Posthumanism Franklin Ginn
The Edinburgh Companion to Animal Studies,
03/2018
Book Chapter
Once marginal, knowledge that many other species share characteristics hitherto thought restricted to humans, including language, tool-use and consciousness, is now commonplace across many scientific ...fields, from ethology to biosemiotics to neurophysiology.¹ Such new scientific understandings of non-human life have been one important inspiration for posthuman theorists aiming to replace ontologies of division with those of connection and relative difference. Animal sexual selection, for example, is much more than an instrumental process. As theorised by Elizabeth Grosz, animal courtship and sex provide not merely the means for reproduction and genetic survival, but are playful, exuberant, creative articulations of the active,
How is London responding to social and economic crises, and to the challenges of sustaining its population, economy and global status?
Sustainable development discourse has come to permeate different ...policy fields, including transport, housing, property development and education. In this exciting book, authors highlight the uneven impacts and effects of these policies in London, including the creation of new social and economic inequalities. The contributors seek to move sustainable city debates and policies in London towards a progressive, socially just future that advances the public good.
The book is essential reading for urban practitioners and policy makers, and students in social, urban and environmental geography, sociology and urban studies.
How to value, govern and protect the non-human creatures that share our cities, and how to do so sustainably, is a question that is increasingly occupying ecologists, politicians and conservation ...groups. While green space may be broadly defined as ‘open vegetated areas’ within the urban environment, and although aquatic ecosystems are also often included, such a definition masks considerable variation (Francis and Chadwick, 2013). In London, green space can refer to everything from the Rainham marshes, an extensive area of wetlands in the Thames estuary, to small private gardens, to post-industrial brownfield sites. It is now widely recognised that the
This chapter examines the political ecologies of wildlife conservation in London. The concerns with setting aside places for nature in the city are being supplanted by a desire to integrate ...ecological forms and processes as components of a connected urban ‘green infrastructure’. This includes novel forms of ecological engineering such as living walls and roofs, alongside the creation of ‘green grids’. There has also been a growing appreciation of the physical and mental health benefits of urban green space for citizens. However, the public discourse of social and ecological reconnection must be reconciled with changes in urban ecological governance. These include a decline in public control over planning and spending on restoration, and growing enthusiasm for both voluntary citizenship and public-private partnership.
This chapter examines the political ecologies of wildlife conservation in London. The concerns with setting aside places for nature in the city are being supplanted by a desire to integrate ...ecological forms and processes as components of a connected urban 'green infrastructure'. This includes novel forms of ecological engineering such as living walls and roofs, alongside the creation of 'green grids'. There has also been a growing appreciation of the physical and mental health benefits of urban green space for citizens. However, the public discourse of social and ecological reconnection must be reconciled with changes in urban ecological governance. These include a decline in public control over planning and spending on restoration, and growing enthusiasm for both voluntary citizenship and public-private partnership.
