Let’s take a moment to think about nature. What is nature, and what is it not? Really try to think about it.
I’ll be honest: Although I’m writing this article, my tendency remains to imagine large human-free areas inhabited by majestic wild animals, like a lush jungle with a tiger prowling through dense green foliage – something like Shere Khan from the Jungle Book. When thinking the opposite, the “unnatural”, I instantly picture the ugliest human-transformed landscapes, such as megacities or intensive agricultural fields. I’d wager that most people would imagine something similar and few would think it problematic – spoiler: It is. This extremely pervasive and damaging concept of nature is exactly the topic of this article. Why? Simply because words carry meaning and define how we understand, act and relate with the world. And as we’ll see, an apparently harmless word can hide many injustices.
So what is this infamous concept of nature?
It is one characterized by the hyper-separation of humans and nature, situating human societies, creations and experiences, or often bundled together as “culture”, outside of and independent from the natural world, its processes and other living beings. By dividing the world into either nature or culture, a simplistic and dualistic worldview is created, in which nature is represented as an absence of the human. The two are bound by an asymmetric relation, in which humans are depicted as superior to nature based on characteristics described as exclusively human, related to mind, reason and agency. The concept of agency has various definitions but simply put, it is the capacity of an actor, whether individual or collective, to take action in a given environment. Historically, the concept has been closely connected to human intentionality and action. By denying other non-human forms of agency, the dualism encourages and condones dominion and exploitation of the subordinated nature. In the process, the ecological side of human life, its impact and dependence on the natural world, is erased.
The nature/culture dualism has deep roots in Western philosophy as humanity sought to understand itself and the world.
The process of (human) identity formation often opposes the “I” to an “Other” based on distinct characteristics (Haila, 2000), which has led to other related hegemonic dualisms such as mind/body, mainly theorized by Plato, Aristotle and Descartes. Humans, characterised by the mind and capacity to reason, are actors and drivers of change and exclusive holders of agency. All else, including nature, is considered as chaotic, mechanical and passive matter devoid of agency and reason.
In the 16th-17th century, the nature/culture dualism entrenched itself into mindsets through the works of Francis Bacon.
He described nature not only as inferior and without agency but also as hostile and unforgiving, justifying its exploitation for human means. In Novum Organum (1620), he writes: “Let the human race recover that right over nature which belongs to it by divine bequest […]”. But according to the philosopher, to control, one first needed to know. This led him to develop and popularize key modern scientific methods based on division, definition and classification. By understanding separately parts of a system, you could understand the whole.
The study of natural sciences role was to demystify the big scary natural world.
It was separated into clearly discrete basic systems of geology, biology, chemistry and physics with mathematics as a common language. Nature was depicted as having clear and predictable machine-like processes, which could be explained independently from human life. Social sciences and humanities on the other hand were concerned with the study of people and the complexities of human life, producing studies such as history, ethics and politics, generally removed from the material processes of the natural world. Yet, as Jones writes: “Nature and society have always been much more entangled than our histories have envisaged. Nature is not merely a passive stage for human history but rather one of the lead players of the show.” (2009, p.311). The fact remains that the nature/culture dualism is clearly reflected in the division of knowledge into two distinct realms: the social and the natural.
In productive colonial terms and under the idea of private property, the dualism led to nature being synonymous to land as a commodity.
Wilderness or “terra nullis” being absent of human agency was available to be claimed (Plumwood, 2006). The myth of humanity’s potential to control nature, as spread through Francis Bacon’s ideas, cultivated the mindset of our ability to force it to do our bidding without consequences. This led to human societies and industries overwhelming and colonizing natural processes, spaces and other beings. It also denied all ethical considerations of humans’ relationships with the natural world, driving unsustainable and unjust practices, violations and exploitation (Jones, 2009). With the rise of environmentalism during the 20th century, the essential relationships between humans and nature were brought to the public sphere, finally underlining the interconnectedness and dependence between the two. But the dualism itself was yet to be questioned and continued to pervade human-nature relationships. Although nature was now worth protecting it was to be achieved through the separation of humans from wilderness, characterized as quintessentially pure natural areas.
This understanding of nature disregards the presence and influence of various human populations over millennia on these lands.
For instance, in the Amazon, pre-Columbian peoples enhanced soil fertility through various agricultural practices. As native populations declined, biodiversity reoccupied these areas, creating the jungles we generally think of as pristine nature, today.
To protect wilderness, indigenous peoples were evicted from their ancestral lands to create the first national parks in the USA
Hello, dark and ugly history of Western nature conservation! This logic illustrates not only the nature/culture divide but also this tendency to attribute agency and therefore rights only to a select group, even within humanity. Indigenous peoples as the perpetual “Other” were first depicted as part of the “wild nature to be tamed”, justifying their colonization and exploitation. But when it came to conserving these lands, it was their humanity that brought about their removal. To move away from the nature/culture dualism, it is crucial to first recognize its eurocentric and colonial roots, as well as acknowledge indigenous peoples’ agencies and rights to land. The term “cultural landscapes” aims to correct the way we speak about nature BUT – there’s always a but – by over-representing the human, it underlines the anthropocentric origins of dualism and denies the presence and again rights, of othered non-human beings. In Val Plumwood’s words: “Hegemonic distortions of agency attribution support inequality and unjust forms of appropriation” (2006, p.119).
During the 21st century, post-humanist thinkers expanded the notion of agency to encompass the creative power of non-humans and ecosystems.
After all, the world as we know it, over its billions of years of existence, has been shaped by much more than us. As humans, it’s easy to exaggerate humanity’s importance and contribution to its environment, both good, bad and everything in between. We broke nature, we fix nature. Welcome to the Anthropocene. Even the concept of the nature/culture divide places culture as an exclusively human product. But animal studies are increasingly showing that culture is simply a learned adaptation and form of life and is not exclusive to humans. If orcas speak different dialects (see John Ford’s work) and elephants call each other by name (Guardian, 2024), perhaps it’s time to stop thinking so highly of ourselves? By expanding the notion of agency and creativity, we can start recognizing the interwoven stories of a particular place as well as the right of all communities, human and more-than-human, to thrive.
So where is rewilding in this whole discussion and how does it bridge millennia of dualism?
As proposed by Ward (2019), rewilding projects seek to restore wildness, which she defines as the autonomy of natural processes. Wildness is best understood as an alternative to wilderness by offering a more open-ended, autonomous and relational concept, which embraces the fluidity, unpredictability, connections and diversity of nature (K. Ward, 2019). To do so, humans, as active actors of a given ecosystem, are understood as part of natural processes, to be wholly integrated into rewilded landscapes.
It’s okay if, like me, you continue thinking of nature in such a stereotypical Disney-esque way, even after reading this article. It’s hardly our fault, this dualism is a pillar of our modern identities, societies and economies. Yes, removing it would mean understanding ourselves as part of nature, an equal member of a beautiful and vibrant multispecies community. But removing it would also mean recognizing the harm we have done to this community and therefore ourselves. That’s a lot to take in. But hopefully this article has made it clear that we need to deconstruct this dualism to enable new ways of thinking and, most importantly, acting.
