“…What is already indicated in this quote, and further elaborated by us in what follows, is that the fantasmatic impact of nature has an influence not only on nature tourists, but, as we will show, more generally on subject positionings “particularly in the West” because it is especially due to a Western understanding of subjectivity that “the human” is considered in separation from nature, which paves the way for a fantasy of nature as something worth preserving, something desirable, something that can be owned and lost. In their introduction to the volume Lacan and the environment , Clint Burnham and Paul Kingsbury (2021b, p. 3) capture these fantasmatic workings of nature more generally by stating: The Imaginary environment is the space around us … here the environment is an image, it is constitutive of the ego and of our narcissistic relation with others. The environment is a site of play … but also of alienation and aggressivity.…”
Section: Lacan and (The Imaginary) Naturementioning
The existence of nature is vehemently called into question in the Anthropocene. The standard image of nature as a pristine, harmonious, and stable background no longer holds, especially as ecological changes increasingly penetrate the collective consciousness. Consequently, there has been growing interest in the psychological effects of this end of nature. A recent wave of scholarship shows how climate change and the Anthropocene more generally affect people's daily lives and present significant threats to psychic well‐being. This paper follows on from these debates. In contrast, however, we ask if and how nature is still considered as providing a subjective sense of (ontological) security today. We argue that, even under postnatural conditions, nature still maintains an imaginary existence in the social reality of the subject. We address this argument empirically by focusing on everyday life perceptions of nature in the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, and theoretically by following the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Drawing on image‐based interviews (photo‐elicitation), we demonstrate that a psychoanalytic approach to imaginary environments allows us to understand why people state that they love nature even though it does not exist. We show how this love works by pointing out how nature is considered as (m)other and, through this, engaged as a place to retreat and escape from the burdens of everyday life while being perceived from a certain distance. In conclusion, we emphasise the broader political consequences of the imaginary existence of nature and call for further engagement with the persistence of nature's fantasy in times when nature seems to no longer fit the purpose.
“…What is already indicated in this quote, and further elaborated by us in what follows, is that the fantasmatic impact of nature has an influence not only on nature tourists, but, as we will show, more generally on subject positionings “particularly in the West” because it is especially due to a Western understanding of subjectivity that “the human” is considered in separation from nature, which paves the way for a fantasy of nature as something worth preserving, something desirable, something that can be owned and lost. In their introduction to the volume Lacan and the environment , Clint Burnham and Paul Kingsbury (2021b, p. 3) capture these fantasmatic workings of nature more generally by stating: The Imaginary environment is the space around us … here the environment is an image, it is constitutive of the ego and of our narcissistic relation with others. The environment is a site of play … but also of alienation and aggressivity.…”
Section: Lacan and (The Imaginary) Naturementioning
The existence of nature is vehemently called into question in the Anthropocene. The standard image of nature as a pristine, harmonious, and stable background no longer holds, especially as ecological changes increasingly penetrate the collective consciousness. Consequently, there has been growing interest in the psychological effects of this end of nature. A recent wave of scholarship shows how climate change and the Anthropocene more generally affect people's daily lives and present significant threats to psychic well‐being. This paper follows on from these debates. In contrast, however, we ask if and how nature is still considered as providing a subjective sense of (ontological) security today. We argue that, even under postnatural conditions, nature still maintains an imaginary existence in the social reality of the subject. We address this argument empirically by focusing on everyday life perceptions of nature in the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, and theoretically by following the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Drawing on image‐based interviews (photo‐elicitation), we demonstrate that a psychoanalytic approach to imaginary environments allows us to understand why people state that they love nature even though it does not exist. We show how this love works by pointing out how nature is considered as (m)other and, through this, engaged as a place to retreat and escape from the burdens of everyday life while being perceived from a certain distance. In conclusion, we emphasise the broader political consequences of the imaginary existence of nature and call for further engagement with the persistence of nature's fantasy in times when nature seems to no longer fit the purpose.
Abstract. A central diagnosis driving research around social relations of
nature is the thesis of the “end of nature”. In an era marked by climate
change and global warming, the image of nature as a pristine and stable
foundation of human existence seems outdated. In light of this, recent
scholarship demonstrates how environmental changes and conflicts
increasingly affect people's daily lives and present significant threats to
psychic well-being. In contrast, in this paper we investigate the conditions
under which nature continues to function as an effective source of
`ontological security'. As part of an international comparative research
project that engages geographical imaginaries of security and insecurity in
Berlin, Vancouver, and Singapore, we analyze how nature is imagined by city
dwellers as an object of desire that offers a place of refuge to escape the
burdens from urban everyday life. Against this background, we emphasize
imaginary nature as a powerful everyday source for the ontological security
of subjects even under today's postnatural conditions.
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