bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Vying for credibility in the US Congress
Authors: Ponte Maya
Published: May 2007

Throughout the debate in the United States Congress over whether vaccines cause autism, legitimizing symbols that index cultural values have played a prominent role in the establishment of credibility. While both sides sanctify the role of science in producing credibility, they draw on different images of what science is and where its legitimacy stems from. Those who favor the vaccine hypothesis frame science as a populist endeavor, the results of which are open to critique by all. Those against the vaccine hypothesis frame science as an elitist endeavor, the results of which may only be critiqued by fellow scientists. While both of these images derive their significance from the cultural history of the United States, they have a markedly different impact on the interpretation of evidence. From within the populist frame, personal experience and direct observation are highly valued. From within the elitist frame, epidemiological evidence trumps personal experience. Due to the incorporation of dueling images of science, the US debate over autism may be viewed as a debate between rival cultural values.
Picking up the relay baton
Authors: Lang Andrea M.
Published: May 2007

This article reflects the particular construction of 'Culture' by a network of ethnographers, bureaucrats, politicians, and traditional leaders in South Africa. It analyzes the impact of this specific understanding of Culture during the apartheid years and in the new democratic dispensation using actor network theory (ANT) as developed by Callon and Latour. The essay also explores the establishment of the network in colonial times, examines its working method during the apartheid years, and queries the reasons for its survival and restrengthening after the dismantling of apartheid. Furthermore, the article deals with the popularization of the network's Culture credo and discusses some consequences of this special understanding of Culture and of how the government should preserve it.
Editorial
Authors: Kalb Don
Published: May 2007

This article introduces a series of ideas about the categories of science and politics, by way of actor network theory, Gell's theories of index and agency, and governmentality studies. It explores the ways in which science has become a discursive element in contemporary government, and examines the tensions between the purifying categorizations of politics and science, and the re-embedding (or hybridizing) of science into national political discourse. What emerges is a series of practices by which science is nationalized, domesticating the ideal of a generalized science into localized political debates at both national and sub-national levels, practices which may be transformed at national boundaries. While we acknowledge that science in practice is not abstract or generalizable (since it must engage with a world which is not abstracted), it is the abstracting and purifying work attributed to science which makes it attractive as a political alibi for particular political projects. Rather than seeing science as politics by other means, perhaps we should be examining the creation of a rehybridized science-politics.
No end to Nepal's Maoist rebellion
Authors: Pfaff-Czarnecka Joanna
Published: May 2007

Since 1996, Nepal has increasingly been drawn into a violent conflict between Maoist rebels and the state, leading to a severe crisis. Thousands of civilians have been killed, and most people in the countryside live in constant fear. Economic hardship has seriously increased. Despite repeated efforts to bring the parties together for peace talks, there is little hope that the violent situation will be resolved in the near future. This article analyzes the complex causes of the emergence of the Maoist insurrection and its success, and sketches the problems impeding a democratic solution to the current situation.
Globalization, poverty, and hyperdevelopment in Papua New Guinea's mining sector
Authors: Banks Glenn
Published: May 2007

The size and dramatic impact of the large-scale mines of Melanesia make a useful case study of the effects of economic globalization on local communities, particularly in terms of poverty and inequality. In the context of debates concerning globalization and poverty, this article examines the processes around large-scale mining at both the national and local scales. It argues that the issue of scale is critical to discussions of the links between poverty and globalization, with no evidence that large-scale mining has reduced poverty at the national level in Papua New Guinea over the last thirty years. Evidence is given from the Porgera mine of the effects of mining development at the local scale, with absolute poverty down but inequality increasing. Ethnographic detail helps to situate these processes in the dynamics of the local society. It is these locally grounded attributes that account for the production of inequality far better than generalized accounts of the 'culture of globalization'.
The condition of market formation on Alaska's natural gas frontier
Authors: Mason Arthur
Published: May 2007

This article examines the practices through which Cambridge Energy Research Associates disseminates natural gas market analysis among senior-level decision makers in the Alaska state government. Cambridge Energy is a global consulting firm that provides knowledge on the future of energy markets. The US natural gas market has recently undergone a revolutionary transformation as a consequence of changing regulation. This has led to expansion in the services of consulting firms such as Cambridge Energy, who produce analysis on the uncertainties affecting the future. In fall 2000, with a rise in energy prices and renewed interest in commercializing Arctic natural gas, Alaska Governor Tony Knowles awarded a contract to Cambridge Energy to assist with market analysis slated to lead to construction of Alaska's natural gas pipeline. Drawing on ethnographic research at key sites of decision making, I show how domestication of analyses in state and news media discourses serves to govern Arctic gas development.
Introduction
Authors: Abram Simone
Published: May 2007

This article introduces a series of ideas about the categories of science and politics, by way of actor network theory, Gell's theories of index and agency, and governmentality studies. It explores the ways in which science has become a discursive element in contemporary government, and examines the tensions between the purifying categorizations of politics and science, and the re-embedding (or hybridizing) of science into national political discourse. What emerges is a series of practices by which science is nationalized, domesticating the ideal of a generalized science into localized political debates at both national and sub-national levels, practices which may be transformed at national boundaries. While we acknowledge that science in practice is not abstract or generalizable (since it must engage with a world which is not abstracted), it is the abstracting and purifying work attributed to science which makes it attractive as a political alibi for particular political projects. Rather than seeing science as politics by other means, perhaps we should be examining the creation of a rehybridized science-politics.
Enrolling genetic technology in regulation
Authors: Skodbo Sara
Published: May 2007

This article addresses the need to overcome theoretical weaknesses of both technologically and socially deterministic accounts of technological development. Technology does not simply 'impact' on local contexts, but nor does it act as a tabula rasa, subject to the free attribution of meaning by local social actors. Expanding on theoretical developments in the anthropology of art (Gell 1998) and gender and technology (Strathern 1988, 1999, 2001), the essay seeks to explore genetic technology as a social agent and as a technological 'index'. Examining a case of genetic technology regulation and innovation in Norway, the article argues that technology is best understood as an agent that is engaged with on an affective basis by those who interact with it.
Rationalizing risk
Authors: Schlüter Achim , Phillimore Peter
Published: May 2007

This article examines the centrality of 'safety' in Grangemouth's recent politics. Scotland's main petrochemical center is a town dominated for well over fifty years by a major BP complex. In a context of extensive redundancies at BP, new insecurities surrounding the future of the company's Grangemouth site, and a series of recent accidents, as well as controversy over planning applications from other chemical companies, the town has been pushed into unusually searching questioning about both safety and economic security. This article explores the different lines of reasoning and rationalization on risk, safety, and the future advanced by regulators, BP, and residents and their political representatives. We emphasize how important the familiarity of petrochemical technology has been in public responses to the question of safety, in contrast to many environmental risk controversies. And we argue that safety has provided a focus for social, moral, economic, and political perspectives on the town's present circumstances and future prospects to be played out.
On transition and revolution in Kyrgyzstan
Authors: Pelkmans Mathijs
Published: May 2007

This essay reviews the revolutionary situations that recently emerged in the post-Soviet world, focusing on the 'Tulip Revolution' in Kyrgyzstan. Observers were quick to explain this revolution in terms of democratic resistance to authoritarianism. This view is particularly problematic given that Kyrgyzstan was among the 'fast reformers' in the region and made its name as an 'island of democracy'. Instead of assuming that problems started when the country digressed from the ideals of liberal democracy, this essay argues that democratic reform and market-led development generated both the space and motivations for revolutionary action. Democratic reforms created the possibility of political dissent, while neo-liberal policies resulted in economic decline and social dislocations in which a temporary coalition between rural poor and dissenting political leaders was born.
Book Reviews
Authors: Wojciechowski Franz , Stohlman Sarah , Schans Djamila , O'Kane David , Meeuwesen Ludwien , de Jonge Huub
Published: May 2007

Hermanten Kate, Travels and researches in Native North America, 1882–1883

Rainer Ohliger, Karen Schönwälder, and Triadafilos Triadafilopoulos, European encounters: migrants, migration and European societies since 1945

Elizabeth Murphy-Lejeune, Student mobility and narrative in Europe: the new strangers

Marja J. Spierenburg, Strangers, spirits and land reforms: conflicts about land in Dande, Northern Zimbabwe

Renée R. Shield and Stanley M. Aronson, Aging in today’s world: conversations between an anthropologist and a physician

Shinji Yamashita, Bali and beyond: explorations in the anthropology of tourism
Participation and Environmental Governance: Consensus, Ambivalence and Debate
Authors: Bulkeley Harriet , Mol Arthur P.J.
Published: May 2007

During the past four decades the governance of environmental problems – the definition of issues and their political and practical resolution – has evolved to include a wider range of stakeholders in more extensive open discussions. In the introduction to this issue of Environmental Values on ‘Environment, Policy and Participation’, we outline some features of these recent developments in participatory environmental governance, indicate some key questions that arise, and give an overview of the collection of papers in this special issue.
Environment and Participation in a Context of Political Modernisation
Authors: Van Tatenhove Jan P.M. , Leroy Pieter
Published: May 2007

This article discusses the relation between environment and participation in the context of different stages of political modernisation. We focus on the dynamics of environmental policy on the one hand, and the organisation of political participation on the other. The central argument is that participation is inextricably linked to environmental issues, but that their relation differs substantially over the various stages of the institutionalisation of environmental policy. While in the 1970s supplementary forms of participation dominated, the societalisation and marketisation of environmental policies from the late 1980s has given rise to new opportunities for participation, implying a more rule-altering potential.
Environmental Organisations in New Forms of Political Participation: Ecological Modernisation and the Making of Voluntary Rules
Authors: Boström Magnus
Published: May 2007

Environmental organisations have been active since the early 1960s in putting environmental issues on the political agenda and in strengthening the environmental consciousness of the public. The struggle has been successful in the sense that there is now a strong demand for practical solutions among all kinds of actors. It is, however, difficult for states and political actors to manage environmental problems by traditional forms and instruments, due to the complex character of the problems. Therefore, environmental organisations take their own initiatives to participate in policy-making by developing new forms, within new arenas, with the help of new instruments (voluntary rules or standards). Special attention is paid to the possibilities of identifying and developing constructive roles in relation to other actors and institutions as well as the capacity to organise standardisation projects and to mobilise and make use of power resources such as symbolic capital and knowledge. In order to interpret characteristics and implications (possibilities and limitations) of standardisation strategies, I draw on the ecological modernisation perspective. Empirically, I refer to the role of Swedish environmental organisations in standardisation projects such as eco-labelling.
Uncertainty and Participatory Democracy
Authors: Pellizzoni Luigi
Published: May 2007

The article deals with some implications of radical uncertainty for participatory democracy, and more precisely for Participatory Technology Assessment (PTA). Two main forms of PTA are discussed. One is aimed at involving lay citizens and highlighting public opinion. The other is addressed to stakeholder groups and organisations, not only in terms of interest mediation but also of inclusion of their insight into a problem.

Radical uncertainty makes ‘intractable’ many environmental and technological issues and brings into question traditional and new approaches to policy-making. Its consequences are explored from the viewpoint of new science, deliberative democracy, and network governance. Radical uncertainty calls for a rethinking of the aims of public deliberation, and a reinterpretation of the divide between opinion- and position-oriented PTA. To look for a public opinion, understood as a shared principled view, can prove misleading, as can thinking of stakeholder participatory arrangements in the usual way. When facts and values overlap, and are deeply controversial, the only opportunity for mutual understanding may be to look for practical, ‘local’ answers, based on different positional insights. Moreover, radical uncertainty also affects interest determination and pursuit, and may enhance the opportunity of joint, inclusive, non-strategic issue definition and solution-devising.

This vision of public deliberation is consistent with the idea of network governance. However, fragmentation can affect the effectiveness and legitimacy of participatory policies. Trying to handle fragmentation from the top, as many suggest, is unlikely to be successful. A more promising endeavour is to foster deliberative settings which, although positioned at the level of ‘local’ and often contingent networks and commonalities, are open to include ‘Otherness’ – other contexts, other problem definitions, other concerns.
Participatory Modelling and the Local Governance of the Politics of UK Air Pollution: A Three-City Case Study
Authors: Yearley Steve , Cinderby Steve , Forrester John , Bailey Peter , Rosen Paul
Published: May 2007

In the last decade, many arguments have emerged for encouraging public participation in environmental policy making and management. While some have argued that, in democratic societies, people simply have a right to a participatory role, others base arguments for public participation on the idea that lay people may have access to knowledge which is unknown to officially sanctioned experts. Local people may count as experts about aspects of their neighbourhood or they may have insights into the behaviour of plant operators that is thought to give rise to pollution. This paper reports on a novel empirical approach to analysing and capturing such ‘lay’ understandings. This technique (‘participatory modelling'), developed in ESRC-funded work in the UK, uses community mapping exercises in urban centres to produce spatial representations of local knowledges about air pollution and related problems of noise and odour. In the paper the technique is outlined, presenting data from the three-city case study. The paper concludes by assessing the ways in which participatory modelling can contribute to the local governance of air quality.
Ethical Obligations in a Tragedy of the Commons
Authors: Johnson Baylor L.
Published: May 2007

When people use a resource without a co-ordinated plan the result is often a tragedy of the commons in which the resource is depleted. Many environmental resources display the characteristics of a developing tragedy of the commons. Many believe that each person is ethically obligated to reduce use of the commons to the sustainable level. I argue that this is mistaken. In a tragedy of the commons there is no reasonable expectation that individual, voluntary action will succeed. Our obligation is not fruitlessly to reduce individual use, but to support a collective agreement to reduce everyone's use to the sustainable level.
Sustainability and the ‘Struggle for Existence’: The Critical Role of Metaphor in Society's Metabolism
Authors: Jackson Tim
Published: May 2007

This paper presents a historical examination of the influence of the Darwinian metaphor ‘the struggle for existence’ on a variety of scientific theories which inform our current understanding of the prospects for sustainable development. The first part of the paper traces the use of the metaphor of struggle through two distinct avenues of thought relevant to the search for sustainable development. One of these avenues leads to the biophysical critique of conventional development popularised by ‘ecological economists’ such as Georgescu-Roegen and Daly. This critique suggests that modern economic systems have gone astray by failing to respect the biological and physical limits to development and that they should be adapted to make them more like ecological systems. The other avenue leads to the modern insights of evolutionary psychology. These latter insights suggest that in certain key respects, the economic system (and actors within it) are already behaving more or less like an ecological system, driven as they are by evolutionary imperatives. Consequently, this second avenue appears to offer far bleaker prospects for achieving sustainable development than the first. However, the final part of the paper re-examines the historical roots of the metaphor itself, and suggests a number of ways in which a critical response to those historical roots might influence our understanding of the prospects for sustainable development.
Intrinsic Value: A Modern Albatross for the Ecological Approach
Authors: Morito Bruce
Published: May 2007

The idea and use of the concept of intrinsic value in environmental ethics has spawned much debate in environmental ethics/axiology. Although for many, it seems fundamental and necessary for formulating an ethic for environmental protection, it seems to confuse and even undermine such efforts. ‘Intrinsic value’ is, I argue, a concept born in the Western intellectual tradition for purposes of insulating and isolating those to whom intrinsic value can be attributed from one another and their environmental context. This is especially true from the Modern period onward. When used as a basis for determining moral considerability, these Modern foundations engender contradictory and self-defeating ways of thinking about the individual/ecosystem relationship. As a result, formulations of moral sensibilities and principles become self-defeating and, vis-à-vis the ecological context, incoherent. On the critique of this Modern residue, an alternative axiological framework is built, using Anthony Weston's idea of interdepending values as a preparation for a more ecologically coherent approach to environmental protection. This approach is dialectical and attempts to formulate an ecological foundation for moral considerability.
What's in a Name? Pragmatism, Essentialism, and Environmental Ethics
Authors: Michael Mark A.
Published: May 2007

Essentialists like J. Baird Callicott have argued that one cannot have an environmental ethic unless one adopts the nonanthropocentric principle, which holds that things other than humans can be morally considerable in their own right, typically because they are thought to be intrinsically valuable. Pragmatists like Bryan Norton reject this; they claim that environmental ethics has no core or essence, and hence that the nonanthropocentric principle is not essential to an environmental ethic. Norton advances as an alternative the Convergence Hypothesis, which says that there are many different ways of justifying environmental principles and policies. In this paper I show that pragmatists and essentialists are arguing past one another because they fail to note two crucial points. First, they often propose different accounts of which principles constitute an environmental ethic and so they disagree about which principles must be justified. The nonanthropocentric principle may be required to justify the principles that Callicott believe to be constitutive of an environmental ethic, but it may be unnecessary to justify those principles that pragmatists think are constitutive. Second, essentialists and pragmatists often overlook the distinction to be made between the adequacy of a justification and its epistemic or rhetorical preferability. The nonanthropocentric principle may not be needed to provide an adequate justification of the constitutive principles and judgements, but a justification that contains the nonanthropocentric principle might nevertheless be epistemically preferable.
Artefacts and Living Artefacts
Authors: Siipi Helena
Published: May 2007

The concept of an artefact is central to several bioethical arguments. In this paper, I analyse this concept with respect to living and also non-living entities. It is shown that a close relationship between bringing an entity into existence and its intentional modification is necessary for its artefactuality. The criterion is further improved by analyses of the nature of intentionality in artefact production and the differences between artefacts and their side-effects. Further, in order to clarify the meaning of the term ‘bring into existence’, issues related to sortal terms and functions of artefacts are considered. As the result of these analyses, the criterion for being an artefact is founded on the following double condition: (1) An entity x is an artefact only if x has been intentionally brought into existence by intentionally causing the coming artefact x to have certain properties. (2) An entity x is an artefact only if causing x to have certain properties has led x to have some new functions – that is, functions that are not present in the raw materials of x. The double condition is used for clarifying the status of several biotic entities such as gardens, commercial fields, polluted natural areas, ecosystems including alien species, restored ecosystems and transgenic organisms.
What Does ‘Natural Capital’ Do? The Role of Metaphor in Economic Understanding of the Environment
Authors: Åkerman Maria
Published: May 2007

At the time of its introduction in the end of the 1980s, the concept of natural capital represented new, more ecologically aware thinking in economics. As a symbol of novel thinking, the metaphor of natural capital stimulated a debate between different disciplinary traditions on the definitions of the concept and research priorities and methods. The concept became a means to control the discourse of sustainable development. In this paper, I focus on the power/ knowledge implications of the use of the concept, and I follow the career of the concept of natural capital in ecological economic publications between the years 1988 and 2000. The main interests are(1) in the use of the concept to affect the rules according to which claims concerning sustainable development can be made and (2) in the constitution of objects of environmental knowledge.
Cows are Better than Condos, or How Economists Help Solve Environmental Problems
Authors: Sagoff Mark
Published: May 2007

This essay explores three case studies that illustrate the exemplary use of economic analysis in environmental decision-making. These include: 1) the creation of a market in tradable grazing rights in the American West; 2) a cost analysis that facilitated a negotiated rulemaking at a power plant in Arizona; and 3) a conception of production-based pollution allowances that led to an agreement for regulating Intel microprocessor production plants. The paper argues that cost–benefit analysis may be less useful than other kinds of economic analysis that can guide and inform rather than judge and second-guess the outcome of negotiated and collaborative decision-making.
Can Environmental Ethics ‘Solve’ Environmental Problems and save the World? Yes, but First We Must Recognise the Essential Normative Nature of Environmental Problems
Authors: Kassiola Joel J.
Published: May 2007

What is the nature of environmental problems? This article attempts to illuminate this question by exploring the relationship between environmental ethics, environmental problems and their solution. It does this by examining and criticising the argument contained in a recent issue of Environmental Values asserting that environmental ethics does not have a role to play in solving environmental problems. The major point made in this rebuttal article is that environmental problems are essentially normative in nature. Therefore, normative discourse, and environmental ethics in particular, do have a crucial role to play in environmental thought and action. The discussion concludes with the judgment that a failure to recognise this essential contribution of normative discourse to environmentalism by committing to a conservative empirical reductionism of environmental problems is detrimental to the necessary ethical and social change required to save the world.
Re-negotiating Science in Environmentalists’ Submissions to New Zealand's Royal Commission on Genetic Modification
Authors: Rogers-Hayden Tee , Campbell John R.
Published: May 2007

The debate about genetic modification (GM) can be seen as characteristic of our time. Environmental groups, in challenging GM, are also challenging modernist faith in progress, and science and technology. In this paper we use the case of New Zealand's Royal Commission on Genetic Modification to explore the application of science discourses as used by environmental groups. We do this by situating the debate in the framework of modernity, discussing the use of science by environmental groups, and deconstructing the science discourses evident within environmental groups’ submissions to the Commission. We find science being called into question by the very movement that has relied on it to fight environmental issues for many years. The environmental groups are challenging the traditional boundaries of science, for although they use science they also present it as a culturally embedded activity with no greater epistemological authority than other knowledge systems. Their discourses, like that of the other main actors in the GM debate, are thus part of the constant re-negotiation of the cultural construct of ‘science’.
Reproductive Liberty and Overpopulation
Authors: Kates Carol A.
Published: May 2007

Despite substantial evidence pointing to a looming Malthusian catastrophe, governmental measures to reduce population have been opposed both by religious conservatives and by many liberals, especially liberal feminists. Liberal critics have claimed that ‘utilitarian’ population policies violate a ‘fundamental right of reproductive liberty’. This essay argues that reproductive liberty should not be considered a fundamental human right, or certainly not an indefeasible right. It should, instead, be strictly regulated by a global agreement designed to reduce population to a sustainable level. Three major points are discussed: 1) the current state of the overpopulation problem; 2) the claim of a fundamental human right of reproductive liberty; 3) an outline of a global agreement to address overpopulation as a ‘tragedy of the commons’.
Concepts of Nature as Communicative Devices: The Case of Dutch Nature Policy
Authors: Keulartz Jozef , Van Der Windt Henny , Swart Jacques
Published: May 2007

The recent widespread shift in governance from the state to the market and to civil society, in combination with the simultaneous shift from the national level to supra-national and sub-national levels has led to a significant increase in the numbers of public and private players in nature policy. This in turn has increased the need for a common vocabulary to articulate and communicate views and values concerning nature among various actors acting on different administrative levels. In this article, we will examine the role of concepts of nature as communicative devices in public debates and political decision-making. We try to show that the now dominant functionalist approach to concepts of nature, due to its focus on interests, threatens to narrow public and political communications to purely strategic negotiations. Instead of this functionalist approach we put forward a structuralist approach, which focuses not on interests but on values.
The Misbegotten Child of Deep Ecology
Authors: Avery Stephen
Published: May 2007

This paper offers a critical examination of efforts to use Heidegger's thought to illuminate deep ecology. It argues that deep ecology does not entail a non-anthropocentric or ecocentric environmental ethic; rather, it is best understood as offering an ontological critique of the current environmental crisis, from a perspective of deep anthropocentrism.
Nature as a You : Novalis’ Philosophical Thought and the Modern Ecological Crisis
Authors: Becker Christian , Manstetten Reiner
Published: May 2007

This paper aims to introduce the German Romantic poet Novalis into the discussion of the modern ecological crisis. In particular we examine Novalis’ unique philosophy of nature as a You in which he deals with both of the two aspects of the relationship between humans and nature: their original identity as well as the distinction between them. We analyse the way in which Novalis understood the relationship between nature and humankind dynamically, and show the significance of his concept of poetry for this question. This concept is analysed and described in respect to its principal features: creativity and love. The former is regarded by Novalis as a general capacity of humans as well as an expression of nature itself. Together with love it forms the base for a possible harmonious relationship between humans and nature. We furthermore interpret Novalis’ economic thought against the general background of his philosophy of nature and his understanding of humankind. Novalis recognises the crucial role economic action plays in the relationship between nature and humankind and he offers some important insights into this issue. Finally, we discuss the relevance of Novalis’ concept of nature as a You for environmental philosophy. By comparison with other concepts of nature in the modern environmental debate, we show how Novalis’ thought offers a new perspective on the human–nature relationship and thus fruitful stimulation for today's environmental philosophy.
Noah's Flood: The Genesis Story and Natural Disasters in Early Modern Times
Authors: Kempe Michael
Published: May 2007

Different interpretations of the biblical deluge give us an idea of various modes of perceptions of natural disasters in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In analysing these interpretations we learn much about early modern European ways of thinking about nature, mankind and the relationship between both. In this way such an analysis becomes an important part of an ambitious project of environmental history that deals with relationships between man and nature in history.
Divine Punishment or Object of Research? The Resonance of Earthquakes, Floods, Epidemics and Famine in the Correspondence Network of Albrecht von Haller
Authors: Stuber Martin
Published: May 2007

The Enlightenment is a starting point for our current understanding of natural disasters. The present investigation examines the resonance of such catastrophes in the correspondence network of the universal scholar Albrecht von Haller (1708-77). In this European system of communication there is a very rapid exchange of widely dispersed individual observations and an intensive discussion about competing interpretations. Poetic, philosophical, scientific and administrative approaches overlap rather than contradict one another. A main topic is the earthquake of Lisbon 1755, with the important role of Voltaire, who embodied the Enlightenment like no other and who was the greatest ideological antipode of Haller. Although earthquakes are the main focus of attention, some comparison is made with letters discussing cattle diseases, plagues, famines and floods.
The Politics of Nature: Constructing German Reunification During the Great Oder Flood of 1997
Authors: Doering Martin
Published: May 2007

Natural disasters like earthquakes, tornadoes, hailstorms and floods always lead to massive media coverage, as a close look in the fait divers of daily newspapers proves. They seem to have a short-lived but extreme effect on society as well as on the media. One point that is often neglected is the fact that disasters occur in unique socio-historical contexts which determine the patterns of interpretation. This also seems to be the case concerning the Great Oder Flood of 1997, inasmuch as the disaster occurred within the singular process of German Reunification. The Oder Flood occurred at the time Reunification was really being experienced, and therefore efforts to dam the rising waters were metaphorically interpreted, especially in the German newspapers, as the joint fight of East and West against the flood. The flood gained its political dimension particularly via different types of metaphors that blend synchronic domains of discourse. This paper investigates the metaphorical patterns underlying the news coverage of the Flood in order to trace their constitutive role in the 'news speak'. The main hypothesis is that the metaphorical discourse about the disaster and nature in general serves as a metaphorical reservoir for illustrating and legitimising the abstract political process of the German Reunification.
Charting Environmental Concerns: Reactions to Hydraulic Public Works in Eighteenth-Century France
Authors: Reynard Pierre Claude
Published: May 2007

The optimism characteristic of the Enlightenment multiplied initiatives designed to secure and improve the milieus within which Europeans earned a precarious living, notably through greater control of hydraulic resources. This paper examines the reactions triggered by many such important public works undertaken in Old Regime France. The debates that accompanied most projects did not systematically challenge the positivist assumptions standing behind these improving ambitions, nor did they formulate an alternative vision centred around an appreciation of the intrinsic value of nature. However, they greatly advanced reflections on natural phenomena, drawing attention to their geographical and temporal limits, their internal complexity, as well as crucial socio-cultural frontiers. They mark an important stage toward the conceptualisation of ecosystems and the formation of ecology, and remind us that these forward-looking ventures were, like all human interventions upon the natural environment, hybrid ventures - both conditioned by nature and bound to alter it.
Weeds, People and Contested Places
Authors: Clayton Neil
Published: May 2007

In the Western world weeds have been defined and redefined according to the cultural ideas and outlooks of peoples who have tried to compete with them for open places, over many millennia. Somewhere along the way 'weed' emerged as a concept, and became embedded in and expressed through language. In the first part of this synoptical essay some of the expressions of the changes in human perceptions of, and responses to, a group of plants with which people have had to contend for places, and the deeper cultural significances of the contest itself, are explored. In the second, the inter-societal relationships between weeds and humans are explored in the unique context of New Zealand's discrete landscape and the settler society which transformed it within the comparatively short period of two centuries. Possibilities for ongoing studies of the weeds-people relationship within New Zealand and other regional contexts are offered.
The Historicity of Institutional Trust and the Alienation of Maori Land for Catchment Control at Mangatu, New Zealand
Authors: Coombes Brad
Published: May 2007

Environmental problems require collective responses, but resource managers conventionally lack the managerial legitimacy to inspire collective action. Recent perspectives in planning theory have entreated for collaboration with the institutions of civic society as a basis for inspiring legitimacy in environmental management. This article maintains that there is considerable merit in these institutional perspectives, but the historical impediments to institutional engagement and trust require detailed analysis if those perspectives are to be successful. There is an inherent historicity to all relationships of trust, and this may be acute in the case of collaboration with indigenous peoples who have experienced colonial dislocation. In New Zealand, the rapidity of land loss, the lack of historical opportunities for engagement in resource management, and past attempts to assimilate institutions and values may influence the present stance of Maori, who are the indigenous population, on environmental management. An historical assessment of a state afforestation project at Mangatu on the east coast of New Zealand demonstrates that Maori have seldom been trusted as environmental guardians. Their preferred forms of environmental governance have been subject to cultural disdain, yielding a legacy of institutional mistrust which will not easily be alleviated.
Environmental Anxiety in New Zealand, 1840-1941: Climate Change, Soil Erosion, Sand Drift, Flooding and Forest Conservation
Authors: Beattie James
Published: May 2007

The history of environmental anxiety in nineteenth- and twentieth-century New Zealand can be traced by focusing on problems caused by deforestation. In the 1840s concerns emerged that deforestation was causing climate change, soil erosion, sand drift and flooding. In the 1900s concerns about soil erosion overtook fears of climatic deterioration. A continued priority towards agricultural development at the expense of forestry constantly hampered conservation efforts throughout the nineteenth century. Only when the extent of agricultural expansion slowed down in the 1900s could these concerns be addressed; only then could a stronger, independent forestry service be established.
Appraising Soil Fertility in Early Colonial New Zealand: The 'Biometric Fallacy' and Beyond
Authors: Wood Vaughan
Published: May 2007

During the late eighteenth century explorers applied a biometric model, where soil fertility was correlated with tree height, throughout the world. This model was a natural extrapolation from the 'humus theory' of soil fertility. Accordingly, when dense forest cover was found over large areas of New Zealand this created an inaccurate perception that its soils were very rich. This was exploited to the full by the New Zealand Company, the main agency involved in promoting the organised settlement of New Zealand. During the 1840s, the biometric approach to soil fertility appraisal was found to be a false one, and was replaced by a developing ecological one, which relied on specific plant indicators of soil fertility.
The Re-Creation of Bottle Lake: From Site of Discard to Environmental Playground?
Authors: Pickles Katie
Published: May 2007

In order to understand the workings of ecological imperialism at the local level, this essay traces the haphazard environmental history of an area of land at the north-eastern border of Christchurch. It analyses the changing environmental qualities of place over time as a chain of discourses that have formed, re-formed, cross-fertilised - each influencing a new land-use or perception of the area as wasteland, playground, wetland, and site of rehabilitation and recreation. An examination of the collision of discourses from elsewhere with local pragmatism reveals the limits and contradictions of theories of ecological imperialism at a local scale.
'Wilderness to Orchard': The Export Apple Industry in Nelson, New Zealand 1908-1940
Authors: Roche Michael
Published: May 2007

The orchard is suggestive of the ways in which commercial apple growing was represented as an idealised lifestyle linking rural economy and nature. But it was dependent on spraying as a means of controlling pests and disease and shaped increasingly by apple importing countries.
New Zealand Landscape and Literature, 1890-1925
Authors: Kuzma Julian
Published: May 2007

New Zealand's literature (1890-1925) offers a wealth of information for the environmental historian that is unparalleled by most other countries. A major theme of New Zealand late colonial literature was the removal of the indigenous bush and its transformation into a British-modelled pastoral paradise. The period's poetry and fiction conveys valuable insights into perceptions and attitudes towards this transformation, which cannot be ascertained from other documentary sources.
New Zealand Environmental History: A Question of Attitudes
Authors: Star Paul
Published: May 2007

As a land to which not only Europeans, but also humans of any kind, came late, New Zealand is a fascinating case study in environmental history. The author's own research into the early years of European settlement plots an evolving cultural engagement with the indigenous environment, and in particular with forest or 'bush', which ran parallel with its extensive replacement by agroecosystems. Research of this character must now be closely compared with work done overseas - perhaps initially with Australian studies. Only by drawing out the unique features of each case will the respective roles of environment and culture in the history of New Zealand, and of other countries, be fairly determined.
Plant Transfers in Historical Perspective: A Review Article
Authors: Beinart William , Middleton Karen
Published: May 2007

This paper explores some routes into the history of plant transfers, especially during the period of European imperialism. It attempts to draw on different bodies of research, which are not usually juxtaposed, and weave together perspectives from contrasting disciplines. It does not pretend to offer a history, which is a much more complex task. We have deliberately tried to include cultivated crops, garden plants, weeds and plant invaders within the same frame of analysis, because it is so difficult to define some species within any one of these culturally constructed categories. The paper develops three main points. Firstly, it raises questions about the asymmetrical pattern of plant transfers during imperialism, thus challenging some of the propositions offered in Crosby's Ecological Imperialism. Secondly, we evaluate recent literature on the history of botany and botanical institutions and suggest that a broader range of human agency needs to be considered, as well as accidental transfers, if the global trajectories of plant species are to be mapped and comprehended. And thirdly, we argue that in pursuit of generalisations about patterns of transfer, scientists have concentrated too much on plant properties, and historians on understanding political economy or institutions. A global history, as well as particular plant histories, requires a combination of insights and research from sciences, social sciences and humanities.
Empirical Knowledge, Scientific Authority, and Native Development: The Controversy over Sugar/Rice Ecology in the Netherlands East Indies, 1905-1914
Authors: Moon Suzanne
Published: May 2007

This essay explores the political value of empirical, scientific knowledge of place in the Netherlands East Indies. Critics of the European sugar industry claimed that sugar depleted the soil and stunted subsequent rice crops. The ensuing controversy reached a stalemate when both sugar scientists and their critics were accused of selectively choosing evidence according to political bias. Scientists in the Department of Agriculture resolved the dispute and fought accusations of bias by drawing on their empirical knowledge of agricultural conditions across Java, using place-based knowledge to construct their credibility and exclusive authority to speak for agricultural matters in the colony.
Lesniki and Leskhozy : Life and Work in Russia's Northern Forests
Authors: Moran Dominique
Published: May 2007

This paper examines the history of forestry in the Russian North through a study area in the North Urals. The relationships between the local leskhozy (forestry enterprises) and the lesniki (forestry workers) and the environment are contrasted. The paper explores four key aspects: exile, planned production, decline in rural population and environmental problems which characterised the Soviet period, and links these to conditions in the region post-1991, drawing on archival sources, contemporary accounts from the Soviet period and fieldwork in the study area.
Biochemical and Genetic Analysis of NAD(P)H:Quinone Oxidoreductase 1 (NQO1)
Authors: Siegel David , Kepa Jadwiga K. , Ross David
Published: May 2007

NAD(P)H:quinone oxidoreductase 1 (NQO1, DT‐diaphorase, E.C. 1.6.99.2) is an FAD containing obligate two‐electron reductase that catalyzes the reduction of a broad range of substrates. This unit will describe methods for the detection of NQO1 protein in formalin‐fixed, paraffin‐embedded tissues by immunohistochemistry; detection of NQO1 protein in fresh tissues or cell lines by immunoblot analysis; measurement of NQO1 catalytic activity in fresh and frozen tissues and cell lines using spectrophotometric assays based upon the reduction of 2,6‐dichlorophenol‐indophenol (DCPIP) or coupled menadione‐cytochrome reduction; and determination of the NQO1*2 polymorphism by PCR‐RFLP.
Use of Bacterial Artificial Chromosomes in Generating Targeted Mutations in Human and Mouse Cytomegaloviruses
Authors: Borst Eva Maria , Benkartek Corinna , Messerle Martin
Published: May 2007

Cloning of cytomegalovirus (CMV) genomes as bacterial artificial chromosomes (BAC) in E. coli and their manipulation using the techniques of bacterial genetics has greatly facilitated the construction of CMV mutants. This unit describes easily applicable procedures that allow rapid introduction of any kind of targeted mutation into BAC‐cloned CMV genomes. Protocols for the reconstitution of virus from isolated BAC DNA, preparation of a virus stock, and isolation and characterization of viral DNA are also included. Special emphasis is laid on description of critical steps and thorough characterization of the altered BACs.