Natureculture: rethinking socio-ecological relations

This Social Sciences Week public panel brings together a group of scholars and landscape practitioners whose work challenges the artificial distinctions often made between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’. 

Looking at a diversity of actors, from estrogens and wild animals to carbon credits and urban planners, these presentations challenge us to pay due attention to the complex ‘natureculture’ entanglements that define and shape our lives. A key motivation for the session is to showcase the diverse contributions different social scientists and science practitioners make to understandings of the social world as a complex stage where biological, ecological and economic relations continuously intersect and interact at different scales.

This event will be hybrid; please select your preferred option at the registration link.

EVENT TOPICS

Estrogens as naturecultures

Mary Lou Rassmussen (ANU) and Celia Roberts (ANU)

We have recently begun a three-year study of estrogen experiments in laboratories, medical clinics and in the community. Reporting on an exploratory pilot for this subproject, this paper discusses where and how estrogens appeared as an actor across eight social media platforms (Aug-Sept 2024). We analyse 67 posts spanning a wide range of practices related to gender transition, menopause, mental and physical health, tracing in each case what estrogen is said to do, and how forms of expertise circulate. Posts were classified into four content categories: gender affirmation, DIY estrogen, medical advice and alternative medicine. Across these categories, estrogens appear as exemplary naturecultures, troubling their conventional figuration as messengers of (biological) sex.

On the value of 'nature'

Beck Pearse (ANU)

I’ll be talking about how putting a price on nature is changing the way we relate to the living world. My work looks at things like carbon credits and biodiversity offsets, which turn forests, animals and ecosystems into tradable units. I’ll share examples from Australia, showing how these schemes can bring new attention and resources to conservation, but can also keep the same old patterns of environmental harm in place. By following the money, we see how markets shape what counts as valuable in landscapes, and what gets left out. I aim to spark discussion about how we might design systems that protect nature without reducing it to a commodity.

Killer cities: a critical assessment

Roger Burrows (University of Bristol and University of Melbourne)

Nigel Thrift, a human geographer who worked at ANU in the late 1970s, recently published Killer Cities. It argues that cities shape the planet far beyond their edges, moving matter and energy while running up an ecological overdraft. Thrift maps hidden harms from concrete and waste to heat, floods and animal deaths. He urges practical fixes: greener roofs and streets, eating less meat and producing less waste, cleaner power and designs that make room for other life. The book asks us to rethink how we build, eat and govern. This talk offers a summary of his arguments and some critical comments.

Putting urban brown snakes into perspective: confronting colonial legacies

Gavin Smith (ANU)

I reflect on the complex status of urban brown snakes inhabiting the 'Bush Capital' of Australia. Although species like Pseudonaja textilis have adapted reasonably well to the transformation and fragmentation of naturally occurring habitat, they nevertheless suffer marginalisation, even in a context where they are now subject to legal protections. This is because they are constructed first and foremost as foreign, malevolent and antagonistic, and treated as objects of fear, risk and governance. And yet, studying these animals closely over time and exploring their intricate behavioural ecology reveals a contrasting picture. Combining this knowledge with First Nations perspectives may offer a way of destabilising prevailing representations of snakes as unbelonging, problem wildlife, so that conservation outcomes are improved.

Designing cities for ‘everyday nature’

Sarah Bekessy (RMIT University)

I will focus on the critical role nature plays at the intersection with culture in cities. Re-naturing our cities is a significant opportunity to create a sense of place, connect with Indigenous history and culture and generate significant moments of nature connection. But these outcomes are unlikely without intentional, strategic design. I will present on our efforts to design at the intersection of nature and culture in cities in multiple contexts and discuss theoretical and practical challenges.

Reconnecting the community to nature experiments on the urban fringe: rationales, challenges and opportunities

Jason Cummings (Woodlands and Wetlands Trust)

This talk reflects on 21 years of scientific experimentation on the urban fringes of Canberra to restore habitat and reintroduce locally extinct species as part of the Mulligans Flat-Goorooyarroo (MFGO) Woodland Experiment. I explore some of the rationales for this collaborative, multi-agency work, some of the key challenges to its success and sustainability and some of the opportunities going forward for better harnessing scientific and community conservation initiatives.

Ways of Knowing:  sometimes complementary sometimes different practices of Indigenous knowledge and Western science

Bradley Moggridge (University of Technology Sydney)

To highlight the power of collaboration between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and science, and to emphasise the need to share knowledge, learn from diverse practices and perspectives, and work together to adapt to climate change and repair Country.

SPEAKERS

Professor Mary Lou Rasmussen is engaged in building transdisciplinary understandings of reproduction, sexuality, and gender across diverse lifeworlds. Rasmussen is co-editor, with Louisa Allen, of the Palgrave Handbook of Sexuality Education (2016) and the Encyclopedia of Sexuality Education (2024) (Palgrave) and has co/authored Reproduction, Kin and Climate Crisis: Making Bushfire Babies (Bristol, 2023); Queer Generations: sexual citizenship and LGBTQ youth in Australia (forthcoming Bloomsbury). Currently she’s collaborating on two ARC Discovery projects, Experimenting with Estrogen and Locating LGBTIQ+ Youth in the Archives.

Professor Celia Roberts works on hormones, embodiment and reproduction. Her most recent books are Hormonal Theory: A rebellious glossary (2024, Bloomsbury Press), a co-edited collection of social analyses of a wide range of hormones, and (with Mary Lou Rasmussen, Louisa Allen and Rebecca Williamson), Reproduction, Kin and Climate Crisis: Making Bushfire Babies (2023, Bristol), a qualitative study of reproduction during the 2019-20 Australian bushfires. She is currently working on the translation of epigenetics into antenatal care in Australia.

Dr Beck Pearse has a background researching the political economy of environmental policy and rural change. Her research examines how policies like carbon trading and biodiversity offsets transform ecosystems into marketable commodities, and the implications this has for equity and ecological integrity. Her book Pricing Carbon in Australia (Routledge/Earthscan, 2018) documents the regulatory contradictions of Australia's emissions trading scheme. Beck has co-authored reports for UN Women (with Raewyn Connell, 2014) and the City of Sydney (with James Hitchcock, 2019) on gender and urban inequalities, respectively.

Professor Roger Burrows is a sociologist, currently Professor in Global Inequalities in the School of Policy Studies at the University of Bristol in the UK and a Honorary Professorial Fellow in the Centre for Cities at the University of Melbourne. He is the author of over 160 articles, chapters, books and reports. He is currently working on the role of digital technologies in global housing markets, the use of fintech by young people and the ideologies and politics of the global superrich.

Associate Professor Gavin Smith is the Head of Sociology at the ANU. His research focuses on urban ecology and governance, and he is interested in the social, economic and ecological dimensions of the human—snake conflict. He is PI on the Canberra Snake Tracking Project, which is an interdisciplinary, collaborative research study seeking to explore eastern brown snake population dynamics and spatial utilisation in the context of expanding urban encroachment.

Professor Sarah Bekessy (ARC Industry Laureate Fellow) leads the ICON Science research group at RMIT University, which uses interdisciplinary approaches to solve complex biodiversity conservation problems. She is particularly interested in understanding the role of human behaviour in conservation, in designing cities to encourage ‘every day nature’ experiences and in defining and measuring ‘nature positive’ development. She co-developed the Biodiversity Sensitive Urban Design protocol that has now been used by numerous developers, governments and non-government organisations to design innovative urban biodiversity strategies. Sarah is a Lead Councillor with The Biodiversity Council, a Board member of Bush Heritage Australia and a member of the WWF Eminent Scientists Group.

Dr Jason Cummings has over 10 years of experience as a CEO of not-for-profit conservation organisations in Canberra, including the Woodlands and Wetlands Trust and Greening Australia. In 2017, he completed a Churchill Fellowship to the United Kingdom, where he explored leading practices in nature interpretation and visitor facilities and now shares those experiences influencing projects underway across Canberra, including in the River Corridor, to enhance the way we engage our communities locally to inspire conservation action.

Bradley Moggridge is a proud Kamilaroi man (North-West NSW) living in Canberra on Ngunnawal land. He is an environmental hydrogeologist and currently a Professor of Science and Associate Dean (Indigenous Leadership and Engagement) at the University of Technology Sydney, and was previously an Associate Professor in Indigenous Water Science at the University of Canberra. He was the Indigenous Liaison Officer for the Threatened Species Recovery Hub as a part of the National Environmental Science Program (NESP) until 2021. He is research-based and aims to demonstrate credible evidence of the value of water for his Kamilaroi People and how modern-day water planning can accommodate these needs. He combines the ancient knowledge of Indigenous environmental management with the advances of modern science to progress a sustainable approach to water and land management.