Overview
- Provides a unique, in-depth and systematic discussion of the role of wildness and 'ecological discomforts' in modern culture
- Makes a substantial contribution to the nascent field of environmental hermeneutics, illustrating its practical application
- Addresses the contentious and pressing issues of wildlife impacts and conflicts, which have gained high societal relevance in the context of recent attempts at ecological restoration
Part of the book series: The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics (LEAF, volume 30)
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About this book
In consequence of significant social, political, economic, and demographic changes several wildlife species are currently growing in numbers and recolonizing Europe. While this is rightly hailed as a success of the environmental movement, the return of wildlife brings its own issues. As the animals arrive in the places we inhabit, we are learning anew that life with wild nature is not easy, especially when the accumulated cultural knowledge and experience pertaining to such coexistence have been all but lost. This book provides a hermeneutic study of the ways we come to understand the troubling impacts of wildlife by exploring and critically discussing the meanings of 'ecological discomforts'. Thus, it begins the work of rebuilding the culture of coexistence. The cases presented in this book range from crocodile attacks to mice infestations, and their analysis consequently builds up an ethics that sees wildlife as active participants in the shaping of human moral and existential reality. This book is of interest not only to environmental philosophers, who will find here an original contribution to the established ethical discussions, but also to wildlife managers, and even to those members of the public who themselves struggle to make sense of encounters with their new wild neighbors.
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Keywords
- Environmental Philosophy
- Ecological Discomforts
- Human-animal Relations
- Environmental Hermeneutics
- Wildlife Conflicts
- Moral Challenge of Recolonization
- Human Vulnerability
- Wildness as Self-willed Nature
- Wilderness Experience as Moral Experience
- The Flourishing of Ecosystems
- Established Animal Rights Theories
- Symbolic Domestication
Table of contents (9 chapters)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Mateusz Tokarski, PhD., is currently an independent researched and writer. He holds a BA in Film and Theater Studies from London Metropolitan University, an MA in Cognitive Semiotics from Aarhus University and a PhD in Philosophy from Radboud University Nijmegen. His main research interests center around human-animal relations, the role of wildness in modern culture, and the processes of meaning-making approached from both cognitive-scientific and hermeneutic perspectives. In addition, he is interested in the role that arts can play in developing environmental awareness and in restructuring human relationship with the non-human world – a topic he engages with through his own experiments with storytelling. He has published articles dealing with rewilding, wildlife conflicts, and reconnecting to nature. Recently, he has completed his PhD during which he carried out a series of hermeneutic studies of the ways people make sense of discomforting encounters with wildlife.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Hermeneutics of Human-Animal Relations in the Wake of Rewilding
Book Subtitle: The Ethical Guide to Ecological Discomforts
Authors: Mateusz Tokarski
Series Title: The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18971-6
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-18970-9Published: 30 May 2019
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-18973-0Published: 14 August 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-18971-6Published: 21 May 2019
Series ISSN: 1570-3010
Series E-ISSN: 2215-1737
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XI, 228
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations
Topics: Ethics, Environmental Philosophy, Humanities and Social Sciences, multidisciplinary