Week 8: Desiring Wilderness

Wilderness

A human construction shaped by particular cultures and moments in history, rather than a pristine, untouched space.

Necessity vs. Recreation

A distinction in camping practices; necessity refers to camping for survival, while recreation refers to leisure camping, often by privileged groups.

Occupy Wall Street

A 2011 movement where protesters camped in public spaces to challenge economic inequality and corporate greed, using camping as a political act.

Social Construction of Wilderness

The idea that wilderness is fundamentally shaped by social and cultural influences, rather than being an absolute natural state.

Wilderness as Sublime

The concept of wilderness associated with moral values and spiritual experiences, often viewed as the ideal location for encountering the divine.

Wilderness as a Frontier

The belief that returning to wild lands could resolve the issues of modern civilization by reconnecting with primitive ways of living. In American culture, suggested that by moving to wild, unsettled lands, both Easterners and European immigrants could shed civilization's constraints and rediscover their "primitive racial energies”

Wilderness Fetish

The historical tendency for elite individuals to idealize wilderness as a space for self-reinvention, often for recreational purposes. (Banff and its popularity as well as a way to make money)

Nationalism and Wilderness

The belief that preserving wilderness is essential to American identity and protecting it was tied o America’s sacred myth of origin

Anti-Urban Bias

The perception that wilderness embodies truth and innocence, portraying cities as false and have a detrimental effect on the natural world

Masculinism in Wilderness

Wilderness was heavily gendered, wilderness acts as a backdrop for traditional masculinity, emphasizing it as a space where masculinity could flourish

The Trouble with Wilderness

The tendency to view nature only in wilderness and not recognizing our own cultural influences, we misunderstand the solution to environmental problems

Political Camping

Camping that serves as a form of protest or social activism, challenging societal norms and economic inequalities.

Class Divides in Camping

The societal stratification visible in camping practices, highlighting how leisure camping is viewed positively, while necessity camping is stigmatized.

Wilderness as a Refuge

The notion that wilderness serves as a place for self-rejuvenation and ecological salvation.

Cronon's 2 major issues on Trouble with Wilderness

1. This perspective "displaces social issues" by seeing wilderness as the answer to problematic relationships with the non-human world, rather than addressing cultural and social factors .

2. There's a misrecognition of what we experience in nature. While people think they're having unique, authentic experiences when viewing features like waterfalls and mountains, these are actually shared social experiences that others recognize too.