Environmental infrastructure in African history : examining the myth of natural resource management in Namibia / / Emmanuel Kreike, Princeton University [[electronic resource]]

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910813954603321
• Autore: Kreike Emmanuel <1959->
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Cambridge : , : Cambridge University Press, , 2013
• ISBN: 1-107-23400-X; 1-107-32657-5; 1-107-33550-7; 1-107-33231-1; 1-107-33301-6; 1-107-33467-5; 1-107-33633-3; 1-139-02612-7
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (xviii, 242 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)
• Collana: Studies in environment and history
• Classificazione: HIS001000
• Disciplina: 333.7096881
• Soggetti: Human ecology - Namibia - History; Natural resources - Namibia - Management - History; Namibia Environmental conditions
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: 1. The ends of nature and culture -- 2. Architects of nature -- 3. Dark earths : field and farm environmental infrastructure -- 4. Water and woodland harvesting : village environmental infrastructure -- 5. Browsing and burning regimes : bushland savanna as environmental infrastructure -- 6. Valuing environmental infrastructure and the myth of natural resource management -- 7. Science and the failure to conquer nature : environing and the modern west -- Conclusion.
• Sommario/riassunto: Environmental Infrastructure in African History offers a new approach for analyzing and narrating environmental change. Environmental change conventionally is understood as occurring in a linear fashion, moving from a state of more nature to a state of less nature and more culture. In this model, non-Western and pre-modern societies live off ; natural resources, whereas more modern societies rely on artifact, or nature that is transformed and domesticated through science and technology into culture. In contrast, Emmanuel Kreike argues that both non-Western and pre-modern societies inhabit a dynamic middle ground between nature and culture. He asserts that humans - in collaboration with plants, animals, and other animate and inanimate forces - create environmental infrastructure that constantly is remade and re-imagined in the face of ongoing processes of change.