Note
Studied by 12 people
Week 8: Desiring Wilderness
Week 8: Desiring Wilderness
The Politics of Wilderness and Camping
Cronon: nature is the place where individuals can go to rejuvenate themselves, or a refuge we must recover and protect in order to save the planet
Wildneress is not a sanctuary where the last remnants of nature untouched by humans remains
In contrast, ‘wilderness’ is a human construction “the creation of very particular human cultures at very particular moments in human history
The Poltitcs of Camping - Against the Grain Podcast
camping in America, though seemingly a simple act, carries significant historical and political weight
Camping out of nessciety vs recreation
a new form of recreational camping emerged, primarily undertaken by elite, white Americans as a way to reconnect with nature and experience leisure. This shift created a distinction from the functional camping of those forced to camp out of necessity, revealing stark class divisions in how camping was perceived and experienced.
Camping as a political act and form of protest : The Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011 brought a new dimension to political camping, blurring the lines between protest camping and the functional camping of those without shelter. Occupy encampments in urban spaces aimed to challenge corporate greed and economic inequality while also highlighting the plight of those experiencing homelessness, sparking debate about public space usage, the right to protest, and the complex relationship between different forms of camping.
The Politics of Camping
Camping may seem simple, but it has political and social meanings based on who is camping and why:
Necessity vs. Recreation
Camping out of necessity: People who are unhoused camp for survival, but this is often criminalized and stigmatized.
Recreational camping: Elite, white Americans started camping for leisure to “escape” modern life. This type of camping is celebrated as a fun, privileged activity.
This difference shows class and racial divides: leisure camping is seen as positive, while survival camping is treated as a problem.
Camping as a Political Act
Occupy Wall Street (2011): Protesters set up camps in public spaces to challenge inequality and corporate greed.
These protest camps blurred the line between activism and the survival camping of the unhoused.
It raised questions about:
Who has the right to use public space?
Why are unhoused individuals policed, while recreational campers are accepted?
Key Ideas
Camping can challenge power by reclaiming public spaces (like Occupy protests).
The state often suppresses protest and survival camping but allows recreational camping for the privileged.
Summary:
Camping reveals inequality. Recreational camping is celebrated, but survival and protest camping are criminalized. Events like Occupy Wall Street show how camping can highlight economic struggles and challenge who has the right to public space.
Historical Views of Wilderness Until the 18th Century
People felt terror in the wilderness, Through Christian Biblical references wilderness was looked at as losing oneself in moral confusion and despair
Wilderness is where people went against their will, its values lied in that it could be reclaimed to human interests.
Wilderness is something to be cherished
End of 19th century marked people beginning to think preserving the wilderness was preserving the world. This transition had two key dimensions, the Sublime, and the Frontier.
Wilderness as Sublime
Made wilderness something with moral values and cultural symbols, started to see wilderness as where you have the best chance of seeing god, rather than joy and pleasure
As a frontier: According to Cronon, wilderness as frontier represents a cultural belief that the solution to modern civilization's problems lay in returning to simpler, more primitive living. This idea was particularly powerful in American culture, where the frontier myth 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
Became a place for people to get away and reinvent themselves, historically as a landscape for elite wealthy tourists for hunting and fishing trips. (Banff)
Social and Evirnmental Character of Wilderness
The social and environmental charcter of wildernes represent a complex relationship between nature and human society
Nationalism: Wilderness was fundamental to American identity, with its preservation being directly tied to protecting "America's sacred myth of origin
Anti-Urban Bias: The concept frames wilderness as a site of truth, freedom, and innocence, which consequently positions cities and factories as false and artificial. Cities are viewed as blights on the natural world
Masculinism: The wilderness concept was heavily gendered, promoting the idea that "a man could be a real man" in the wilderness, presenting it as a space where masculinity could flourish before civilization "sapped away his energy and threatened his masculinity
The Trouble with Wilderness
by viewing nature only in wilderness and not recognizing our own cultural influences, we misunderstand the solution to environmental problems
Cronon identifies two major issues:
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 .
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. We care more about saving a pristine lake then the choices we make about how we move through urban states.
Conclusions: Wilderness is fundamentally a social construction, with meanings that shift historically, and that wilderness landscapes effectively "sanction and prohibit the presence of particular social groups"