Nature and Culture

Speculative fiction as a literary genre is a test of the renewed relation to nature presented as possible reality. The vision of nature presented by some science fiction and fantasy authors varies along these lines. The hypothesis underlying the present article is that these "speculative fiction–proposed natures" force us to rethink the rapport between time and space. Therefore, we need to examine to what extent science fiction and fantasy, focused on the preparation of an uncertain future, play on the links between time and nature and reconfigure both the agencies and the aesthetic situations that serve as experiments.

Based on reflective practice over 15 years in Ecuador, the authors examine the perpetuation of knowingly harmful public policy in highly toxic pesticides. They study how actors cooperate, collude, and collide in advancing certain technological agenda, even when against public interests. Ultimately, entrenchment of perspective opened up space for arrival of new social actors and competing activity and transition. In light of struggles for sustainability, the authors find neglected policy opportunities in the heterogeneity of peoples' daily practices and countermovements, leading to a call for further attention to the inherently incoherent, complex, and irresolvable human face of sociotechnical change.

Early science fiction (SF) is noted for, among other things, its conservatism and lack of interest in ecology. Brian Stableford, a well-known SF writer and critic, writes that "there are very few early stories with ecological themes" (1993, 395). This article shows that, in fact, many early SF works (those written between the Enlightenment and World War II) employ ecological themes, especially as applied to questioning our anthropocentrism. These works suggest that humans are but one species among many, that we are not the end of nature/history, that the natural world may be better off without us, and, in some cases, that humanity is fated to go extinct, the result of its own hubris. Such views are undoubtedly pessimistic, yet these works may also be read as warnings for humans to seek a more humble view of ourselves as members of what Aldo Leopold calls the land community.

Historically, risk assessment and the concept of risk itself have been dominated by environmental, engineering, and economic sciences. Consequently, in analyzing risk production in modern cities, a rather technical view emerges on risks and urban dynamics. Though scientifically grounded and practically useful, this view fails to capture the social complexity of the city, its paradoxes and causalities. Elaborating on the hypothesis that the life-supporting mechanisms in modern cities are simultaneously life-endangering mechanisms, the article aims to develop a sociological framework to comprehend the dynamics of systematic risk production in the urban milieu. Methodologically, to illustrate the functioning of such mechanisms, we will use historical references and several empirical analyses related to urban research.

Hunting is an important basis for conservation, but hunters are surprisingly scarce in global networks of environmental advocacy and governance, and hunting management systems are not given the attention they should receive. This article reveals the messages promoted by hunting advocates through an analysis of museum representations and interviews in order to understand the limitations of and basis upon which further integration of hunters into conservation advocacy circles worldwide could occur. Museums feature representations that reflect the cultural elucidations of their host organization. This article will show how the International Wildlife Museum—maintained by Safari Club International—produces messages of the inseparability of humans from nature, purposive management of nature, dependence upon global capitalism and predation, and the neutrality of scientific knowledge. Through these messages a narrative space for the management of wildlife is produced that attempts to unite the commodification and conservation of nature, namely, “sustainable hunting”. This article concludes by identifying contradictions among the messages of sustainable hunting that may limit hunting advocates' ability to work with other stakeholders to further improve hunting management systems.

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