The discursive nature of nature: Towards a post-modern concept of nature

Abstract

Starting from post-modern discourse theory this paper elaborates a post-modern account of nature that differs fundamentally from the traditional essentialist concept of nature. Given the post-modern premise that there is nothing outside of discourse, it is argued that post-modern discourse theory can be applied to the conceptualization of nature. Based on the Foucaultian notion of the omnipresence of power, nature as a discursive concept is a product of power relations. The discourse of nature is a discourse of power where the constellations of power determine the construction of nature.

The second part examines three key objections raised against a discursive concept of nature. According to the objection of solipsism, a discursive account implies the rejection of the material existence of nature. The objection of relativism holds that a discursive concept leads to relativism because of the impossibility of choosing between adequate and inadequate constructions of nature. With regard to the objection of idealism it is argued that the notion of a social construction of nature implies that a discourse would actually create what it constructs. In a critical discussion of these objections it is argued that they are based on a misconception of a discursive account of nature.

Keywords:

• Discourse theory
• ecological thought
• post modernism and nature
• environmental politics

Notes

1. Quotations from German sources were translated by the author.

2. Neither discourse theory nor social constructivism can be considered as homogeneous theories. There is a wide range of different approaches of both discourse theory and social constructivism that are, in part, in conflict with each other (see, for example, Dingler, 2003, pp. 75–160; Gergen, 1999). The position elaborated in this paper therefore refers to a specific reading of discourse theory and social constructivism.

3. ”There is nothing outside a text”.

4. According to Noel Castree and Tom MacMillan there are at least two different meanings of the idea of a social construction of nature.

• The first claims that we can only know nature through culturally specific systems of meaning and signification, such that nature cannot be understood by people ‘in-and-of-itself’. … The second version of the ‘social construction of nature’ argument takes a more economic and less cultural focus. In this version the thesis is that nature is increasingly being reconstituted materially …. Here, then, nature is seen as being physically ‘produced’ to order in the pursuit of money and profits (Castree & MacMillan, 2001, p. 209).

This paper refers only to the first interpretation of a social construction of nature.

5. Following Niklas Luhmann, contingency means that something is as it is, but does not have to be as it is. “Contingent is something that is neither necessary nor impossible; something that is possible as it is, but could be also possible in a different way. The concept denotes factual things in view of their potential difference” (Luhmann, 1984, p. 152).

6. For a critical discussion of this position see, for example, Castree & MacMillan (2001), pp. 221–223, Holzinger (2004).