{"product_id":"9780674039964","title":"Politics of Nature","description":"\u003cp\u003e A major work by one of the more innovative thinkers of our time, \u003ci\u003ePolitics of Nature\u003c\/i\u003e does nothing less than establish the conceptual context for political ecology--transplanting the terms of ecology into more fertile philosophical soil than its proponents have thus far envisioned. Bruno Latour announces his project dramatically: \"Political ecology has nothing whatsoever to do with nature, this jumble of Greek philosophy, French Cartesianism and American parks.\" Nature, he asserts, far from being an obvious domain of reality, is a way of assembling political order without due process. Thus, his book proposes an end to the old dichotomy between nature and society--and the constitution, in its place, of a collective, a community incorporating humans and nonhumans and building on the experiences of the sciences as they are actually practiced. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e In a critique of the distinction between fact and value, Latour suggests a redescription of the type of political philosophy implicated in such a \"commonsense\" division--which here reveals itself as distinctly uncommonsensical and in fact fatal to democracy and to a healthy development of the sciences. Moving beyond the modernist institutions of \"mononaturalism\" and \"multiculturalism,\" Latour develops the idea of \"multinaturalism,\" a complex collectivity determined not by outside experts claiming absolute reason but by \"diplomats\" who are flexible and open to experimentation. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTable of Contents: \u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e Introduction: What Is to Be Done with Political Ecology? \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cb\u003e1. Why Political Ecology Has to Let Go of Nature\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e First, Get Out of the Cave\u003cbr\u003e Ecological Crisis or Crisis of Objectivity?\u003cbr\u003e The End of Nature\u003cbr\u003e The Pitfall of \"Social Representations\" of Nature\u003cbr\u003e The Fragile Aid of Comparative Anthropology\u003cbr\u003e What Successor for the Bicameral Collective? \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cb\u003e2. How to Bring the Collective Together\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Difficulties in Convoking the Collective\u003cbr\u003e First Division: Learning to Be Circumspect with Spokespersons\u003cbr\u003e Second Division: Associations of Humans and Nonhumans\u003cbr\u003e Third Division between Humans and Nonhumans: Reality and Recalcitrance\u003cbr\u003e A More or Less Articulated Collective\u003cbr\u003e The Return to Civil Peace \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cb\u003e3. A New Separation of Powers\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Some Disadvantages of the Concepts of Fact and Value\u003cbr\u003e The Power to Take into Account and the Power to Put in Order\u003cbr\u003e The Collective's Two Powers of Representation\u003cbr\u003e Verifying That the Essential Guarantees Have Been Maintained\u003cbr\u003e A New Exteriority \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cb\u003e4. Skills for the Collective\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The Third Nature and the Quarrel between the Two \"Eco\" Sciences\u003cbr\u003e Contribution of the Professions to the Procedures of the Houses\u003cbr\u003e The Work of the Houses\u003cbr\u003e The Common Dwelling, the \u003ci\u003eOikos\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cb\u003e5. Exploring Common Worlds\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Time's Two Arrows\u003cbr\u003e The Learning Curve\u003cbr\u003e The Third Power and the Question of the State\u003cbr\u003e The Exercise of Diplomacy\u003cbr\u003e War and Peace for the Sciences \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Conclusion: What Is to Be Done? Political Ecology! \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Summary of the Argument (for Readers in a Hurry...)\u003cbr\u003e Glossary\u003cbr\u003e Notes\u003cbr\u003e Bibliography\u003cbr\u003e Index \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the book: What is to be done with political ecology? Nothing. What is to be done? Political ecology! All those who have hoped that the politics of nature would bring about a renewal of public life have asked the first question, while noting the stagnation of the so-called \"green\" movements. They would like very much to know why so promising an endeavor has so often come to naught. Appearances notwithstanding, everyone is bound to answer the second question the same way. We have no choice: politics does not fall neatly on one side of a divide and nature on the other. From the time the term \"politics\" was invented, every type of politics has been defined by its relation to nature, whose every feature, property, and function depends on the polemical will to limit, reform, establish, short-circuit, or enlighten public life. As a result, we cannot choose whether to engage in it surreptitiously, by distinguishing between questions of nature and questions of politics, or explicitly, by treating those two sets of questions as a single issue that arises for all collectives. While the ecology movements tell us that nature is rapidly invading politics, we shall have to imagine - most often aligning ourselves with these movements but sometimes against them - what a politics finally freed from the sword of Damocles we call nature might be like.","brand":"Harvard University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47110943015152,"sku":"9780674039964","price":38.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780674039964","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}