends the Foucauldian notion of biopolitics that has been such a central analytical concept in studies of human-animal relations and provides a unique resource of cases and theoretical refinements regarding the ways in which we live together with more than human others .

Human-animal co-existence is central to a politics of life, how we order societies, and to debates about who 'we' humans think 'we' are. In other words, our ways of understanding and ordering human-animal relations have economic and political implications and affect peoples' everyday lives. By bringing together historically-oriented approaches and contemporary ethnographies which engage with science and technology studies (STS), this book reflects the multi-sited, multi-species, multi-logic and multiple ways in which lives are and have been assembled, disassembled, practised and possibly policed and politicized. Instead of asking only how control and knowledge are and have been extended over life, the chapters in this book also look at what happens when control fails, at practices which defy orders, escape detection, fail to produce or only loosely hang together. In doing so the book problematises and extends the Foucauldian notion of biopolitics that has been such a central analytical concept in studies of human-animal relations and provides a unique resource of cases and theoretical refinements regarding the ways in which we live together with more than human others .

The age in which people in the West have treated society and nature as essentially separate matters is at an end. Environmental change and degradation impinge on all our lives, and even our genes are increasingly seen by employers and insurers as commodities.
The Natural and the Social draws on insights from across the social sciences to examine the changing character of these interrelations between society and nature. Individual chapters look in depth at genes, environments and human development, medical practices and health, and the management of environmental risk. Throughout students are encouraged to draw on their own experiences to understand the theoretical and practical problems of living in this new natural-and-social world.
This exciting and original text will be essential reading for anyone who wants to understand more clearly the role and limitations of technological and scientific progress in contemporary society.

"An exemplary introduction to cutting edge work on the geographies of nature. Intellectually demanding, clearly written and empirically rich, this is a book that deserves a wide readership within and beyond the geographical discipline." - Sarah J. Whatmore, Oxford University Centre for the Environment Geographies of Nature introduces readers to conventional understandings of nature - realist, environmental, constructivist - while examining alternative accounts from different disciplines where nature resists easy classification. Accessibly written, it demonstrates how recent thinking has urgent relevance and impact on the ways in which we approach environmental problems. The text: Makes concepts like 'environment', 'conservation', and 'sustainability' accessible and applicable with the extensive use of case studies. Uses text boxes to introduce readers to debates and ideas. Grounds the reader and proceeds to the explanation of more complex arguments progressively. Geographies of Nature presents a new kind of environmental analysis, one that refuses to view nature as wholly separate to the human and nonhuman practices through which it is constantly made and remade.

Should our jobs depend on our genes?
If humanity started global warming can humanity stop it?
The age if which people in the West have treated society and nature as essentially separate matters is at an end. In a world in which our control over the environment has proved illusory even as our ability to manipulate nature - both our own and that of other species - grows, the distinction between the natural and the social is becoming ever more blurred. Environmental changed and degradation impinge on all our lives, and even our genes are increasingly seen by employers and insurers as commodities. The Natural and the Social: Uncertainty, Risk and Change draws on insights form across the social sciences - from psychology, economics, geography as well as sociology - to examine the changing character of these interrelations between society and nature. It examines particularly genes and identity, medical practices and health, market solutions to environmental problems and the management of risk.
Throughout students are encouraged also to draw on their own experiences to understand the theoretical and practical problems of living in this new natural-and-social world.

Knowledge and the Social Sciences takes as its point of departure the claims that all forms of knowledge, the social sciences included, must be seen and understood in their social context. It argues that the social sciences both describe and transform their object of study, though rarely in ways that social scientists intend, and introduces students to the key epistemological and philosophical terms and issues essential for further study in the social sciences.
In a radical and yet lucid and practical introduction to ways of thinking and knowing in the social sciences this text investigates:
* the origins and consequences of different types of knowledge in substantive areas of social change: medical practice, religious beliefs, and the environment
* whether there is a decline in public trust of expert knowledge systems
* whether we are entering a knowledge society, a fragmented post-modern society, or a risk society.