Overview

A look at nature and how to re-evaluate our relationship with it For many people ""nature"" means wilderness and wild animals. It is experienced indirectly through magazines and television programs or through visiting the highly managed environments of national parks. Nature, however, is not external, separate from the world of people we live in nature and interact with it daily. In this book, Jacklyn Cock describes how these intricate and complex interconnections, seen and unseen, are often ignored. Each of the ten chapters examines an aspect of our relationship with nature: ignoring, understanding, enjoying, imitating, privatizing, polluting, abusing, protecting as well as organizing for nature. The concluding chapter deals with the growing inequality between the North and the South. The War Against Ourselves compels us to re-examine our relationship with nature, to change our practices and dissolve present binary divisions such as people vs. animals, economic growth vs environmental protection, ""nature"" vs ""culture."" It demonstrates the need for an inclusive politics which brings together peace, social and environmental justice activists who believe that another world is both possible and necessary.

Full Product Details

9781868144570

Table of Contents

Reviews

The future of the environment, and the destructive impact of unregulated market-led growth on it, has become the defining socio-political issue of the 21st century. This book, by taking a holistic approach to the subject, will attract readers who are interested in the section on the origin, growth and social composition of bird-watching through to those who see capitalism on a suicidal course in its drive to exploit nature for profit. Eddie Webster, Director of the Sociology of Work Unit, University of the Witwatersrand

Author Information

Jacklyn Cock is a professor emeritus in the Department of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and a research associate of the university's Society, Work and Politics Institute.

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