Environmental History: Nature, Landscapes, and Identities

Abstract

An analysis of the contemporary politics of agbiotech is enhanced by taking account of the cultural context — that is, pre-existing, historically constituted values and identities. Following the approach presented in Chapter 3, culture is conceptualised as a middle way between essentialism and voluntarism, while historical evolution is understood in a dialectical sense, drawing on both materialist and idealist factors. A century ago, the French geographer Vidal de la Blache proposed a conceptual fusion by introducing the concept of ‘milieu’ ‘which embraced not only the physical but also the cultural environment within which [ … ] judgements and choices are made’ (Baker 2003: 73). The majority of scholars dealing with the nature—culture relationship (among them environmental historians, historical ecologists, and historical geographers) adopt a similarly integrated position.