Full Description
In the Anthropocene our actions are coming home to roost. Global warming, species extinctions, and environmental disasters are the dark side of our mastery of nature. In Acting with the World, Andrew Pickering identifies a different pattern of being and doing that can evade this dark side, a pattern that he calls acting-with the world. In contrast to our usual practice of acting on the world, acting-with foregrounds nonhuman or more-than-human agency and aims to attune our practices to the propensities of nature. Pickering explores examples of acting-with from around the globe, including flood control on the Mississippi River, ecosystem restoration on the Colorado River, the Room for the River project and rewilding in the Netherlands, natural farming in Japan, Aboriginal fire techniques in Australia, and Amazonian shamanism. Pickering argues that acting-with intimately and gracefully plugs us into nature, undercuts the Anthropocene from below, and offers a constructive approach to addressing otherwise intractable wicked problems.
Contents
Preface ix
Introduction. Acting on or with the World 1
1. Eels: The Dance of Agency 16
2. The Mississippi: Enframing and Letting Go 20
3. Erosion: Poiesis 29
4. The Colorado 32
5. Water: A New Paradigm 46
6. Natural Farming 56
7. A Choreography of Fire 77
8. Spirits 91
Conclusion. Poiesis 97
Notes 107
References 135
Index 151
