Nature Performed: Environment, Culture and Performance

"For too long now, nature has been seen as the silent onlooker at the performance of the human. But other ways of looking at performance are possible, ways which do not assume that this is the case. Through a series of sparkling chapters, this collection is one of the first to argue for letting both ′human′ and ′nature′ act up, in the process challenging both these categories′ right to exist. Great Stuff." – Nigel Thrift, University of Bristol As interest grows in ideas of ′performance′ and ′performativity′ in the humanities and social sciences, these concepts can be extended and re–cast to inform human relations with nature. Nature Performed demonstrates how the many–dimensional prism of performance can generate new understanding of nature–human relations. Using case–studies drawn from a wide–ranging set of real–world contexts, the chapters explore issues such as: how concepts of performance can be used to interrogate the character of nature–human relationships the experience of the environment as the ′lived space′ of everyday life the centrality of iteration, re–presentation and improvisation in socio–environmental processes how performative action enacts, alters and creates perceptions of nature–human relations the importance of process and embodiment in environmental knowledge, value and practices The collection will be of interest to academics, researchers and students in a range of disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, geography, theatre studies and the life sciences.

Acknowledgements. Introduction (Bronislaw Szerszynski, Wallace Heim and Claire Waterton) . Part I: Making Worlds. Performances and Constitutions Of Natures: A Consideration Of The Performance Of Lay Geographies (David Crouch). Ritual Theory and The Environment (Ronald Grimes). A Passionate Pursuit: Foxhunting As Performance (Garry Marvin) . Part II: Living Here. Green Distinctions: The Performance Of Identity Among Environmental Activists (Dave Horton). Performing Safety In Faulty Environments (Peter Simmons). Public Participation As The Performance Of Nature (Stephen Healy) . Part III: Embodying Abstraction. Performing The Classification Of Nature (Claire Waterton). Performing Facts: Finding A Way Over Scotland’s Mountains (Hayden Lorimer and Katrin Lund). Performing Place In Nature Reserves (Matt Watson) . Part IV: Unsettling Life. Feral Ecologies: Performing Life On The Colonial Periphery (Nigel Clark). Slow Activism. Homelands, Love, and The Lightbulb (Wallace Heim). Technology, Performance and Life Itself: Hannah Arendt and The Fate Of Nature (Bronislaw Szerszynski). Notes of Contributors. Index.

Bronislaw Szerszynski is Lecturer in Environment and Culture at the Institute for Environment, Philosophy and Public Policy at Lancaster University. He is the author of The Sacralization of Nature: Nature and the Sacred in the Global Age (Blackwell Publishing, 2004) and co–editor of Re–ordering Nature: Theology, Society and the New Genetics (2003) and Risk, Environment and Modernity: Towards a New Ecology (1996). Wallace Heim is a doctoral student. She has exhibited sculpture internationally and designed for the theatre, television and film. Claire Waterton is Lecturer in Environment and Social Policy at the Institute for Environment, Philosophy and Public Policy at Lancaster University.

"A testimonial to the passions, responsibilities and creative activism currently being enacted in areas of environmental concern...the book overall makes an important contribution, with many strong and interesting chapters, and should have appeal across a wide range of audiences." Environmental Values, vol 14/4 "In more ways than one, this book challenges us to use our imaginations." Cultural Geographies