Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
In the previous three chapters, I've presented an analytical vocabulary that
allows us to make sense of how others make sense of the world for us. Nature
and its collateral terms, I've argued, are 'concepts we live by', such is their
terrain upon which myriad epistemic communities operate. A metaphori-
cal contest occurs between these communities over how the terrain is to
be demarcated, partitioned and understood. In other cases, communities
share and rework the epistemic products of others as part of their own prac-
tice. However, in almost all cases audiences of various kinds are invited
to consume representations whose creation they know little about. These
representations, operative across the full range of communicative genres,
become the raw materials out of which people understand both themselves
and the wider world we all inhabit. They inform our habits of action and
inaction. They are part of the incessant socio-material process of 'governing'
individuals, in the broadest sense of that term. They are, in other words,
a key ingredient in achieving both sociocultural stability and various forms
(and degrees) of change.
In this and the remaining chapters, I want to amplify and evidence the
major arguments presented in the previous pages using a wide range of
extended examples. Where the previous three chapters have been peppered
with vignettes, the ones to come will present more in-depth case material.
This material is, intentionally, drawn from field- and desk-based research of
those upon whose concepts and claims I have drawn in
Part 1
. However, in
the interests of making the chapters readable, I won't clutter the text with
too many citations but, rather, let the case material do the talking. Readers
can consult the research publications upon which I draw here as they wish
(and I hope they do - see the References at the end of the topic). I will,
necessarily, recontextualise and repurpose the insights of these publications
in line with the emphases of argument presented in the previous three chap-
ters. Along the way, I'll invite you to use the arguments of
Part 1
to make
sense of the extended cases to be presented.
This first chapter in
Part 2
has one objective. If, as I've insisted, 'nature'
is not natural, then it is, in some meaningful sense, 'social'. How can what
appears to be natural be shown to bear the (usually) disguised trace of peo-
ple's preferences, values and assumptions? It is one thing to demonstrate
