Reordering the natural world : humans and animals in the city / Annabelle Sabloff.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Sabloff argues that the everyday practices of contemporary capitalist society reinforce our alienation from the rest of nature and reflects on how anthropology has contributed to the prevailing Western perception of a divide between nature and culture.

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CHOICE Review

Conventional wisdom holds that the relationship between people in cities and the natural world is a distant and disconnected one. In reality, very little work explores how contemporary urban people imagine, encounter, and experience the natural world. How do urban human beings interact with other living beings in the city? How does the urban context influence these transactions? These are the central questions of Sabloff's Reordering the Natural World. Sabloff concludes that the conventional wisdom of distance and disconnection is inaccurate; that the city is replete with nonhuman life, both animal and vegetable, and that connection with this life is actively sought, established, and defended by human urban dwellers. She takes this exploration a step further by discussing what these relationships tell us about our current perceptions of ourselves and other nonhuman beings. The work is based on anthropological research Sabloff conducted in Toronto, including participant observation, interviews, and analysis of local media. Recommended for undergraduates through practitioners in environmental, anthropology, and animal rights areas. S. Hollenhorst University of Idaho