Question 2: What is the status quo?
What is it that most people think of when they talk about wilderness?
Most people in a western society these days are brought up with
the concept that wilderness is a place that is free of human interference
and is somehow separate and remote for the centres of human activity.
Wilderness is a place where you go to rejuvenate, a place where
you can re-discover your roots and get back in touch with nature.
Implicit in this is a concept of separateness from things that are
natural and a division between things that are natural and things
that are human.
Interestingly, some people suggest that the concept of wilderness
is a relatively recent one that has developed out of an understanding
of land that:
- considers it to be vacant of human agency;
- assumes that human action in the environment is inherently
negative and destructive;
- nature must be protected from human activity;
- places Indigenous people in the same category as animals as
a natural component of the wilderness, passive components rather
than potentially active agents;
- conveniently makes the landscape empty and free for the taking;
- provides a suitable justification for dispossession of land
from its original owners.
You can see this in Langton's article. She points out that the
'Yellowstone' model of national parks is an acceptable way of dispossessing
Indigenous people of their land.
Is this really true? Can we really link a concept of nature with
the exploitative actions of colonisation? Write your response
in the
Tutorial
Discussion and read what other students think about these questions.
Our argument is that the sorts of forces that have shaped and constructed
'western scientific tradition' have allowed those of us in the western
world to conceive of places we call wilderness. The essentialist
and universalising concepts of Indigenous people mean that it was
actually a logical conclusion to assume land was empty and untouched.
See Langton's article (p2) where she describes European arrival
here 217 years ago.
Chapter Two in the Key Questions text investigates the sorts
of cultural and social forces that allowed such notions to gain
acceptance.
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