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or 'social' as well. In dissolving the divide between them, the way we see both is
transformed.
It might seem perverse, even dangerous, to abandon the idea of nature as a set
of pristine spaces and autonomous processes and structures at this point in history.
After all, as McKibben and other environmentalists continually remind us, we face
a deepening global environmental crisis. Even if human-generated climate change
is perhaps still open to a degree of scientifi c uncertainty, it is not the only point of
concern about human impacts on the environment around us. Deforestation, the
over fi shing of the oceans, and the degrading of soil and water resources are other
very pressing matters of concern. Nature seems to be in trouble, and many envi-
ronmentalists insist that it is precisely our failure to respect its autonomy and
material limits that have gotten us into this mess. At the same time, scientists con-
tinue to reveal the amazing depths of 'nature' in ever more detail. Wildlife fi lms
show astonishing pictures of 'life on earth'. The Hubble telescope reveals wondrous
formations in deep space. A new generation of particle accelerators are hunting for
the primary sub-atomic particles of existence itself. In such circumstances is it
responsible, let alone reasonable, to be calling into question the very idea of nature
itself?
'Yes' is the response contained in a growing body of research in Geography and
cognate disciplines that rejects the nature/culture divide as an obstacle to forging a
world in common. The 'modern constitution', as Latour (1993) terms it, has made
us blind to the everyday realities of life on earth, and thus unable to grasp how it
comes about, how it goes on, and how it might be shaded one way or the other.
Systems such as those taking food from fi eld to market involve elements of 'nature'
and 'culture' so closely woven together that separating them out into 'natural'
dimensions to be studied by physical geographers and social ones of concern to
human geographers is neither practical nor analytically possible. And yet, under the
modern constitution, that is exactly what we have sought to do. Distractions about
policing the arbitrary and inevitably leaky borders between 'natural' foods and
artifi cial ones, for example, have hobbled more constructive interventions in the
food system about what makes for better and more ethically acceptable foods. Dis-
cussions over such things as GM foods have been constrained by the nature/culture
dualism that breaks down discussion into issues of scientifi c fact and risk, on the
one hand, and political desirability or consumer choice on the other.
Abandoning these longstanding habits of thought opens up an exciting concep-
tual landscape in which the world is no longer fi xed by some timeless and essential
nature, but instead is understood as the ongoing outcome of myriad entanglements
of elements and processes spanning both sides of the supposed divide of old between
nature and culture.
Being 'after nature' thus involves relational ways for thinking about the environ-
ment, nature, and society. Emphases on relationality, fl ows, networks, and ecologies
have come into Geography from a variety of sources, which I review in the fi rst
part of this chapter. There are important conceptual and political differences, for
example, between the approaches to relationality offered by actor-network theorists
and Marxist dialectians. These ethical and political implications are what I turn to
in the second part of the chapter. They require new approaches to disciplinary divi-
sions and methodologies, and to our ways of thinking about politics and ethics. The
project of moving beyond, or after nature is thus an ambitious one, and the stakes
are high. Some suggest that abandoning the idea of nature and the nature culture/
