Knowing Nature, Knowing Science: Ethnology of Local Environmental Activism - Hardcover

Berglund, Eeva

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1874267340 ISBN 13: 9781874267348

Publisher: White Horse Press, 1997

Synopsis

This text focuses on three different groups of civil activists protesting against infrastructure installations, and on their understanding of science. The role of science is revealed as an ambivalent one for environmental activism, and it is also shown to pose problems for anthropology: in looking at environmental activism as a social commitment, meaningful commentary must combine both social and scientific perspectives.

About this title

From the Back Cover

'What moves "common people" to mobilise when they perceive a threat to their quality of life? And, once mobilisation occurs, to what extent can it influence policy-making and alter entrenched understandings of nature, the economy, progress and ourselves? This wonderful study of environmental social movements in post-Chernobyl Germany takes on such questions from the multiple perspectives of cultures of protest, environmental conflict, and the interplay between nature and culture, using an original combination of social/cultural theory and ethnography of both technoscience and activism. I hope Eeva Berglund's book - situated at the cutting-edge of anthropology, social movements theory, and critical studies of science and technology - sparks a series of similar studies that allows us to start in earnest the comparative study of environmental social movements world wide.' (Arturo Escobar, University of Massachusetts)

'In this subtly insightful and superbly written ethnography of environmental activism in a German town, Eeva Berglund unravels the multiple and often conflicting sensibilities, motivations and interests that underlie the organisation of protest. At once a study of local level politics and of environmental perception, the book succeeds brilliantly in showing both how attitudes towards the environment are shaped within contexts of power, and how the play of political interests is grounded in the real experience of inhabiting an historically fashioned environment. Berglund's sensitive and sophisticated analysis casts an entirely fresh light on the issues surrounding the shifting and contested boundaries between environment and society, between natural science and public policy, and between academic inquiry and practical political engagement.' (Tim Ingold, University of Manchester)

Edition details

• Publisher: White Horse Press
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1874267340
• ISBN 13: 9781874267348
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 250