One of the questions I’ve struggled with the most during this semester of environmental theory is the challenge of: why is theory important? Is it important? Who cares about a bunch of academics fighting over definitions of things? IS IT REAL?
My initial reaction is yes. Yes its important and its important because its real. That is, theory has “real world” implications. But what these “real world implications” are I’m struggling to articulate. I think it has something to do with representation and the continued production of knowledge, but I don’t know how to prove it. Further, I don’t know if I need to prove it, exactly. Maybe just make a really good case for it. I’m reading this assignment as a persuasive assignment: come up with an idea and back it up. But as an art project, maybe it can be more descriptive.
So why do I have such as strong conviction that theory matters? Drawing on the instincts that I’ve been experiencing this year, I have a strong belief in justice. Fairness and equity of access to basic and luxury amenities as well as agency within narrative are causes that I am very much behind. These things tie very closely in with the environmental focus that I’ve chosen as my academic path. There are so many injustices embedded within our landscapes, cities, in the cracks between neighborhood sidewalks, and in relationship between center and periphery of our spatial-social orientations. This is what I mean by environmental. One of the most illuminating weeks of this semester has been the week about justice where we discussed expanding the definitions and examples of environmental justice and researched our own case studies. The case studies in this class, notably the Malheur Occupation and our Douglas County field trip and subsequent projects, too resonated with the topics and dilemmas of justice.
(I’m speeding very quickly through a bunch of big and huge concepts like “theory” and “justice” that I haven’t defined, but I will, I promise.)
So what do theory and justice have to do with each other, let alone with the world outside their definitions, besides being big, giant, opaque words? And how can I find out?
We are assigned to evaluate our chosen “big word” along the categories of knowledge, ethics, politics, and reality. Today in class, we practiced and here are the outcomes for “theory” :
[table]
-, Reality, Knowledge, Ethics, Politics
Theory, Attempts to define/describe reality (or a perspective on reality); is theory real?, Has authority to make knowledge accepted and guide the boundaries of other creation of knowledge, Are values in theories transparent? Assumed? Acknowledged? Does it matter? If so to whom?, Does or can theory influence power dynamics? How does the institution (such as universities or think tanks) of theory influence it and its reception?
[/table]
The trouble with a meta-theory about theory is that it might become a hall of mirrors where I am shouting into a void with circular arguments and many fallacies. One way perhaps to get further than this would be to ground theory is something that people DO. When people “DO theory,” what are they doing? We are writing, sitting in class, listening, doing field research, reading, talking, attending conferences, telling stories, and making connections through the written world. There is an inter-textual dialogue that happens. There are networks of citation. In this way, theory is tied so much to the institutions that produce them (by employing people who theorize). Place matters. Perspective matters. This complicates reality in theory, for a theorist in the 19th Century exploring the relationship between man and the sublime has a far different perspective than the theorist who has a background in chemistry and desires to find common ground between empiricism and constructivism. Each of these has a different cultural space that is differently accepted by a mainstream and differently influences the creation of new theories (maybe). The other part is: who’s voices are not heard in theory? What about those who do not have the resources for a PhD? Does this and other barriers to the academic world create a bias for who’s perspectives becomes “theory”? This MUST change the conversation, right? What perspectives are missing? Can those perspectives be represented by people who only learn of these perspectives secondhand? Is this okay? Is it a problem? If so, for whom? If so, what can be done to diversify theory? Is that even a legitimate concern of the academic world (diversity, however we might define or measure it)?
I have so so so many questions. I think though, if I’m going to investigate the word “theory,” I want to focus on academic scholarship and the process of making theory. Writing, reviewing, arguing against other theories, citing still other theories to back up your own theory. Is this something that people DO? Is sitting in a library and thinking and writing, a legitimate action?
Instead, or perhaps in addition, do I evaluate theory along the lines of efficiency, beauty, or movement somewhere?
My focus is definitely environmental. The theories I want to engage in are theories about wilderness, the construction of science, the geography of science, and the perspectives on environment (injustice) that tie into geography, history, knowledge, reality, and politics.