Dear list members,

Some of you may be interested in this article recently published open access in 
Journal of Political Ecology. It builds partially upon my interviews with 
marine mammal scientists. Details and link below.


Yours sincerely,


Benedict Singleton

The whale watched and whaled: exploring the orderings of a complex 
environmental issue through the lens of rubbish theory

The political ecological study of environmental issues is often concerned with 
the interactions of diverse actors, leading to accounts of different, 
conflicting worldviews. While different epistemological and ontological 
standpoints are covered, there is consensus that environmental issues are 
simultaneously social and material, and that worldviews differ. In this 
article, I argue Michael Thompson's rubbish theory can be usefully employed to 
compare and contrast environmental perspectives ultimately rooted in 
conflicting epistemological and ontological understandings of a situation. 
Rubbish theory describes the categorization of objects into durables, 
transients and rubbish, and movements between these categories.Rubbish theory 
focuses on how objects are restricted in their movement and how this reflects 
the distribution of power and status in society. Two aspects of a society may 
then be assessed: 1) its value system, and 2) the extent to which different 
groups may alter that value system. Dynamic changes in these two aspects are 
then traceable. As an example of extant environmental conflicts rooted in 
different worldviews, this article focuses on historic and contemporary issues 
around the consumption of whale meat. Focusing upon whaling and whale-watching, 
I argue that historic and contemporary conflicts manifest different orderings 
and that these comprise different epistemological standpoints, which as value 
systems are comparable within rubbish theory.


Keywords: political ontology, rubbish theory, social theory, environmental 
conflict, cosmopolitics, cetaceans


https://journals.librarypublishing.arizona.edu/jpe/article/id/2928/


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