Welcome, welcome one and all. You have arrived at my final post for Environmental Theory. Are you surprised that you’ve made it? I’m surprised that I did.
The readings and lectures are over, so what have we learned class? Latour’s last Gifford lecture left something to be desired, as I’m sure it was intended to. Latour has succeeded in his goal by introducing to us the Earthbound, a population who are “able to liberate themselves from a cult of Nature” (p. 124). These are a people at war with those who are aware but unmoving, apathetic, who believe that a higher power will fulfill their duties. From there, things get fuzzy for me.
Maybe Latour is remarking on the importance of transdisciplinarity, or he is saying that these beings can not be separated from what surrounds them, or, in the theme of the lecture series, Latour has “extracted” science, politics, and religion from their “confusion with Nature” and is now trying to put everything back together, rebuild not the world itself but the way that we live in it and think about it (p.142). Does that make sense?
One thing that was clear(ish) to me from these lectures is that there needs to be action taken, something that everyone is always saying, but maybe never doing.
Some more ruminating might be necessary on my part but here’s one thing I can say for sure: I started off this class feeling frustrated and unsure and I am ending it feeling frustrated and unsure (a loop! Latour would be so pleased to hear that I have come full circle). But the way I am feeling now is new, and unlike how I started. When the semester began, I felt defeated in a way a person can feel only if they have given up before they have even began. I was completely prepared to drop this class and neglect the possibility of exploring what was new and strange to me. Now, being frustrated just pushes me to try harder and being unsure urges me to ask more questions. I know I am only groping around the surface of this discipline as a person might stumble around a huge sculpture of air and plastic, but I’ve finally come to appreciate the process and have learned a thing or two along the way.
I hope some of that comes out in my praxis project. I swear kids, theory is useful!
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