Expected Papers
Introductory considerations
This theme is primarily focused on understanding environmental management as a ‘socio-natural assemblage’ (Bakker, 2010). As assemblages are structured through ‘critical reflection, debate, and contest’ (Collier, 2006, p. 400) by engaging environmental management, our attempt here is to explore the multiple possibilities of reinventing the politics of nature.
Though every assemblage is basically territorial it may be composed of heterogeneous elements that may be ‘human and non-human, organic and inorganic, technical and natural’ (Anderson & McFarlane, 2011, p. 124). It is a ‘constellation of singularities and traits deduced from the flow – selected, organized and stratified – in such a way as to converge (consistency) artificially and naturally’ (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 406). In other words, as a product of multiple determinations an assemblage is not reducible to a single logic… [it] implies heterogeneous, contingent, unstable, partial and situated’ (Collier & Ong, 2005, p. 12). There are multiple ways in which assemblage is used: as a descriptor, an ethos and a concept (Anderson & McFarlane, 2011). Essentially, it is a sensibility in the discourse of description and analysis (Marcus & Saka, 2006).
Assemblages stand in a ‘dependent but contingent relationship to the grander problematizations’ (Rabinow, 2003, p. 56). Observing an environmental phenomenon as an assemblage, first of all, enable us to recognize society and nature in non-dualistic ways, by embracing a relational ontology (Castree, 2003). Secondly, the relational thinking in assemblages allows us to deal with an another pertinent problem that is encountered when analyzing environmental management: about the whole and the parts. The specific forms of agencies of the parts and the whole, not one or the other, can be descriptively and analytically engaged like other potential dualisms like stability and change, order and disruption etc (McFarlane & Anderson, 2011).
References:
Anderson, B., & McFarlane, C. (2011). Assemblage and geography. Area, 43(2), 124-127. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4762.2011.01004.x
Bakker, K. (2010). The limits of “neoliberal natures”: Debating green neoliberalism. Progress in Human Geography, 34(6), 715 -735. doi:10.1177/0309132510376849
Castree, N. (2003). Environmental issues: relational ontologies and hybrid politics. Progress in Human Geography, 27(2), 203 -211. doi:10.1191/0309132503ph422pr
Collier, S. J. (2006). Global Assemblages. Theory, Culture & Society, 23(2-3), 399 -401. doi:10.1177/026327640602300269
Collier, S. J., & Ong, A. (2005). Global Assemblages Anthropological Problems. In A. Ong & S. J. Collier (Eds.), Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems (pp. 3-21). Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9780470696569.ch1/summary
Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. (B. Massumi, Trans.) (1st ed.). University of Minnesota Press.
Marcus, G. E., & Saka, E. (2006). Assemblage. Theory, Culture & Society, 23(2-3), 101 -106. doi:10.1177/0263276406062573
McFarlane, C., & Anderson, B. (2011). Thinking with assemblage. Area, 43(2), 162-164. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4762.2011.01012.x
Rabinow, P. (2003). Anthropos Today: Reflections on Modern Equipment (1st ed.). Princeton University Press.
- 1. "Wildlife management in practice. The case of the preys-predator programme in the Mercantour national park." Workshop "How do you manage? Unravelling the situated practice of environmental management", 2012.
- 2. "Unpacking nonhuman environments: the role of migratory birds in Donana's Environmental Disaster." Workshop "How do you manage? Unravelling the situated practice of environmental management", 2012.
- 3. "Assembling mosquito nets, managing malaria." Workshop "How do you manage? Unravelling the situated practice of environmental management", 2012.