An Ethics of Place ― Radical Ecology, Postmodernity, and Social Theory

Taking the lead of Jim Cheney's article, "Postmodern Environmental Ethics: Ethics as Bioregional Narrative," which links a "(re)turn to nature," a "grounding in the geography of our lives" with the postmodern turn, Smith (sociology, U. of Abertay Dundee, Scotland) critiques and develops the postmodern-environmentalist linkage. Smith, an environmentalist seeking to counter modernity and postmodernity with a radical politics of nature, aims to " re-place contemporary ethical discourses in both senses, that is to put them into the context of their specifically `modernist' origins and to offer an example of an alternative ethical discourse which might supersede them." Most significant, his new sociology brings nonhumans into an otherwise exclusively human and cultural social calculation. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Mick Smith is Lecturer in the Division of Sociology at the University of Abertay Dundee, Scotland.