This is a collection of my synthesis posts to date (April 20th, 2014), in reverse chronological order, with brief annotation.
In this post I attempt a brief summary of Latour’s general argument in lectures I-V, and conclude with a description of my understanding of his conclusion. I mention Latour’s call for artistic engagement with the anthropocene, and reference Saraceno’s “On Space Time Foam” installation.
the first question is the only question left.
The question I refer to in this post is the timeless question of being. That is, what does it mean to be alive on this planet? Or, how are we to live?* In this post I show how I interpret Latour’s fifth Gifford lecture to be an extension of this question and compartmentalize his argument in order to make it more easily digested. In his lecture Latour asks and addresses many questions concerning how we might understand the anthropocene, yet concludes his lecture with an open question (which he presumably addresses in his sixth lecture) about how are we to live in this new epoch.
*Many other iterations of this same question can be argued to exist, such as: what is the meaning of life? etc.
In this post I provide a recap of my time spent in Douglas County. I begin an exploration of the Dillard Depot and present my fledgling ideas of potential praxis-project directions. I conclude my post with another reference to Bruno Latour, and explain how my visit to the Depot exhibit, along with my research in the archives, was very much a lesson in knowing. That is, I tried to adopt the epistemological framework of Latour and apply what I take as his way of knowing to my own inquiry.
Systematic Theory and the Maasai in Ngorongoro, Tanzania.
This post covers four categories of systematic theory including Ontology, Epistemology, Ethics, and Politics and applies them to the case of Maasai land rights in the Ngorongoro conservation area in Tanzania.
This post summarizes “dynamism” as a framework -ism and juxtaposes it with equilibrium. To do so I draw on several classics including A Sand County Almanac, Population Bomb, Limits to Growth, and others.
This post covers my thoughts on Noel Castree’s book, Making Sense of Nature. In my post I talk about representations of nature, my personal struggles, and personal summary of the Castree readings to chapter 3.
This post takes systematic environmental theory and applies it to the context of Willipa Bay in Washington. I intertwine Castree chapter 1, as well as ontology, epistemology, ethics and politics by situating my analysis in oyster cultivation and the policy and conservation debates affecting the industry.
This post directly addresses the topics of ontology and epistemology. I talk about ontology in regards to the Holling reading on complex adaptive systems and challenge the notion of fundamentally understandable and communicable reality. I also talk about epistemology and the difficulty of decision making by consensus.
What Lies Behind: In Search of Hybrid Objects.
This post recaps our field trip to Douglas County and explores my conception of hybrid objects in the format of an equation. Theory + Action = Hybrid Object. I talk about how theory is constructed, and how it may be invisible to others, and argue that what we see is not theory, but the actions and results of those actions as informed by theory.
This post examines theory in the context of an interdiscipline such as environmental studies. I question the practicality of interdisciplinary theory and wonder if there can be such a thing as “environmental theory.” Are we not talking about theories of everything when we talk about environmental theory?
This post creatively examines various -isms and ways of approaching environmental problems by telling the story of a Hyena running through a herd of Wildebeest. I conclude with an argument for praxis, or the motivated, curious, energetic, noble, combination of theory and action.
The namesake of my blog and my first post. This is a quote I found particularly illuminating in regards to praxis as a noble combination of theory and action.