What boundary? What whale? Whose responsibility? - Governing Transboundary Waters: Canada, the United States, and Indigenous Communities - page 170

fisher, Luna was a liability to their assets. To the governmental official, Luna was
an international incident that required coordinated efforts and federal funds. And,
to the environmentalist, Luna was an endangered animal that needed to be
protected.
These multiple constructions are indicative of the variations in worldview that
each actor brings to the table. Thus, neither Luna, specifically, nor orca, in general,
are neutral terms. Yet, the material existence of Luna mutually constitutes the
interpretations of his existence. Bringing the fleshiness of the being to the fore helps
to break through these narrow (and humanist) interpretations (Sundberg, 2011).
Framing the notion of whales as a singular identity has political consequences.
Not recognizing the existence of these multiple constructions and perspectives is,
in fact, at the heart of many struggles over the environment. As discussed above,
these miscommunications are based on fundamentally different ways of viewing,
and interacting with, the natural environment. Considering these divergent
frameworks requires a willingness to consider multiple worldviews in the decision-
making process and a built-in flexibility in governance systems to respond to issues
that transgress nested identities and fixed jurisdictional spaces.
Another poignant example of how constructed identities impact governance is
found with the logging controversies that focus on Canada's west coast. Like Luna,
the fate of the temperate rainforest has “pitted environmentalist against industry,
First Nations against the state, environmentalists against First Nations, even the
state against industry, in a complex shifting matrix of political actors” (Braun and
Wainwright, 2001, p. 50). As Braun and Wainwright note, the controversy was
not about the “rainforest” as singular; rather it was about the politics of the discursive
practices that produced the ideology surrounding the “rainforest”. Hence, in
environmental politics - regardless of the issue - it is the act of framing nature
rather than nature itself that has political consequences (Braun, 2002, 2005).
A striking difference between the socially-created identities in this case is the
divergent views of Luna as a “lost whale” that needed to be reunited with his
family and the view that Luna had “come home” in the form of Tsu-xiit (the chief
incarnate). As discussed in the previous section, these conceptions are very bound
up with notions of nature as “out there” versus nature as “everywhere” or as
inseparable from humans. In the first instance, Luna was seen as transgressing a
boundary between nature and culture, and in the second, he was seen as “coming
home”.
The public juxtaposition of these opposing worldviews presents a paradox in
which the ordering of nature is called into question (and, in essence, the divergent
epistemologies of science and nature are called into question). What often goes
unrecognized in the daily practices of “environmental management” are the power
dynamics implicit in ordering nature. Thus, environmental management requires
ongoing translation between cultures and “a way of life”; if that work is not
conducted, misunderstandings are inevitable (Nadasdy, 2004). As discussed in the
previous section, critical scholarship in animal geographies contributes to a greater
understanding of how dominant narratives prescribe the “rightful” places for
animals and how these are reinforced through policies and governance practices.