180 CULTURENATURESregards the materialization approach adopted by
Braun and Butler to be essentially neo-Kantian:
for all its claims to relationally overcome the
representation–reality distinction, Cheah argues,
it ultimately only ever defers it in endless regress.
But, if this is so, how might Marxists – and
others – think about the materiality of nature with-
out becoming impaled on the horns of dualist/
analytical dilemmas? For doesn’t my question
about language itself depend on a dubious notion
of a non-linguistic ‘outside’?
One possibility is to explore the relatively
uncharted terrain of ‘non-representational
theory’ (Thrift, 1996). What’s interesting about
this is not that it argues that ‘language does not
simply re-present’ or even that ‘there’s more to
the world than language’. Rather, in Thrift’s
view, it entails a recognition that our collective
efforts to understand the world – as analysts and
ordinary people – entail continuous, mundane
physico-linguistic interventions inthe world such
that practice and utterance are iteratively united
and changing. Knowing is doing, and vice versa.
Another, related possibility is to pursue the
‘materialist semiotics’ advocated by Bruno
Latour, John Law and Michel Serres which ‘flat-
tens’ the ontological universe and treats language
as just one of several sensible means by which
humans relate to nature (Whatmore, 1999). In
geography this second approach to culture–nature
is having a considerable impact and, as I noted,
has been appropriated in limited ways by Marx-
ists like Swyngedouw. Third, we might want to
consider Haraway’s (1991; 1997) ongoing
attempts to escape the onto-epistemic straitjacket
of Enlightenment thinking without altogether
abandoning the commitment to the idea that the
world is structured and can be systemically
explained (see Haraway and Harvey, 1995).
But if the dominant mindsets in geography
and beyond – whether analytical or relational,
Marxist or otherwise – are to truly grasp nature’s
materiality they are going to have to more force-
fully explore and acknowledge truly tactile,
sensual and embodied ways of figuring the
culture–nature nexus. This would entail a rela-
tional approach to culture–nature but one where
the material capacities are myriad, variable, lively
and shared (see Ingold, 2000). This approach
would be sensitive to historical-geographical
difference but would also look for the ways in
which relations to nature are nonetheless conse-
quentially ordered in a capitalist world (Castree,
2002; Goodman, 1999; 2001). In short,it would
not be a shapeless approach in which all manner
of non-human and non-linguistic actorsrandomly
figure. Rather, it would critically scrutinize
the material ties between those things we call‘cultural’, ‘natural’ and ‘economic’ while
acknowledging that these categories cannot be
taken as either given or adequate. It would, in
short, retain the explanatory-diagnostic tenor of
previous Marxisms but move beyond their lexi-
cal, anthropomorphic cast. As such, it would also
need to find a language (not necessarily verbal)
to express non-cognitive aspects of those mater-
ial things we call nature, economy and culture.
This is, of course, easier said than done, but
crucial nonetheless in a world where ‘nature’s’
materiality is being remade at macro and micro
scales (Castree and Braun, 1998). As I’ve sought
to show here, it remains enormously difficult to
escape our collective intellectual heritage. If the
Marxian tradition is anything to go by, it remains
an open question whether we can genuinely
‘unthink’ our approaches to culture and nature. If
Marxism is still to matter as a critical voice in
debates on our current and future socio-ecological
condition, it must challenge – not merely work
within – inherited understandings of the materi-
ality of nature and culture. Otherwise, we may,
ironically, find ourselves repeating the very same
representational practices that have led Marxists
to question the sanity of capitalism in the first
place – only now framed in the comforting idiom
of an ‘emancipatory geography’.NOTESSo promiscuous are the categories ‘culture’ and ‘nature’
that writing this chapter was an arduous task, one com-
pounded by the fact that Marxists, where they haven’t
relegated culture to economy’s poor relation, have said
relatively little over the decades about nature. My
thanks go to Sarah Whatmore and Steve Hinchliffe for
helping to improve what’s still a rather ramshackle
argument.
1 For a good overview of the polymorphous terms ‘nature’
and ‘culture’ see, respectively, Kate Soper’s What Is
Nature? (1995) and Chris Jenks’ Culture(1993).
2 In effect, I want to revisit here the problematic status
of ‘materiality’ that I broached in a very particular way
in Castree (1995).
3 Moreover, in thematic terms my discussion will range
from commodities and consumption to the culture of
science to discourses of nature and beyond.
4 Though this work is complicated by the fact that
culture and nature must also be linked with one
other equally complex concept: the economy. As is
well known, recent years have seen many human
geographers attempting to rethink the culture–
economy nexus (e.g. Lee and Wills, 1997; Thrift
and Olds, 1996). It’s not my intention to revisit the
debates here, though the same impulse to question
received categorial distinctions does inform my
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