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Natural World (natural + world)
Selected AbstractsLeibniz and the Natural World: Activity, Passivity and Corporeal Substances in Leibniz's Philosophy , Pauline PhemisterTHE PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, Issue 226 2007Richard Arthur First page of article [source] On the Compatibility of a Conservation Ethic with Biological ScienceCONSERVATION BIOLOGY, Issue 2 2007MARK SAGOFF Darwinismo; estética; ética de conservación; teología Abstract:,If value entails or implies purpose, it follows that natural objects (e.g., endangered species) lack value and thus cannot be worth protecting except for a purpose they may serve,either the end for which God created the world (according to natural theology) or some use to which human beings may put them (according to a consequentialist or utilitarian ethic). If value requires purpose, the refutation of natural theology after Darwin implies that humanity has no obligation to respect or preserve the natural world except insofar as it is economically efficient to do so. Drawing on the distinction between explanation and communication found in Calvinist theology, I argue that value does not entail purpose. The expressive, aesthetic, or communicative aspects of nature may be valuable or endow natural objects with value apart from any use or purpose these objects may serve. The crucial distinction between explanation and communication,one scientific, the other aesthetic,offers a rationale for an obligation to protect the natural world that may appeal to members of faith communities and to biologists and other scientists. This approach also helps resolve the "lurking inconsistency" some scholars see in the relationship between a deterministic biological science and a conservationist ethic. Resumen:,Si el valor conlleva o implica propósito, se entiende que los objetos naturales (e.g., especies en peligro) carecen de valor y por lo tanto no merecen ser protegidos excepto porque pueden servir para el fin por el que Dios creó al mundo (de acuerdo con la teología natural) o para algún uso asignado por humanos (de acuerdo con la ética consecuentalista o utilitaria). Si el valor requiere propósito, la refutación de la teología natural después de Darwin implica que la humanidad no tiene obligación para respetar o preservar el mundo natural excepto si es económicamente eficiente hacerlo. Con base en la distinción entre explicación y comunicación encontrada en la teología Calvinista, argumento que el valor no implica propósito. Los aspectos expresivos, estéticos o comunicativos de la naturaleza pueden ser valiosos o proveer valor a los objetos naturales independientemente de cualquier uso o propósito que puedan tener estos objetos. La distinción crucial entre explicación y comunicación,una científica y la otra estética,ofrece un fundamento para la obligación de proteger el mundo natural que pueda interesar a miembros de comunidades religiosas, a biólogos y otros científicos. Este método también ayuda a resolver la "inconsistencia al acecho" en la relación entre una ciencia biológica determinista y una ética conservacionista que algunos académicos ven. [source] Of Dodos and Dutchmen: reflections on the nature of historyCRITICAL QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2005FRANCIS GOODING History-making is a defining property of the human species; the ability to retain information in symbolic form over time (an ability which is granted principally by the presence of true natural language) is a unique attribute of the human animal. It has allowed human beings to enter in a qualitatively different relationship with the physical environment, and to operate in and alter that environment in highly complex, highly effective ways. To a great extent, the types of events that structure this way of life are absent from the rest of the natural world; in order to describe them accurately, it is necessary to attend to the special quality which defines them, a quality which we can characterise as their 'historical-ness'. Descriptions of human events cannot overlook the histories that organise and determine them, and to that extent they are not fruitfully apprehended with the tools of the exact sciences and instead require attention from the social sciences; but nevertheless, the phenomena of history are a part of the natural world, since they are part of the life of the organism. History itself arises in the non-historical crucible of biology. The paper examines a particular suite of events which have distinct historical and non-historical aspects - the extinction of the Dodo - in order to explore the epistemological difficulties which necessarily complicate any attempt to view human conduct as an integrated part of the natural world. [source] Engaging Science Education Within Diverse CulturesCURRICULUM INQUIRY, Issue 3 2003James Gaskell At the heart of discussions about an appropriate school science in a diverse world are questions about the status of modern science versus other schemes for understanding the natural world. Does modern science occupy a privileged epistemological position with respect to alternative beliefs? There has been a movement from an emphasis on replacing students' ideas based on traditional cultures to one of respecting those ideas and adding to them an understanding of modern science ideas and an exploration of when each might be useful. Respecting both sets of explanations need not deny discussions about credibility in particular contexts. School science, however, is always located within wider educational and political structures. Broad elements of the community must be engaged in dialogue concerning what knowledge about the natural world is important, to whom, and for what purposes. [source] Comparative psychology is still alive but may be losing relevanceDEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOBIOLOGY, Issue 1 2004Victor H. Denenberg Abstract Greenberg et al., in their perspective on the current state and fate of comparative psychology, present convincing data that the field is viable and that comparative psychologists are making important contributions to the research literature. The central feature of the field is its emphasis upon evolution. This is also its weakness since advances in genetic techniques permit researchers to create laboratory animals that have no counterpart in the natural world, and thus have no evolutionary history. These "unnatural" animals are widely used in behavioral, biological, and medical studies, but the findings cannot be interpreted within a comparative psychology framework. As the use of these preparations expand, the relevance of comparative psychology diminishes. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 44: 21,25, 2004. [source] Re/placing Native Science: Indigenous Voices in Contemporary Constructions of NatureGEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH, Issue 2 2007JAY T. JOHNSON Abstract Since the earliest days of the European Enlightenment, Western people have sought to remove themselves from nature and the ,savage' non-European masses. This distancing has relied upon various intellectual techniques and theories. The social construction of nature precipitated by Enlightenment thinking separated culture from nature, culture being defined as civilised European society. This separation has served to displace the Native voice within the colonial construction of Nature. This separation has also served as one thread in the long modern ,disenchantment' of Westerners and nature, a ,disenchantment' described so adeptly by Adorno and Horkheimer (1973). Unfortunately though, this displacement is not only a historical event. The absence of modern Native voices within discussions of nature perpetuates the colonial displacement which blossomed following the Enlightenment. In his book entitled, Native Science, Gregory Cajete describes Native science as ,a lived and creative relationship with the natural world ... [an] intimate and creative participation [which] heightens awareness of the subtle qualities of a place' (2000, 20). Perhaps place offers a ,common ground' between Western and Indigenous thought; a ,common ground' upon which to re/write the meta-narrative of Enlightenment thought. This paper will seek to aid in the re/placement of modern Native voices within constructions of nature and seek to begin healing the disenchantment caused through the rupture between culture and nature in Western science. [source] The Sovereignty of Nature?INTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2002Environmental Protection in a Postmodern Age Recent postmodern international relations (IR) scholarship threatens to undermine global environmental protection efforts. Global environmental protection is fundamentally about conserving and preserving nature. It involves safeguarding the quality of the earth's air, water, soil, and other species. Postmodern critics have shown, however, that "nature" is not simply a given, physical object but a social construction,an entity that assumes meaning within various cultural contexts and is fundamentally unknowable outside of human categories of understanding. This criticism raises significant challenges for global environmental politics. How can societies protect the nonhuman world if the very identity of that enterprise is cast into doubt? How can states cooperate to protect nature if the meaning of the term is socially and historically contingent? This article argues that postmodern criticisms of "nature" do not undermine global environmental protection efforts,as many IR scholars suggest,but rather provide their own guidelines for practice. Postmodernists value the so-called "other"; they aim to give voice to the poor, oppressed, and otherwise disadvantaged in an attempt to limit hegemonic tendencies of the powerful. The article calls on postmodernist IR scholars to take their own concerns seriously and stand up for the paradigmatic "other," the nonhuman world in all its abundance and diversity. It calls on postmodern IR scholars to extend their concern for the "other" to the realm of plants, animals, landscapes, and so forth, and work to protect the radical "otherness" of the so-called natural world. The article, in other words, uses postmodern criticism against itself to ground commitment to global environmental protection. [source] Some Problems and Possibilities in the Study of Dynamical Social ProcessesJOURNAL FOR THE THEORY OF SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR, Issue 1 2000John E. Puddifoot The recent challenge of Dynamical Systems Theory (also known as ComplexityTheory or Chaos Theory) to the social sciences, is based largely on the beliefthat processes in the social arena can be considered as analogous to those of the natural world, and that in consequence general theoretical advances in explaining the latter might with advantage be applied to the former. This paper aims to show that claims for Dynamical Systems Theory with respect to the understanding or measurement of social processes would be premature; the reasons for this lying not only in the unfamiliarity and operational difficulties of Dynamical Systems Theory in itself, but also in the problematic nature and history of our usage of the term ,social process'. Reviewing some examples of such usage from Sociology and Social Psychology, it is concluded that Dynamical Systems Theory might serve as a catalyst for a re-examination of existing orthodoxies and major concepts, but that progress would be retarded by the uncritical application of it's terminology, concepts, and techniques of mathematical modelling, without this prior and demanding first step. [source] The lure of choiceJOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DECISION MAKING, Issue 4 2003Nicola J. Bown Abstract We report three studies demonstrating the ,lure of choice' people prefer options that allow them to take further choices over those that do not, even when the extra choices cannot improve the ultimate outcome. In Studies 1 and 2, participants chose between two options: one solitary item, and a pair of items between which they would then make a further choice. Consistent with the lure of choice, a given item was more likely to be the ultimate choice when it was initially part of a choice pair than when it was offered on its own. We also demonstrate the lure of choice in a four-door version of the Monty Hall problem, in which participants could either stick with their original choice or switch to one of two unopened doors. Participants were more likely to switch if they could first ,choose to choose' between the two unopened doors (without immediately specifying which) than if they had to choose one door straightaway. We conclude by suggesting that the lure of choice is due to a choice heuristic that is very reliable in the natural world, but much less so in a world created by marketers. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The concept of health: beyond normativism and naturalismJOURNAL OF EVALUATION IN CLINICAL PRACTICE, Issue 2 2010Richard P. Hamilton BA (Hons) MPhil PhD PGCE Abstract Philosophical discussions of health and disease have traditionally been dominated by a debate between normativists, who hold that health is an inescapably value-laded concept and naturalists, such as Christopher Boorse, who believe that it is possible to derive a purely descriptive or theoretical definition of health based upon biological function. In this paper I defend a distinctive view which traces its origins in Aristotle's naturalistic ethics. An Arisotelian would agree with Boorse that health and disease are ubiquitous features of the natural world and thus not mere projections of human interests and values. She would differ from him in rejecting the idea that value is a non-natural quality. I conclude my discussion with some comments of the normative character of living systems. [source] Fitting Ethics to the Land: H. Richard Niebuhr's Ethic of Responsibility and EcotheologyJOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS ETHICS, Issue 2 2002Judith N. Scoville Much of ecotheology and environmental philosophy has moved deductively from theological and ethical constructs to questions of how we should relate to the natural world. Such approaches are limited in their ability to guide us toward appropriate environmental action for they do not necessarily fit the way the natural world actually functions. Niebuhr's ethic of response, on the other hand, begins with the concrete situation and is inherently ecological for it focuses on interrelationships in an on-going community. It is inductive in character and open to being informed by new findings in the natural and social sciences; thus it is exceptionally well suited to environmental problems, which involve complex scientific, social, and economic questions. [source] Idolatry and the Polemics of World-Formation from Philo to AugustineJOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY, Issue 2 2004Isaac Miller This article examines the association of idolatry with erroneous ideas about the natural world in the writings of late antique Jewish and Christian authors. It follows two polemical genres. The first is the hexaemeral commentaries composed by Philo of Alexandria, Basil of Caesarea and Augustine, which positioned the hexaemeron against the background of natural philosophy and used various critiques of idolatry to revise or refute pagan natural philosophy. The second genre is that of heresiology initiated by Irenaeus of Lyon and adapted by Augustine to refute Gnostic and Manichaean cosmological myths and disregard for the creation account in Genesis. The article analyses a variety of ways in which the prohibitions against idolatry figured in methodological questions about how to conceptualize the natural world, how to locate the sources of conceptual error, and how to distinguish those errors from truth. [source] A Normativist Account of Language-Based Learning Disability1,2LEARNING DISABILITIES RESEARCH & PRACTICE, Issue 1 2006J. Bruce Tomblin Research on learning disabilities (LD) depends upon a conceptual framework that specifies what it should explain, what kinds of data are needed, and how these data are to be arranged in order to provide a meaningful explanation. An argument is made that LD are no different in this respect than any other form of human illness. In this article, a theory of LD based on weak normativism drawn from the philosophy of medicine is presented. This theory emphasizes that cultural values (norms) determine which aspects of human experience and function are instances of ill health. Thus, ill health is fundamentally normative. However, the experiences and behaviors themselves arise out of the natural world and therefore can be explained by a culturally neutral natural science. Data from a longitudinal study of specific language impairment are used to show that academic achievement is culturally evaluated, that low achievement is disvalued, and that therefore actions are taken to help the poor achiever. Spoken language abilities in kindergarten are associated with judgments of the adequacy of fourth grade academic achievement and are mediated by reading prior to fourth grade and also via a path that is independent of reading. It is argued that poor academic achievement may be viewed as a disvalued state consistent with an illness, whereas language and reading skills can be viewed as basic causal systems that can explain the child's learning performance. Properties of this causal system are value free, except that they can inherit disvalue by their association with poor achievement. It remains to be determined whether the notion of LD is to be equated with poor achievement and therefore serve as a type of illness or whether it is to be viewed as a particular cause of poor achievement and thus functions as a type of disease associated with poor achievement. The conceptual framework lays out the alternative meanings for LD and the choice between these alternatives will ultimately depend on how it is used in the LD research community. [source] Recent innovations in marine biologyMARINE ECOLOGY, Issue 2009Ferdinando Boero Abstract Modern ecology arose from natural history when Vito Volterra analysed Umberto D'Ancona's time series of Adriatic fisheries, formulating the famous equations describing the linked fluctuations of a predator,prey system. The shift from simple observation to careful sampling design, and hypothesis building and testing, often with manipulative approaches, is probably the most relevant innovation in ecology, leading from descriptive to experimental studies, with the use of powerful analytical tools to extract data (from satellites to molecular analyses) and to treat them, and modelling efforts leading to predictions. However, the historical component, time, is paramount in environmental systems: short-term experiments must cope with the long term if we want to understand change. Chaos theory showed that complex systems are inherently unpredictable: equational, predictive science is only feasible over the short term and for a small number of variables. Ecology is characterized by a high number of variables (e.g. species) interacting over wide temporal and spatial scales. The greatest recent conceptual innovation, thus, is to have realized that natural history is important, and that the understanding of complexity calls for humility. This is not a return to the past, because now we can give proper value to statistical approaches aimed at formalizing the description and the understanding of the natural world in a rigorous way. Predictions can only be weak, linked to the identification of the attractors of chaotic systems, and are aimed more at depicting scenarios than at forecasting the future with precision. Ecology was originally split into two branches: autecology (ecology of species) and synecology (ecology of species assemblages, communities, ecosystems). The two approaches are almost synonymous with the two fashionable concepts of today: ,biodiversity' and ,ecosystem functioning'. A great challenge is to put the two together and work at multiple temporal and spatial scales. This requires the identification of all variables (i.e. species and their ecology: biodiversity, or autoecology) and of all connections among them and with the physical world (i.e. ecosystem functioning, or synecology). Marine ecosystems are the least impacted by human pressures, compared to terrestrial ones, and are thus the best arena to understand the structure and function of the natural world, allowing for comparison between areas with and areas without human impact. [source] INTUITIVE NON-NATURALISM MEETS COSMIC COINCIDENCEPACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2009MATTHEW S. BEDKE Having no recourse to ways of knowing about the natural world, ethical non-naturalists are in need of an epistemology that might apply to a normative breed of facts or properties, and intuitionism seems well suited to fill that bill. Here I argue that the metaphysical inspiration for ethical intuitionism undermines that very epistemology, for this pair of views generates what I call the defeater from cosmic coincidence. Unfortunately, we face not a happy union, but a difficult choice: either ethical intuitionism or ethical non-naturalism, but not both. [source] Précis of Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View,PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH, Issue 3 2002LYNNE RUDDER BAKER Persons and Bodies develops and defends an account of persons and of the relation between human persons and their bodies. Human persons are constituted by bodies, without being identical to the bodies that constitute them,just as, I argue, statues are constituted by pieces of bronze, say, without being identical to the pieces of bronze that constitute them. The relation of constitution, therefore, is not peculiar to persons and their bodies, but is pervasive in the natural world. [source] Encountering the Wilderness, Encountering the Mist: Nature, Romanticism, and Contemporary PaganismANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Issue 1 2009VANESSA SAGE ABSTRACT This article asks how ideas about nature in the 18th and 19th century Romantic movement have traveled in and been translated by the various religious groups that constitute contemporary Paganism. Drawing on the work of poets, philosophers, historians, social scientists, and contemporary Pagans themselves, the article argues that contemporary Paganism borrows freely from Romantic notions of inspiration and imagination to craft a vision of nature, that, for them, responds to the emotional and political needs of their own time and place. At the center of this vision is what I describe as the Romantic hero, a figure in search of a more authentic existence in a broadly conceived "natural world." [source] Further Correspondences and Similarities of Shamanism and Cognitive Science: Mental Representation, Implicit Processing, and Cognitive StructuresANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Issue 1 2003Timothy L. Hubbard Properties of mental representation are related to findings in cognitive science and ideas in shamanism. A selective review of research in cognitive science suggests visual images and spatial memory preserve important functional information regarding physical principles and the behavior of objects in the natural world, and notions of second-order isomorphism and the perceptual cycle developed to account for such findings are related to shamanic experience. Possible roles of implicit processes in shamanic cognition, and the idea that shamanic experience may involve normally unconscious information becoming temporarily available to consciousness, are considered. The existence of a cognitive module dedicated to processing information relevant to social knowledge and social interaction is consistent with cognitive science and with shamanism, and may help account for the extension of intentionality and meaning that characterize shamanic practice. Overall, findings from cognitive science and ideas from shamanism exhibit a number of correspondences and similarities regarding basic properties of cognition, and this suggests that shamanic and nonshamanic cognition may not be fundamentally different. [source] Some Correspondences and Similarities of Shamanism and Cognitive Science: Interconnectedness, Extension of Meaning, and Attribution of Mental StatesANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Issue 2 2002Timothy L. Hubbard Correspondences and similarities between ideas in shamanism and ideas in contemporary cognitive science are considered. The importance of interconnectedness in the web of life worldview characteristic of shamanism and in connectionist models of semantic memory in cognitive science, and the extension of meaning to elements of the natural world in shamanism and indistributed cognition, are considered. Cognitive consequences of such an extension (e.g., use of representativeness and intentional stance heuristics, magical thinking, social attribution errors, and social in-group/out-group differences) are discussed. It is suggested that attributions of mental states, beliefs, and desires to a computer on the basis of behavioral measures (e.g., the Turing test) is consistent with the extension of meaning and intentionality to nonhuman elements of the natural world in shamanism. In general, the existence of such correspondencesand similarities suggests that elements of shamanism may reflect cognitive structures and processes that are also used by nonshamans and in nonshamanic settings. [source] Making the Market: Specialty Coffee, Generational Pitches, and Papua New GuineaANTIPODE, Issue 3 2010Paige West Abstract:, Today the commodity circuit for specialty coffee seems to be made up of socially conscious consumers, well-meaning and politically engaged roasters and small companies, and poor yet ecologically noble producers who want to take part in the flows of global capital, while at the same time living in close harmony with the natural world. This paper examines how these actors are produced by changes in the global economy that are sometimes referred to as neoliberalism. It also shows how images of these actors are produced and what the material effects of those images are. It begins with a description of how generations are understood and made by marketers. Next it shows how coffee production in Papua New Guinea, especially Fair Trade and organic coffee production, is turned into marketing narratives meant to appeal to particular consumers. Finally, it assesses the success of the generational-based marketing of Papua New Guinea-origin, Fair Trade and organic coffees, three specialty coffee types that are marketed heavily to the "Millenial generation", people born between 1983 and 2000. [source] Emergence and the Forms of CitiesARCHITECTURAL DESIGN, Issue 3 2010Michael Weinstock Abstract Michael Weinstock's significant new book The Architecture of Emergence: The Evolution of Form in Nature and Civilisation calls into question the received notion of culture. Rather than perceiving civilisation as intrinsically human or humanist, standing outside and beyond nature, Weinstock positions human development alongside ecological development: the history of cultural evolution and the production of cities are set in the context of processes and forms of the natural world. In this extract from Chapter 7, Weinstock charts how the proliferation of cities and systems of cities and their extended metabolic systems across the world were characterised by episodic and irregular expansions, consolidation, collapse and subsequent reorganisation. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Emergence and the Forms of MetabolismARCHITECTURAL DESIGN, Issue 2 2010Michael Weinstock Abstract Earlier this year, Michael Weinstock published a seminal book, The Architecture of Emergence: The Evolution of Form in Nature and Civilisation, which challenges established cultural and architectural histories. The conventional worldview is expanded by placing human development alongside ecological development: the history of cultural evolution and the production of cities are set in the context of processes and forms of the natural world. As well as providing a far-reaching thesis, Weinstock's book gives lucid and accessible explanations of the complex systems of the physical world. In this abridged extract from Chapter 5, Weinstock explains the dynamics of individual and collective metabolisms from which intelligence and social and spatial orders emerge. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Tracing Change: Patterns in Landscape ArchitectureARCHITECTURAL DESIGN, Issue 6 2009Simon Swaffield Abstract For Simon Swaffield, landscape design can be regarded as the product of distinctive patterns formed through the intersection of site, technology and idealised nature. Across time and cultures, the interpretation of nature has shifted endlessly, and with it the manner in which the natural world is conceived, transformed and represented. Given its history, what might also be the future patterns of landscape design?. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Patterns in Performance-Orientated Design: An Approach towards Pattern Recognition, Generation and InstrumentalisationARCHITECTURAL DESIGN, Issue 6 2009Michael Hensel Abstract The question of pattern in architecture generally divides architects into two distinct groups: those with an aesthetic interest in man-made ornament; and those who take a deeper interest in the processes that underlie the formation of pattern in the natural world. An investigation of the performative, though, enables an exploration of pattern that arises out of the interaction of man-made interventions with the natural environment. Michael Hensel, Professor for research by Design at AHO, the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, and Achim Menges of the Emtech (Emergent Technologies and Design programme) at the Architectural Association in London, explore this arena based on their research and educational work at the AA and other international institutions, which focuses on aspects of performance in the built environment. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Significance of Biodiversity to HealthBIOTROPICA, Issue 5 2010Christopher N. Herndon ABSTRACT The United Nations declared 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity. Despite the magnitude of the global crisis of biodiversity loss, its far-reaching consequences to human health remain largely unappreciated. The legacy of the natural world to medicine is profound and its potential to yield new therapeutics and advancements in biomedical science undervalued. The enormity of the global crisis underscores a fundamental truth, one that is seemingly obvious but has been tragically overlooked: Our species does not exist in isolation from the biosphere. Rather, our fate depends on it. [source] Language Acquisition Meets Language EvolutionCOGNITIVE SCIENCE - A MULTIDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL, Issue 7 2010Nick Chater Abstract Recent research suggests that language evolution is a process of cultural change, in which linguistic structures are shaped through repeated cycles of learning and use by domain-general mechanisms. This paper draws out the implications of this viewpoint for understanding the problem of language acquisition, which is cast in a new, and much more tractable, form. In essence, the child faces a problem of induction, where the objective is to coordinate with others (C-induction), rather than to model the structure of the natural world (N-induction). We argue that, of the two, C-induction is dramatically easier. More broadly, we argue that understanding the acquisition of any cultural form, whether linguistic or otherwise, during development, requires considering the corresponding question of how that cultural form arose through processes of cultural evolution. This perspective helps resolve the "logical" problem of language acquisition and has far-reaching implications for evolutionary psychology. [source] From the Politics of Urgency to the Governance of Preparedness: A Research Agenda on Urban VulnerabilityJOURNAL OF CONTINGENCIES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2005Will Medd To date, little social science understanding has been developed about what it would mean to strategically build resilience in the context of such rich interdependencies between social, technical and natural worlds. We argue that shifts in strategies to deal with urban crises marks a turn from the politics of urgency, characteristic of crisis management, towards a governance of preparedness, characterised by strategies to build urban resilience. Social science needs to develop research agendas that critically engage with different understandings of resilience and the challenges of building resilience across different scales of urban governance. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||