A while back some colleagues from my institute returned from a workshop in Copenhagen. A number of STS-”hotshots” attended the event, including Sheila Jasanoff. Upon return, a couple of them (not the hotshots, but my collegues) noted how Anthony Giddens had been rather aggressively attacked (not literally of course, he was not there..) during the proceedings.

I haven’t read Giddens for some time, but when I realized his most recent work deals with climate change and energy policy, I felt sort of obligated.  Thus, I have started reading ”The politics of climate change” (2009). I have only finished a couple of chapters, though,  so I can’t really comment much on the book in general. The first pages, however,  have reminded me of how Giddens has dealt with “nature” in his past work, and how this stands in stark contrast to how nature is perceived and described in the STS-literature (most notably by Bruno Latour, I guess). Perhaps this is part of the reason why he (apparently) is so loathed by (at least some) STS-scholars?

In “Modernity and Self-Identity” (1991) for example, it is clear that Giddens believes an original, pure, virgin-like nature to have existed at some point in history. This “natural world” was of an entirely different character than the social (modern) world we inhabit today. As such there is a visible and explicit dichotomy between nature, the “natural world” and the “social world” in Giddens account. He writes:

Technological intervention into nature is the condition of the development of abstract systems (…) but of course affects many other aspects of Modern social life as well. The ‘socialization of nature’ has helped stabilize a variety of previously irregular or unpredictable influences on human behaviour (p.135)

On another instance he goes further, and argues with Bill McKibben that nature, as it at some point existed in it’s pure form has been abolished:

Socialized nature provides a telling (…). MicKibben argues, with great plausibility that human intervention in the natural world has been so profound, and so encompassing, that today we can speak of the ‘end of nature’. Socialized nature is quite different from the old natural environment, which existed separately from human endeavours and formed a relatively unchanging backdrop to them (pp. 136-137)

This view of “real nature” as a thing of the past is also repeated in “The politics of climate change”, allthough it has not been a major focal point in what little I have read of it so far. On page 29 Giddens briefly touches the subject:

(…) the distiguished scientist Martin Rees speaks seriously of the possibility that we – the human race – might not survive the twenty-first century, because of the quantity of dangers built up through the diverse interventions into (what used to be[1]) nature

In other words Giddens’ view basically seems to be that at some point the “human” or the “social” co-existed with the “natural”, but that the two were separate worlds,  not interfering much with each other. The natural was an “unchanging backdrop”, merely a context over which the social could unfold. I guess this is quite typical of sociologists (shame on us!), giving privilege to the social over the material.

From an STS-point of view the Giddens-account of nature would be problematic, to say the least. At what point did we begin to “socialize” nature? Was it when we started making tools that we utilized to hunt or harvest? Perhaps it was when we tamed fire? Possibly when we started cooperating to bring down large animals? Did it happen with feudalism, or was it a result of western industrialization? This very idea of a starting point, of a “before” and an “after” distinguishing “true nature” from a socialized counterpart is indeed problematic.

Of course, one can argue that this is of theoretical importance only to a relatively small group of people, and that the practical implications in terms of “real life” policy-suggestions wouldn’t necessarily be too large. If avoiding (or limiting)climate changes is the goal, I guess finding the best practical solutions would be the overarching task, not pondering the theoretical and philosophical relationship between humans and non-humans(the obvious counterargument is that this understanding is essential to reach the policies which best serves all, both humans and non-humans – and I guess that is a valid argument in the climate debate).  As I said, I haven’t read much of Giddens book yet, so I don’t really know which suggestions he raises. None the less I think the following is a valid question: if he reaches more or less the same types of conclusions that “we” (STS) do and give more or less the same types of advice – does it really matter if he “over-sociologizes” to a certain degree, and over-simplifies on some points? Scientific quarrells are just part of the game, I guess, but I hope they aren’t counter-productive…

[1] My bold..

[2] He discusses some ideas on nature in this lecture (interesting and quite entertaining at times).