The environmental is cultural: Andy Russell, sense of place, and the ethic of pragmatic environmentalism
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2012
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Abstract
At first glance, Andy Russell's ( 1915-2005) environmental activism appears to be fraught with inconsistencies. Land use he supported in one instance he would condemn in another. Onlookers sometimes considered those inconsistencies to be evidence of capricious reasoning. However, Russell's environmental ethic was overall coherent and enduring through his most active decades: the 1960s and 1970s. Indeed, closer examination reveals that Russell's perceived inconsistencies were in fact pragmatic responses to different environmental contexts - namely, to modern working landscapes, on the one hand, and anti-modern wilderness landscapes, on the other. Activities that he welcomed in one landscape were considered impermissible in the other. Yet in both contexts his motivations remained the same. Specifically, his environmental activism allowed him to define and defend his attachment to the land and his sense of place. In this way Russell's environmental work promoted cultural preservation as much as ecology and conservation.
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Bibliography: p. 127-136
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Doherty, J. L. (2012). The environmental is cultural: Andy Russell, sense of place, and the ethic of pragmatic environmentalism (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/4920