In Frontiers, Michael Redclift examines the relationship between nature                  and society in frontier areas--contested zones in which rival versions of civil                  society vie with one another, often over the definition and management of nature                  itself. Drawing on his own fieldwork and extensive archival research, Redclift                  presents five cases in which civil societies emerged in frontier areas either to                  manage common property or to legitimize private holdings: common-pool resource                  management in the Spanish Pyrenees, European settlement on the forest frontier in                  nineteenth-century Canada, conflicts over land and water resources in coastal                  Ecuador, Mayan civil unrest in the Yucat?n peninsula, and the encroachment of                  tourism on the Mexican Caribbean coast.Redclift describes a dialectical process in                  frontier regions in which human societies and their environments influence and                  illuminate one another: the frontier can be seen as a crucible in which both nature                  and civil institutions develop and "co-evolve." In each of the five case studies, he                  argues, migration and land settlement gave rise to ideologies of nature that                  reflected not only the social and ethnic characteristics of the settlers but also                  the the effects of market forces on the natural environment. In most of these areas                  the natural environment was transformed by the pressure of the market, especially                  global markets. Resistance to market pressure created new avenues for political                  activity and the representation of cultural identity. Frontiers deepens and broadens                  our understanding of the role of the frontier, which, Redclift argues, needs to be                  considered within a global context that is of continuing importance today.

Frontiers: Histories of Civil Society and Nature PDF

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