Includes bibliographical references and index.

"Combining historical, social and regulative analysis, this book builds a compelling critique of 'frontier thinking' and demonstrates its pernicious amplification in contemporary human affairs. This book systematically identifies the ways in which images of nature and society are formed by historically developed frontier-oriented narratives. It illustrates how these narratives have underpinned much Anglo-American and Anglocentric thought, and have even come to form our assumptions about social and environmental organisation - in ways that are relevant not least to the present environmental crisis. The book confronts these conceptions at large, showing that they never held empirically, and contrasts them with the situation in northern Europe, where diverging assumptions are integral to this day. Through this juxtaposition, the book illustrates not only the pervasiveness of structures of understanding in steering policy, but also the varying traditions in different countries regarding how understandings of the environment can be formed. The study highlights how historical thought patterns, formed for very different reasons than exist today, continue to shape our assumptions - about nature, the relation between urban and rural areas, and our understanding of ourselves in relation to the environmental crisis. The book will be of wide interest to a range of academics and students in the fields of geography, anthropology, environmental studies, sociology, political science and development studies, amongst others"-- Provided by publisher.

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E. C. H. Keskitalo is Professor of Political Science at the Department of Geography, Ume� University. She has published widely on Arctic regional development and environmental and natural resource policy.

Cover -- Half Title -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Frontier Thinking -- Introduction: Understanding the Idea of Frontier Thinking -- Far From Just History -- Background and Limitations -- Relating Frontier Thinking to Other Conceptualisations -- Organisation of the Book -- 2 Understanding the Role of History in the Present -- Introduction: The Co-Construction of Categories -- The Metaphorical Nature of Concepts -- A Broad, Discursive Logic-Oriented Focus -- Societal Logics and Language Categories as Expressing the Outcome of Societal Strife -- Understanding Conceptualisations and Forms of Authority as Co-Constructed -- Conclusions: Organisation and Categorisation as Governing -- 3 Frontier Thinking: Why is a Distinction Drawn Between Close-to-Nature 'Communities' and 'Modern Civilised' Societies or States? -- Introduction -- Defining Frontier Thinking -- Nature as Empty of Recognised Human Impact: The Idea of 'Wilderness' -- Classifications of People who Already Lived in Areas Before Colonisation: Noble or Ignoble -- Frontier Thinking Assumptions of Community: Longing for an Imagined World -- Conclusions -- 4 The Role of Frontier Thinking in the Development of the American State and Society -- Introduction -- The Development of the US as the Archetypal Frontier State -- The Role of Locke for Frontier Thinking -- The Promised Land: Frontier Thinking as Destiny Fulfilment -- The Formation of the US Polity -- The Logic of Individualism in the US Market Framework -- Conclusions -- 5 The Following Through of Frontier Myth by Turner and the Wilderness Movement in the US -- Introduction -- Turner's Thesis and the Continuation and Formalisation of the Frontier Myth -- Keeping the Frontier: The Wilderness Conservation Movement -- Concepts Clashing with Practice -- Conclusions.

6 Differences in the Historical Construction of Development in Fennoscandian Contexts -- Introduction -- The Historical Basis of Organisation and Conceptualisation -- Multifaceted Understandings of Land and People -- Contrasting the Settler-Indigenous Dichotomy -- The Impact of Frontier Thinking Based on International Discourse -- Conclusions -- 7 Consequences of Frontier Thinking -- From State to Individual Levels -- Introduction -- Consequences in the US -- Consequences of Imagining People and Territory Together -- Consequences of Dividing People in General From Nature While Continuing to Imagine the Indigenous as Related to Nature -- Consequences of Assuming Disconnectedness to Follow Scale: The Distinction Between Society, Community and Individual -- Conclusions -- 8 Consequences of Frontier Thinking on Conceptions of the Rural -- Historically and in Present Day -- Introduction -- Constructing the Rural -- Defining Rurality -- 'Rural Planning', Its Linkage to Frontier and Rural Thinking -- and its Critics -- Conclusions -- 9 Alternative Conceptions of Rurality in Present-Day Fennoscandia -- Introduction -- Northern European, or Fennoscandian, Conceptions of the Rural -- The Role of Majority Culture in Relation to Nature -- Consequences in Rural-Urban Political Organisation -- Conclusions -- 10 Conclusion: What is the Social, and What do we Base Our Policies on? -- Introduction -- Nature and the Rural: Integrated or Separate? -- Conceptions of Community -- The Need to Denaturalise the Assumption on the 'Frontier' -- Society, the State and the Individual -- Understanding Models of Thought -- Final Words -- Notes -- References -- Index.

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Added to collection customer.56279.3