Animate Planet
Section One: Interpretive Questions
1. In Chapter One, Weston discusses techno-intimacy. It is used to describe a familiarity we experience through remoteness. She uses this term in this chapter while in reference to our food supply, and how public relations have used tactics to make us feel as if we understand where our food comes from. There have been many campaigns aimed at restoring the “farm-to-table” mentality that reassures Americans that our food is living a happy life before is it sold in our local supermarkets. She briefly touches on the issue that none of these campaigns deal with the actual conditions under which these animals are living before they are being turned into our food. This leads me to my question, is this at the fault of the state for becoming so powerful that it gets to rule the discourse, or is this at the fault of the consumers for not inquiring and pushing the state enough to provide this information?
2. In Chapter Two, Weston addresses the radiation that is abundant in Japan’s air. She addresses the topic of bio-intimacy, claiming that this idea came about in the early twentieth century. The idea of bio-intimacy is that humans and ecologies are not so different, or separate. I am very curious as to how she came to this, even though she does reference Gimi in Papua New Guinea (yay). My question is if bio-intimacy came about over a century ago, why do we still see such a strong dualism between humans and the environment? Also, does it matter that this idea came about in popular literature? Is there anyway to reverse the effects of viewing the two as separate for so long, which has led to things like nuclear power plants in the first place?
3. In Chapter Three, Weston discusses the discourse surrounding climate change in North America. She discusses how our bodies can be used for empirical evidence gathering. As the citizen scientists did in Japan, we are supposed to be able to use this empirical evidence for talking to those in power about changes we would like to see. She touches on how there is still a debate in North America about the legitimacy of climate change, but I wish she would have drawn out more on the differences between the citizen scientists in Japan dealing with something as grave as radiation poisoning, whereas in North America the effects of climate change are not seen as life-threatening. My questions is will it take situations like radiation poisoning to make people in North America push for political change for themselves? If not, will we ever be able to change the discourse of Big Science and the State?
Section Two: Reaction
I am really enjoying this book so far. Although it is dense, I am not finding it difficult to read. The thing I am finding difficult is coming up with questions, because I feel like she is already posing interpretive questions, and then answering them. This book is incredibly well written and includes well-thought out arguments. I guess in a sense it makes me want to learn more and read more, and for some reason that is making it difficult to come up with questions I am usually inclined to ask. I particularly enjoyed her chapter on food, however, and the relationship between tagging children as well as the connection to warranting that she made. The points brought up in that chapter were especially eye-opening.
Section Three: Current Events
An article published recently by the New York Times talked about a robot that was finally able to find the melted uranium fuel that was left over from the accident at Fukushima Daiichi. The article does address that the government acknowledges that they have lost the public’s trust and are determined to work hard to restore it, but the article never mentions why the government lost the public’s trust in the first place. This just further highlights Weston’s arguments about the public relations campaigns that are used by the state to control the discourse of events/what happens to the people living in the state and I think that this article shows the success of these campaigns. If someone knew nothing of the subject, and since the world news does not seem to tune in unless there is chaos and destruction (in visible ways – not in public unrest manifested properly), they would have no idea of the flip-flop that the government has done and the consequent effect it has had on its people.
Section One: Interpretive Questions
1. In Chapter 4, Kath Weston discusses the Grand Venice project in Greater Noida. This chapter was especially interesting in discussing the potential success for a project that is deemed so harmful for the ecological landscape it sits on. However, Weston’s argument concerning what this mall represents was more important. She notes, “by no stretch of the imagination, however, could the Grand Venice be considered as a conservation-as-development project. Throughout Greater Noida, sponsors of the building spree invoked economic development as ‘pure play’ without regard to ecological consequences, but with a sweetener: glory for the nation” (Weston, 2017:159). We have learned that despite the ecological destruction that economic development brings, those living in developing economies still seem to pursue economic developments. To commit to them is to have national glory, to celebrate the state.
a. Do you agree with her argument? Are there other ways to have glory for the nation besides economic development? Is there any other way in post-colonial states?
2. In Chapter 5, Kath Weston discusses how the role of the automobile has been portrayed as the protagonist in the story of climate change. It is seen as the part of the story that can be altered just enough in order to save the day (at the last minute) and somehow keep production booming as well. She discusses how industry was linked to job security and how that is most likely responsible for the industrial boom, but with ecological discourse piercing its way in, how is the automobile remaining front and center?
b. To reiterate her question in the book, can we imagine a future without cars? Will we ever be able to break free of the nostalgia tied to industry and job security and be able to handle the new realities that industry has caused?
3. On the last page, Weston discusses one of the features used in Venice to counteract the acqua alta, the MOSE. She mentions, “it would seem at a glance that people are facing the problems head-on. But here, too, hopes rest on supplements and substitutions, rather than a concerted attempt to reorganize a mode of production” (Weston, 2017:198). This is the same thing that is happening with Mad Cow disease breaking out due to mass industrialization, and the government responding by tagging cows, for example. It would appear that these at-the-last-minute solutions are the norm, because we are only living with the short-term reality.
c. Can we reorganize our affective attachments? Can we realistically break away with the capitalistic regime? Can the capitalistic regime be stopped? If so, how? If not, why not?
Section Two: Reaction
This book is phenomenal. Kath Weston does a great job of digging in deeper at why the current responses posed to climate change are ineffective. They are based around keeping industry’s discourse, and with that discourse surviving, then we will not be able to actually respond to climate change. Of course, her book is also incredibly depressing, and ends the same way most of these books end; thoroughly explaining the critique of neoliberal/late capitalism, while trying to maintain hope that things can change. Although, despite other ethnographies we have read, her arguments are backed up by thought-out, reasonable lines of thinking.
Section Three: Current Events
A news article released a few weeks ago talks about how Delhi will have difficultly meeting new emissions standards that have been set. The article discusses some of the issues and cites pollution as major concern that pushed for reform. Some of the problems with meeting the new emissions standards is that automobile makers would not be able to do it as quickly as they are being asked to, fuel issues with the new policy, and older cars not being able to accept new fuel. But, just as Weston mentions in her book, the new policy proposed and the responses to it seem to be substitutions rather than real solutions. Whatever responses that may come will be at-the-last-minute, and they do not address the issues of the automobile industry. Not once does the article mention an alternative to automobiles altogether, which is inherently the problem in itself.
