The Edges of Environmental History: Honouring Jane Carruthers | Environment & Society Portal

About this issue

This volume of RCC Perspectives, featuring artwork by Australian artist Mandy Martin, is a tribute to the wonderful career of Jane Carruthers. It is also an exploration of South Africa’s contributions to world environmental history and the sister disciplines along its edges. A pioneer of environmental history in South Africa, Jane Carruthers is also a leader in global and transnational environmental history and a distinguished biographer. This volume explores some of the partnerships between environmental history and other intellectual endeavours, particularly those where Jane Carruthers’ work has been inspirational: animal studies, natural resource management, the history of biology, and the broader environmental humanities.

How to cite: Mauch, Christof, and Libby Robin (eds.), “The Edges of Environmental History: Honouring Jane Carruthers,” RCC Perspectives 2014, no. 1. doi.org/10.5282/rcc/6255.

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Content

Prologue

Jane Carruthers and International Environmental History by Christof Mauch and Libby Robin
Environmental History with an African Edge by Jane Carruthers

Part 1: Thinking with Animals

How Wild is Wild? by Harriet Ritvo
Thinking with Birds by Tom Dunlap
Animal Pasts, Humanised Futures: Living with Big Wild Animals in an Emerging Economy by Mahesh Rangarajan

The Beast of the Forest by Tom Griffiths

Part 2: Inside and Out Wildlife Reserves

National Parks as Cosmopolitics by Bernhard Gißibl
Seeing the National Park from Outside It: On an African Epistemology of Nature by Clapperton Mavhunga
On Being Edgy: The Potential of Parklands and Justice in the Global South by Emily Wakild

Mandy Martin’s Artistic Explorations by Jane Carruthers

Part 3: Knowing Nature

Bio-invasions, Biodiversity, and Biocultural Diversity: Some Problems with These Concepts for Historians by William Beinart
The Biopolitics of the Border by Etienne Benson
Adventures in Gondwana: Science in the South by Saul Dubow
Biography and Scientific Endeavour by Libby Robin

How to Read a Bridge by Rob Nixon

Part 4: Environmental Injustice and the Promise of History

Constructing and De-constructing Communities: Tales of Urban Injustice and Resistance in Brazil and South Africa by Lise Sedrez
Dangerous Territory: The Contested Space Between Conservation and Justice by Bron Taylor
History and Audacity: Talking to Conservation Science by Catherine A. Christen
“But where the danger lies, also grows the saving power”: Reflections on Exploitation and Sustainability by Christof Mauch

About RCC Perspectives

RCC Perspectives is an open-access publication that exists to record and reflect the activities of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. The journal was rebranded in 2016 as RCC Perspectives: Transformations in Environment and Society. It provides a forum for examining the interrelationship between environmental and social changes and is designed to inspire new perspectives on humanity and the wider world. RCC Perspectives aims to bridge the gap between scholarly and non-scholarly audiences and encourage international dialogue.

Guidelines for contributors (English)

The Perspectives Team

Published from 2010 to 2020, the series editors of RCC Perspectives were RCC Directors Christof Mauch and Helmuth Trischler. The former editing team consisted of Harriet Windley and Kristy Henderson. Katie Ritson served as co-series editor and managing editor for many years alongside former editors Brenda Black, Stephanie Hood, Hannah Roberson, and Samantha Rothbart.