Vibrant landscapes: encounters, ecologies, and politics of national parks in Australia
Creators: name: Ayres, Catherine
Publisher: name: The Australian National University
Year: 2015
Subjects: Environment
sociology
qualitative methods
nonrepresentational theory
embodiment

description: National parks are at the centre of debates around land use, conservation and broader discussions on the environment in Australia. These debates are formed by multiple voices. While some argue that national parks are unnecessarily ‘locked up’ natural resources, others emphasise the role that national parks play in preserving ecological sustainability, biological diversity, and protecting vulnerable species. Despite an acknowledgement that there are different views on the role of national parks, little attention has been paid to what exactly national parks are. In this thesis, I move beyond a common understanding of national parks as ‘containers’ for nature, created by, regulated, and controlled by human activities. Such an understanding is limited because it ignores the complexities and the capacities of nonhuman bodies, and leaves little conceptual room for thinking through encounters and transformations that are always creating the world anew. In response to this ‘deadening’ of difference in the world, I argue for a more fluid understanding of national parks as processual places that are at once constituted and constituting. Rethinking national parks as processual places calls for a reconsideration of the interconnectedness of the multiple human and nonhuman lives that inhabit and constitute national parks. These interconnections are usually understood as ‘ecologies’, and, within western academic thought, are almost universally apprehended through ecological sciences. Whilst the type of knowledge generated by ecological sciences is indispensable to management strategies, the scientific paradigm – like any approach to understanding the world – has its limitations. This thesis challenges the dominance of a scientific approach to understanding ‘the natural world’ by drawing on empirical research moments that highlight the importance of encountering and thinking about ecological processes of national parks beyond scientific modes of analysis. These reconsidered notions of national parks and ecology demand rethinking current modes of discussing and enacting environmental politics. Accordingly, I argue that we might begin to move past adversarial, subject-centred modes of environmental politics towards a politics of productive response to environmental problems. This thesis is deeply embedded within an experimental research ethos and serves to challenge some of the methodological orthodoxies in the production of social scientific knowledge. The structure, style, and tone of the thesis is therefore somewhat unorthodox, and throughout I reflect on my own personal imbrication with the subject matter of national parks and nature, emphasising the processuality of the research experience. This thesis is not intended as a diagnostic or prescriptive tool for how to solve the ‘problem’ of national parks in Australia. Rather, this thesis is offered as a ‘stepping back’, a reconsideration of some of the underpinning assumptions upon which national parks, understandings of nature, and environmental politics are founded. Challenging the systems of thought that sustain problematic attitudes to our role in the world is crucial to rethinking how we conceptualise and respond to environmental problems. This thesis takes up the challenge of articulating new ways of thinking about the complexities of humans and nature, opening possibilities for new terrains of environmental practices, ethics, and politics.