Discourses of the Environment - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0631211225 ISBN 13: 9780631211228

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell, 1998

Synopsis

This book is the first to provide students with critical understandings of the environment using a range of theoretical perspectives inspired from Michel Foucault. The contributors examine the proliferation of discourses about the environment that have emerged from all areas of society in the past 30 years. The book helps the reader to make sense of the significance of environmental legislation, regulation, institution-building, the growth of environmental movements and eco-warriors, and new environmental practices such as recycling and green consumerism.The book examines issues of current public and academic debate such as the construction of environmental awareness; the role of 'knowledge' and 'scientific' knowledge in defining legitimate environmental issues; and how and why concerns for the environment translate into new environmental social practices. The international team of contributors draw on a range of theoretical and critical concepts to address the many questions about the environment within the broader debate around modernity and postmodernity.

About this title

Review

"provides a stimulating read and a path through post-structuralist terrain." Yvonne Rydin, London School of Economics

"Discourses of the Environment represents an important contribution to addressing the links between poststructuralism and the environment. The divergent analyses are engaging and should provide material for debate and inquiry. Environmental theorists and practitioners will find this book of benefit, although the novelty of this intellectual effort should diminish as scholars recognise the important links between Foucault and nature." Local Environment

'In Discourses of the Environment Eric Darier brings together nine scholars from a variety of disciplines who are all working on environmental issues from the broad perspective provided by the work of the late Michel Foucault. The result is an important and challenging contribution to the understanding of the environment as a central problem of modern societies and as an object of study across the natural and human sciences.' -- James Tully, University of Victoria

'Darier's Discourses of the Environment makes a major contributors to a debate that really deserves to be broader than it has been. Bringing the breakthrough political theory of Michel Foucault to the environmental movement, the book is so compelling that it makes one wonder why such an approach has been so rare.' --Bill Chaloupka, University of Montana

From the Author

Critical understanding of the Environment - Michel Foucault
This book brings together authors from the UK, Canada, the US and Australia who share an interest in understanding the concerns for the environment from a critical perspective and more precisely from the theoretical perspective of Michel Foucault. It is an ideal textbook for students in environmental studies, discourses studies, sociology, social and political theory.

Contents: 1.'Foucault and the Environment: an Introduction' by Eric Darier 2.'The Entry of Life into History' by Paul Rutherford 3. 'The Construction of Environmental "Awareness"' by Isabelle Lanthier & Lawrence Olivier 4. 'Sex at the Limits" by Catriona Sandilands 5. 'Ecological Modernization and Environmental Risks' by Paul Rutherford 6. Environmentality as Green Governmentality' by Timothy W. Luke 7 'Art and Foucauldian Heterotopia' by Thomas Heyd 8 'Nature Writing as Self-Technology' by Sylvia Bowerbank 9 'Nature as Dangerous Space' by Peter Quigley 10 Foucault's Unnatural Ecology' by Neil Levy. 11. 'Foucault against Environmental Ethics' by Eric Darier.

Supporting comments:

‘[This book] is an important and challenging contribution to the understanding of the environment as a central problem of modern societies and as an object of study across the natural and human sciences’. Professor James Tully University of Victoria – Canada

‘[This book] makes a major contribution to a debate that really deserves to be broader that it has been. Bringing the breakthrough political theory of Michel Foucault to the environmental movement, the book is so compelling that it makes one wonder why such an approach has been so rare’ . Professor Bill Chaloupka University of Montana - USA

About this edition

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0631211225
• ISBN 13: 9780631211228
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 292
• Editor: Darier Eric