Eugenics, politics and the state: social democracy and the Swiss ‘gardening state’

Mottier, Véronique

doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2008.03.010

Cited by 16 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 4 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Bauman's account has been widely drawn upon (e.g. Binkley ; Mottier ; Schiel ). However, in his and others' critique of state cultivation what often gets lost is the particular imagery of gardening at stake; namely, one involving healthy species, rational resource husbandry, and the elimination of “alien nature” (also Comaroff and Comaroff ; Mottier ).…”

Section: State Conceptualising From the Municipal Leftmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Binkley ; Mottier ; Schiel ). However, in his and others' critique of state cultivation what often gets lost is the particular imagery of gardening at stake; namely, one involving healthy species, rational resource husbandry, and the elimination of “alien nature” (also Comaroff and Comaroff ; Mottier ). Importantly, for thinking about progressive forms of state stewardship, other kinds of gardening also exist: “guerrilla gardening”, “non‐native” plant cultivation, growing or protecting heterogeneous, wild or weed‐filled spaces, and gardening by marginalised constituencies as a form of communal public action (McKay ).…”

Section: State Conceptualising From the Municipal Leftmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Prefiguring the State

Cooper

2016

Antipode

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Merging means and ends, prefigurative politics perform life as it is wishedfor, both to experience better practice and to advance change. This paper contributes to prefigurative thinking in three ways. It explores what it might mean to prefigure the state as a concept; takes its inspiration from a historical episode rather than imagined time ahead; and addresses what, if anything, prefigurative conceptions can do when practiced. Central to my discussion is the plural state-taking shape as micro, city, regional, national and global formations. Plural state thinking makes room for divergent kinds of states but does not necessarily foreground progressive ones. Thus, to explore in more detail a transformative left conception of the state, discussion turns to 1980s British municipal radicalism. Taking up this adventurous episode in governing as a "thinking tool", an imaginary of the state as horizontal, everyday, activist and stewardly emerges.

show abstract

Section: State Conceptualising From the Municipal Leftmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: State Conceptualising From the Municipal Leftmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prefiguring the State

Cooper

2016

Antipode

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Discussions of the 'gardening' state tend to focus on visible, spectacular, and often spasmodic, largescale state-orchestrated schemes such as genocide, eugenics and the Holocaust (Bauman, 1991(Bauman, , 1993Flitner, 2003;Mottier, 2008). We rarely see this metaphor being deployed to investigate localised, routine, and mundane state activities such as urban planning (cf.…”

Section: The Gardening State and Spatial Planningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Of good plants and useless weeds: Planning as a technology of the gardening state

Kamete

2017

Planning Theory

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Kamete, A. Y. (2018) Of good plants and useless weeds: planning as a spatial technology of the gardening state. Planning Theory, 17(2), pp. 253-273. (doi:10.1177/1473095217701514) This is the author's final accepted version.There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it.http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/137861/ AbstractThe article deploys Bauman's metaphor of the 'gardening' state to consider the imbrication of planning and the dark side of modernity. It interrogates the public production and defence of urban spaces suitable for people deemed to have value. Using empirical material from urban Zimbabwe, I frame planning as a spatial technology of the gardening state and peer into its handling of informality under two main themes: first, the perception, construction and designation of 'weeds'; and second, the declaration and treatment of the 'weeds'. Situating Bauman's metaphor in the nexus between planning, the state and informality, I conclude that the metaphor paints a helpful but inadequate picture. I argue that while the metaphor is helpful with regards to the first theme, refinements are needed in its application to the second.Rather than see planning enforcement as a rational-scientific practice, a nuanced conceptualisation is needed that explicitly acknowledges the messy business of politics.

show abstract

“…Similarly, the links between plant control, gardening, horticulture, and human control through eugenics are well documented. The idea of "gardening states," promoted in Nazi Germany, which concerned itself with "eliminating bad weeds from the national garden and thereby constructing sharply exclusionary national identities," is not accidental (Mottier 2008). After all, horticulture and agriculture are all rooted in the idea of "culture" (Cardozo and Subramaniam 2008).…”

Section: Nature In-place and Nature Out-of-placementioning

confidence: 99%

The Aliens in Our Midst: Managing Our Ecosystems

Subramaniam¹

2014

Controversies in Science and Technology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

I begin with a central and profound insight of the feminist and cultural studies of science: that nature and culture, science and society, and biology and the social are not binary opposites. Rather, they are co-constituted and co-produced. We need to go beyond the idea of nature shaping culture and culture shaping nature and move toward an understanding where nature and culture are seen as inextricably interconnected and indeed as constitutive of each other. Instead of the binary formulation of nature and culture, we should begin thinking in terms of Donna Haraway’s (1999) memorable phrase naturecultures. There is no nature and culture, only naturecultures. I use the field of invasion biology as an illustrative case in point. It will come as no surprise to readers of this volume that we live in times of numerous environmental crises, in particular perceived crises of our ecosystems. While there are many sites and sources of the problems that have been identified, one prominent source in the biological and popular literature is that of invasive species. It is argued that some exotic and foreign species are entering the nation, growing and reproducing aggressively and in the process destroying native habitats and landscapes. The central problem is seen as a proliferation of exotic and foreign species, and the solution proposed is the eradication of these species in order to save native ecosystems. As Preston and Williams (2003) sum up: “Invasive alien species are emerging as one of the major threats to sustainable development, on a par with global warming and the destruction of life support systems.” Considered as biological “pollutants,” invasive species are seen as a major threat (Simberloff 2000) and a costly “catastrophe” for native biodiversity (McNeely 2001). They are seen by the National Wildlife Foundation as a “major threat” to biodiversity, second only to habitat loss and degradation, and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has similarly described them as a “major cause” of biodiversity loss throughout the world. Politicians and environmental activists alike call for immediate action (Carlton 1999).

show abstract

Eugenics, politics and the state: social democracy and the Swiss ‘gardening state’

Cited by 16 publications

References 4 publications

Prefiguring the State

Prefiguring the State

Of good plants and useless weeds: Planning as a technology of the gardening state

The Aliens in Our Midst: Managing Our Ecosystems

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About