Nature: A Conversation in Three Parts

This conversation considers the contemporary popularity across the academy and among the wider public of the idea that humans and nature are always interconnected, as reflected especially in the idea of the Anthropocene. On the one hand, the popularity of nondualist ideas and related practices suggests the widespread acceptance of concepts long at the core of geographical thought and, as such, these new phenomena seem to be something to be celebrated by geographers. On the other hand, these nondualist ideas and practices are also unleashing new forms of politics, particularly regarding efforts to engineer a range of new natures, including bodies, ecosystems, and the earth system writ large. Therefore, we propose that geography's longstanding and intradisciplinary attention to interconnections among humans and nature is as essential now as ever. We no longer have to convince others that humans and nature are interconnected, but rather than celebrate this, our task now is to investigate how nondualism works and with what effects.