Natures Running Wild: A Social-Ecological Perspective on Wilderness

2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabine Hofmeister
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
First Century ◽  
Ecological Perspective ◽  
Cultural Value ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Wilderness Education ◽  
Wilderness Areas ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Risk Discourse

This article is based on the thesis that wilderness as a cultural value emerges where it has been lost as a geographical and material phenomenon. In Europe the idea of wilderness experienced a surprising upswing at the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first century, with wilderness tours, wilderness education, and self-experience trips into “wilderness” becoming widely established. Also, protection of “wilderness areas” which refers to such different phenomena as large forests, wild gardens, and urban wild is very much in demand. Against this background, the article looks into the material-ecological and symbolic-cultural senses of “wilderness” in the context of changing social relations to nature. Three forms of wilderness are distinguished. Adopting a socio-ecological perspective, the article builds on contemporary risk discourse.

‘The Worst Oratorio Ever!’: Colonialist Condescension in the Critical Reception of George Tolhurst’s Ruth (1864)

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (02) ◽  
pp. 199-227
Author(s):  
Sarah Kirby
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Critical Reception ◽  
First Century ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Parent State ◽  
British Colony ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Cultural Hierarchies ◽  
Made In

The oratorio genre was regarded amongst the most edifying and instructive artforms of the Victorian era, and it was to these lofty ideals that George Tolhurst (1827–1877) aspired when composing his 1864 oratorioRuth. The first work of its kind written in the British colony of Victoria, Australia,Ruthreceived an initially favourable local reception; Tolhurst was urged by the Melbourne press to aim higher and present his work to a wider and more discerning audience. Consequently, he took his work to London where it was roundly criticized, widely mocked and eventually dubbed ‘the worst oratorio ever’. It might be assumed that a work so poorly received in the cultural metropolis of London would be, like so much other Victorian music, immediately forgotten. However, through its notoriously bad reception,Ruth– in what Percy Scholes describes as a ‘succès de ridicule’ – found a cult following that has spanned from the nineteenth century to the present day. This article examines the critical reception ofRuththrough the lens of colonial social relations, arguing that the treatment ofRuthin both London and Melbourne is emblematic of broader trends in the nineteenth-century relationship between parent state and settler colony. It also explores the surprising phenomenon of twentieth- and twenty-first-century consumption ofRuthin Britain, questioning whether the legacies of certain Victorian social and cultural prejudices relating to the artistic products of the colonies have been mitigated. Aesthetic and representational decisions made in recent revivals of Ruth suggest that cultural hierarchies forged during the Victorian era continue to be reinforced in the present day.

Man Management

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas P. Oates
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Video Game ◽  
First Century ◽  
Organizational Strategies ◽  
Fantasy Football ◽  
Fiscal Management ◽  
Twenty First Century

This chapter examines how commercial entertainments relating to the NFL advance a vision of idealized citizenship in the twenty-first century U.S. which is budget-conscious and market-oriented. The chapter extends the concerns with productivity, which were developed in the previous two chapters, focusing this interest on the construction of a financialized citizen, who is analytical and concerned with organizational strategies. Through football-related entertainments, these idealized figures are imagined as valorized men. The chapter focuses on promotions for the popular digital entertainments of fantasy football and the video game series Madden NFL. Both games position NFL fans to act as effective managers of teams and players. In doing so, they impart more generally applicable lessons about fiscal management and social relations in the late capitalist period, while offering forms of masculine validation for those who succeed.

Human Development and Class Struggle in Venezuela’s Popular Economy: The Paradox of ‘Twenty-First Century Socialism’

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 177-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Larrabure
Keyword(s):  
Human Development ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Class Struggle ◽  
The State ◽  
First Century ◽  
Important Barrier ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Popular Economy ◽  
Popular Power

AbstractIn this paper, I outline what I take to be the most important theoretical claims and innovations of ‘twenty-first century socialism’ in Venezuela. These, I argue, consist of an emphasis on human development through popular-economy initiatives, and the importance of building popular power through the state, rather than by ignoring or fighting against it. I then present evidence on Venezuela’s Socialist Production Units, one of Venezuela’s newest state-supported popular-economy organisations. I argue that, consistent with the twenty-first-century socialism approach, SPUs are sites of human development in which participants are learning to challenge capitalist social relations, while establishing new values and practices. Therefore, we can think of Venezuela’s popular economy as expressing a sharpened class contradiction.However, my case study also shows that holding hands with human development is class struggle directed against the state. This reveals a central theoretical and practical paradox in twenty-first century socialism, namely that, while nurturing initiatives that challenge capital, the Venezuelan state also emerges as an important barrier to overcoming the class relation. This, I argue, is not wholly consistent with the views of theorists of twenty-first century socialism that understand Venezuela’s popular economy as forming a new form of dual power or a parallel state, and who therefore downplay the importance of struggles against the state within the popular economy. The strategic implication is that struggles between popular-economy participants and the state cannot be avoided, and indeed will need to be fostered if the project for twenty-first century socialism is to continue.

scholarly journals Walking the Tightrope of Socialist Governance: A Strategic-Relational Analysis of Twenty-first-Century Socialism

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-65
Author(s):  
Marcel Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
The State ◽  
First Century ◽  
Political Opposition ◽  
Relational Analysis ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Shed Light

The process of socialist transformation in a democratic context presents many quandaries including walking a tightrope between pursuing substantive transformation that challenges existing social relations and remaining in power in view of political opposition stemming from such a challenge. The experiences of twenty-first-century socialism in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela provide different examples of ways of balancing the two imperatives. Nicos Poulantzas’s writings on the state shed light on the importance of deepening democracy as part of any process of socialist transformation and on the limits of such a strategy. El proceso de transformación socialista en un contexto democrático presenta muchos dilemas que incluyen caminar en la cuerda floja entre perseguir una transformación sustantiva que desafía las relaciones sociales existentes y permanecer en el poder en vista de la oposición política que surge de tal desafío. Las experiencias del socialismo del siglo XXI en Ecuador, Bolivia y Venezuela proporcionan diferentes ejemplos de formas de equilibrar los dos imperativos. Los escritos de Nicos Poulantzas sobre el estado arrojan luz sobre la importancia de profundizar la democracia como parte de cualquier proceso de transformación socialista y los límites de dicha estrategia.

The Ecology of Travel: Capitalism, Ethnicity, and the Environment in Dadelavan Ibau’s Farewell, Eagle

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Kyle Shernuk
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Han Chinese ◽  
First Century ◽  
Felix Guattari ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Analytic Framework ◽  
Unique Position ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

This article investigates the relationship between ethnicity, the environment, and capitalism in Paiwan aboriginal writer Dadelavan Ibau’s 2004 work, Farewell, Eagle: A Paiwan Woman’s West-Tibetan Travels. By foregrounding an ecological analytic framework—a framework inspired by Félix Guattari but revised to reflect the unique position of Taiwan and Taiwan culture at the turn of the twenty-first century—I demonstrate not only the connection between subjectivity, social relations, and the environment, but also how that connection is sustained by distinctly ethnicised forms of knowledge that emerge from within majority Han-Chinese/Taiwanese contexts. I further argue that such literary and practised tactics for ethnic expression challenge the deterritorialising and homogenising impacts of Han-sponsored capitalist expansion. Not just a story of human beings, however, I conclude by demonstrating both the active and passive roles played by the environment, which serves as both the necessary prerequisite that facilitates these ethnic and capitalist projects alike, as well as the price by which their actualisation is paid.

Towards a Collaborative Ergonomics: From Strangers to Symbiotic Community through Boundary Traversal in Performance

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 245-263
Author(s):  
PEILIN LIANG
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
First Century ◽  
Embodied Knowledge ◽  
Collaborative Relationships ◽  
Intercultural Performance ◽  
The Face ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Symbiotic Community

In the globalized twenty-first century, the relevance of intercultural performance is to forge supporting infrastructures between collaborators of divergent sociocultural backgrounds and disciplinary training. Fostering such infrastructures is vital for reconfiguring existing social relations and redistributing resources in the face of increasing sociocultural asymmetry. However, I argue that transforming collaborating ‘strangers’ into interdependent components of a sustainable symbiotic community necessitates the implementation of a collaborative ergonomics. It is an ergonomics concerned with the efficiency and efficacy of collaboration that actively seeks to traverse boundaries and borders. Linguistic translation, lexical translation and the transference and co-production of embodied knowledge are the crucial steps for effecting a collaborative ergonomics. Signs of an emerging symbiosis include the increasingly collaborative relationships between the collaborators and the transformation of embodied practices into highly reflexive and rigorous praxis.

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