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geneous processes that constitute the environment'. Another criticism is that socio-
ecological relations are ultimately defi ned as confl ictual, whereas other approaches
are keen to seek out potentially positive sum relationships between economy and
ecology (see 'Entangling Politics' below).
Felix Guattari's (2000) take on nature-society relations (which Braun [2006] sees
as bearing much affi nity with the work of Harvey) makes it plain that it is globalised
capitalism which is denuding cultural, psychological, and ecological diversity to the
extent that we are witnessing 'ecocide' on a global scale. New dialectics does an
important job in bringing to our attention the force, and ubiquity, with which capi-
talist networks (re)shape the world. However the new dialectical analysis of how
to act (critically) in these circumstances seems limited by its stance of fundamental
opposition. The debate over the nature of critical Left geography between Amin
and Thrift (2005; 2007), on the one side, and Harvey (2006) and Smith (2005) on
the other, shows that for some the central focus on Marxism is a limiting rather
than empowering for critical knowledge, and this may be the case for its knowledges
of after-natural worlds. ANT shares much with new dialectics but seeks more
multi-faceted, multi-scaled and fl exible responses which might work within what is
now considered to be a more heterogeneous and open capitalism than heretofore,
and which offer spaces of possibility for creative and life-enhancing after natural
entanglements.
Actor network theory
ANT is perhaps the most prominent 'after nature' approach considered in this
chapter. It mounts a root-and-branch attack on the two world model, insisting on
a 'symmetrical' view across the previously inscribed divides of nature/society, object/
subject, structure/agency, fact/value, and more besides. Indeed, attacking these dual-
isms, which underpin the modern constitution, is the very
raison d'être
of ANT.
Whereas other approaches (e.g., new ecology) have come to question the nature/
culture divide in the course of their developing inquires, ANT
begins
with a philo-
sophical agenda set against the modern constitution. One of its chief proponents
repeatedly insists that we must now completely by-pass the distinctions of old.
Instead of treating them as starting points or foundations for inquiry (as so many
do), 'we need to rethink the whole assemblage from top to bottom and from begin-
ning to end' (Latour, 2004a, p. 227).
To that end ANT emphasises the networks of heterogeneous connections that
can be seen, if only we care to look for them. The work of the late Jonathan
Murdoch (1995; 1997; 1998; 2001; 2003) has been particularly signifi cant in inter-
preting ANT within geography and sociology. He shows just how challenging ANT
is for a range of disciplines in terms of understanding space and what and who
counts as actors and agency. For example, power generation and consumption could
be considered as a vast network of technological devices, information, politics,
biogeochemical processes, people and so on. A power station itself could be seen in
exactly the same way. (At what scale we read networks and where they meaning-
fully stop and start are some of the challenges posed by ANT). It is the
network
which has power, agency and affect - not the individual elements in it. Such net-
works shape space itself; think of the advent of rail networks and the Internet. Fixed
notions of space (e.g., local and global) are problematised as
topological
mappings
of space. Relations and manifold, multiscalar networks are instead understood as
making up the fabric of unfolding life.
