Annotated bibliography, 3rd quarter

As part of a 4-times-a-year report I am conducting as a researcher in one of the research projects I am partaking in, I write a Selected Annotated Bibliography. Here's my annotated bibliography for the last three months.

Douglas W. MacCLEERY: American forests: A history of resilience and recovery. Forest History Society, 1992. This publication offers a lot of interesting statistics and facts not only since 1930 or so, when the proportion of US land that is forested has generally been stable, after 300 years of deforestation, but also concerning times as far back as to year 1600 (even native indigenous forestry practices are briefly described). The last century several wildlife species have recovered, not least due to the gradual introduction of conservation measures. In conclusion, this work is a helpful source of references and thoroughly examines the full implications of different attitudes to forests and utilization of forest products. Though the situation of Norwegian forests is not identical with the American situation, this book nevertheless provides useful knowledge about the interconnections of conservation efforts and forestry practices/land use.

The Norwegian daily Nationen [The nation], Mon 31^st of August – Wed 9^th of September. The latest national election in Norway took place September 14^th. For 10 days close to the conclusion of the election, I followed Nationen, Norway’s only national daily devoted to matters of agriculture and rural policies. Every day in this period there were articles etc. about carnivore policy; about half of the editions one of them featured on the front page. In many rural areas, wolf and carnivore policy turned out to become one of the defining topics of the electoral campaign, though only 3 parties (Senterpartiet, Fremskrittspartiet and Sosialistisk Venstreparti) talked much about it. For the first time the populist right-wing party Fremskrittspartiet competed seriously for the anti-wolf votes – though Senterpartiet, traditionally the farmers’ party, still dominated the discourse. The carnivore policy for 2009-2013 is now up for negotiations within the re-elected coalition government, which consists of Arbeiderpartiet (the social democrats), Senterpartiet and Sosialistisk Venstreparti (a left-wing party which supports wolf conservation).

Paolo VIRNO: Natural-historical diagrams: The ‘new global’ movement and the biological invariant. Pp. 131-147 in The Italian difference: Between nihilism and biopolitics (eds. Lorenzo Chiesa and Alberto Toscano), Melbourne 2009: re.press. Translated from Italian by Alberto Toscano. Virno’s notion of the natural-historical diagrams of human nature refers to “concrete phenomena, socio-political states of affairs, historical events.” He thus offers an empirical (or emergent) notion of human nature – which can be of interest in the context of my depicting of a natural history of the phenomenal world. Crucial in Virno’s observations is that ‘human nature’ as we know it places us as an “indefinite animal”, an animal without any definitive natural environment. This, he claims, explains our ‘instability’ as a species, and our constant urge for further modifications of the environment. It would be interesting to integrate and try to develop some of his main points in my own work.

Wendy WHEELER: The Whole Creature: Complexity, Biosemiotics and the Evolution of Culture. London 2006: Lawrence & Wishart. In this valuable book, Wheeler outlines some connections between biosemiotics and other complexity science on the one hand and politics and cultural theory on the other. In the context of my work Wheeler’s book represents an important step toward a proper understanding of the cultural implications of competing scientific outlooks and worldviews. While Wheeler on some points simplifies the connections between ‘capitalism’ and mainstream science, her portrayal of the cultural and ethical (and political) implications of a world view of biosemiotic relationism rather than one of capitalist atomism/individualism is in the main informative and telling. The main message – which I do subscribe to – is that human beings are social (and ecological) creatures which can not thrive – or correctly be described on a theoretical level – as isolated individuals. Her stress of the social and ecological aspects of cultural life bears implications not least for economic thought.