The North As/and the Other: Ecology, Domination, Solidarity

• Main Author: Haila, Yrjö
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford University PressOxford 1999
• Subjects: Yakutia; Siberia
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/019829509x.003.0003; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/44908949/book_12877_section_163206560.ag.pdf

Abstract Argues that the holistic notion of the ‘whole earth’ as a protectable entity is too insensitive to, and remote from, real human life‐worlds. It works as a poetic vision but not as a framework for sound environmental policy. The examples of Russian colonization of Yakutia in eastern Siberia and of Spanish colonization in Central and Latin America illustrate the conceptual dangers that attend such an ‘objectifying’ attitude. The chapter cites stages in Western philosophy depicting the ‘otherness’ of the natural world as a domain to be conquered, and suggests that a more sympathetic understanding of humanity's place in it is required. This in turn requires greater mutual respect between human beings.