REVIEWS | EXCERPT | CONTENTS | AUTHOR BIO | SUBJECT CATEGORIESPeople active in regional environmental crises discuss the destruction, conservation, and creation of the countryside Creating the CountrysideThe Politics of Rural and Environmental DiscourseSearch the full text of this bookedited by E. Melanie DuPuis and Peter VandergeestWhat does it mean to save nature and rural life? Do people know what they are trying to save and what they mean by "save"? As the answers to these questions become more and more unclear, so, too do the concepts of "environment," "wilderness," and "country." From the abuse of the Amazon rain forest to how Vermont has been marketed as the ideal rural place, this collection looks at what the countryside is, should be, or can be from the perspective of people who are actively involved in such debates. Each contributor examines the underlying tendenciesand subsequent policiesthat separate country from city, developed land from wilderness, and human activity from natural processes. The editors argue in their introduction that these dualistic categories limit our ability to think about environmental and rural problems and hamper our ability to formulate practical, realistic, and just solutions. This book's interpretive approach to the natural world explores why people make artificial distinctions between nature and culture, and how people can create new forms of sustainable development in terms of real problems and real places. ExcerptReviews"The most pervasive theme of this book may be the need to question both conventional wisdom and attractive concepts like Wilderness... in this strong, convincing book. "
ContentsList of Tables, Figures, and Illustrations
Part I: Modernization and Marginalization
Part II: People In and Out of Nature
Part III: Constructing Rurality
About the Contributors
About the Author(s)
Subject CategoriesNature and the Environment
In the seriesConflicts in Urban and Regional Development, edited by John R. Logan and Todd Swanstrom. Conflicts in Urban and Regional Development, edited by John R. Logan and Todd Swanstrom, includes books on urban policy and issues of city and regional planning, accounts of the political economy of individual cities, and books that compare policies across cities and countries. |