LIVING IN HARMONY WITH NATURE

241 Pages·2014·9.4 MB·English

LIVING IN HARMONY WITH NATURE: A POST-HUMAN ANALYSIS OF
CONSUMERS’ RELATIONSHIPS WITH NATURE

By

Joachim Scholz

A thesis submitted to the Graduate Program in Management - School of Business
in conformity with the requirements for the
Doctor of Philosophy

Queen’s University
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
January, 2014

Copyright © Joachim Scholz, 2014
Abstract

Living in harmony with nature is a pervasive ideology, or cultural blueprint, of how a "sus-
tainable future,” a "good society,” and a "fulfilled life" would look like. However, this notion of
harmony with nature is highly paradoxical, as consumers often want and even must dominate
and control nature. The current thesis explores consumers’ desires of living in harmony with na-
ture through a post-human analysis of how backcountry hikers negotiate tensions between utili-
tarian and romantic discourses of nature vis-à-vis their experience of material forces of nature.
Through conceptualizing nature as an active actor in a symmetric assemblage of material and
cultural entities (i.e., nature agency), this thesis contributes to our understanding of the human/
nature relationship, materialism, and sustainable consumption.
Findings are presenting through three interrelated themes. The first theme highlights how
hikers appropriate romantic discourses by seeking harmony in a nature that is perceived as exter-
nal to civilization. Noting the contradiction that hikers’ quest for being in harmony with a “ro-
mantic nature” oftentimes exposes them to higher physical dangers in material nature, the subse-
quent themes explore how harmony can arise when hikers have to struggle with physical dangers
of nature. Focusing on physical dangers that are experienced in material nature, theme 2 finds
that hikers’ relationship with nature is highly ambivalent: They strive to experience “more nature
and less civilization”, but also “more civilization and less nature.” The third theme explores how
meanings of nature and technology emerge from fluidly shifting assemblages, finding that the
same technological resources can both distract from and enable feelings of harmony with nature.
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These findings contribute to consumer research by broadening our understanding of the
human/nature relationship and by challenging previous notions (Canniford and Shankar 2013)
that technology and civilization must always betray consumers’ experiences of “romantic
nature.” Furthermore, the notions of nature agency and that no single actor can unilaterally shape
the assemblage of heterogeneous entities contribute to the emerging material turn in consumer
research. Finally, this post-human analysis of consumers’ relationships with nature offers theoret-
ical and practical implications for sustainable consumption and sustainable marketing.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to extend my utmost gratitude to Dr. Jay Handelman, who has supported me
throughout my PhD as an advisor and friend. Thank you, Jay, for being a companion on this
journey, for encouraging me to find my own way, and for being my guide through the thick vege-
tation of theoretical constructs and the sometimes barren landscape of writing a thesis. Whatever
obstacles I have encountered on my way, no matter whether in research or in private life, I was
always certain that you would lend me your ear and offer a helping hand.
I would also like to acknowledge and thank the members of my committee, Dr. Peter
Dacin, Dr. Tandy Thomas, Dr. Michael Smith, and Dr. Jeff Murray. Your advice during the vari-
ous stages of my thesis has been invaluable, and I have cherished every debate and encouraging
word along the way. I also want to thank all members of Queen’s University Outdoors Club, es-
pecially the brave individuals who went on hiking trips with me and shared their deepest
thoughts and feelings during interviews. Keep it wild!
I am indebted to my mother Anke Scholz and father Dr. Uwe Scholz. Seeing your son leav-
ing his home to beat his own path in a country far away has not been easy, but you supported and
encouraged me on every step. Thank you for being curious about my work and for being patient
when I was lacking the words to explain it. Please never stop asking.
I wish to thank Jana Marečková for bringing me back to hiking and for being a companion
for many years. I am grateful for knowing you and for all the nice moments we had together, and
I do hope that there will be more to come on the horizon. Finlay, I love you. Without saying a
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single intelligible word, you put a smile on my face every time I see you. Finally, I can never re-
pay the kindness of my friends who held my hand while I was stumbling through the darkest of
caves: Ashley Vanstone, Hanjo Runde, Chris Bavle, Andrew Smith, Alex Mitchell, Carsten Voß,
Janina Nehls, and Bryn Savage: Thank you for your love.

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Table of Contents

Abstract ............................................................................................................................................ii
Acknowledgements .........................................................................................................................iv
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................vi
List of Tables ................................................................................................................................viii
List of Figures .................................................................................................................................ix
Chapter 1: Introduction – The Harmony Paradox ....................................................................1
1.1 Mapping Out this Thesis ..............................................................................................10
Chapter 2: Humanist Accounts of Consumers’ Relationships with Nature ..........................18
2.1 Cultural Discourses of Nature ......................................................................................18
2.1.1 Utilitarian Discourse of Nature ........................................................................19
2.1.2 Romantic Discourse of Nature .........................................................................25
2.2 Structuralist Accounts of Nature and Consumption ....................................................31
2.2.1 The Utilitarian Discourse of Nature in Corporate Environmentalism .............32
2.2.2 The Romantic Discourse of Nature in Paradigm-Shifting Ecologism .............35
2.2.3 Structuralist Oversimplifications .....................................................................38
2.3 Post-Structuralist Accounts of Nature and Consumption .............................................42
2.3.1 The Absence of Nature in Consumer Resistance Research .............................44
2.3.2 The Absence of Nature in Citizen-Consumer Research ...................................48
2.3.3 “Easy Straddling” Between Conflicting Discourses of Nature? ......................49
2.4 Nature/Culture Dualism in Humanist Accounts of Nature and Consumption .............55
Chapter 3: Constructing a Post-Human Lens ..........................................................................59
3.1 Material Forces of Nature .............................................................................................60
3.2 Theories of Assemblage ...............................................................................................62
3.2.1 Basic Tenets of Assemblage Theory ................................................................64
3.2.2 Applications of Assemblage Theory .................................................................68
3.2.3 A Turn Towards Nature? ..................................................................................72
3.3 Nature Agency ..............................................................................................................76
3.3.1 Nature as a Coding Trickster With Whom We Must Learn to Converse .........77
3.3.2 A Distributed Theory of Agency ......................................................................78
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3.3.3 Engaging with Nature in a Dance of Agency ...................................................80
3.3.4 Post-Humanizing the Human/Nature Relationship ..........................................84
Chapter 4: Methodology .............................................................................................................87
4.1 A Material-Semiotic Methodology ...............................................................................87
4.2 Back-Country Hiking as Context .................................................................................91
4.3 Methods and Data Sources ...........................................................................................97
Chapter 5: Findings ..................................................................................................................102
5.1 Theme 1: Escaping Civilization to Easily Find Harmony in Nature .........................104
5.1.1 ”Real” Nature is External to Civilization .......................................................106
5.1.2 Harmony is Easily Found in a Benevolent Nature .........................................113
5.2 Theme 2: Dealing with Material Dangers in the Pursuit of Harmony .......................120
5.2.1 Material Dangers Support Romantic Discourses of Nature ...........................126
5.2.2 Material Dangers Prompt Utilitarian Discourses of Nature ...........................133
5.2.2.1 Escaping Nature .................................................................................134
5.2.2.2 Longing for a "Civilized Wild Nature" ..............................................138
5.3 Theme 3: Engaging with an Active Nature ...............................................................144
5.3.1 Nature is an active agent ................................................................................146
5.3.2 Limits to the Unilateral Shaping of Assemblages ..........................................149
5.3.3 Meanings Emerge from Fluidly Shifting Assemblages .................................160
Chapter 6: Conclusion ..............................................................................................................174
6.1 Post-Humanizing the Human/Nature Relationship ....................................................176
6.1.1 Beyond Romantic Idealism ............................................................................179
6.1.2 Localizing Harmony with Nature ..................................................................182
6.2 Advancing Materialism in Consumer Research .........................................................185
6.3 Post-Humanizing Sustainable Consumption ..............................................................192
6.3.1 Un-muting Nature ..........................................................................................194
6.3.2 Un-censoring Humans ...................................................................................198
6.4 Future Directions ........................................................................................................201
References ....................................................................................................................................205
Appendix 1: Data Collection Protocol .........................................................................................227
Appendix 2: Research Ethics Board (REB) Approval .................................................................231

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List of Tables

Table 1: Overview of data collection trips .....................................................................................99
Table 2: Overview of depth interviews ........................................................................................101

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List of Figures

Figure 5.1: Caspar David Friedrich’s: Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog ......................................110
Figure 5.2: Jasser’s appropriation of romantic imagery ...............................................................111
Figure 5.3: Chris as a Solitary Wanderer on Mt. Marcy ..............................................................112
Figure 5.4: Romantic experiences of nature require planning, discomfort and sacrifices, for ex-
ample by camping in the snow in order to be the first on a people-empty summit ............113
Figure 5.5: Saturday morning, slowly leaving “The Garden” .....................................................122
Figure 5.6: Finding refuge in a "lean-to" shelter with an open wall ............................................123
Figure 5.7: Rain during Saturday night and Sunday morning turned Saturday’s "winter wonder-
land" into a wet and grey Sunday .......................................................................................124
Figure 5.8: Enacting hiking rituals through embellishing dangers of material nature .................127
Figure 5.9: Jasser crosses the second river over a log .................................................................132
Figure 5.10: Serious climbing on our way to Mt. Armstrong, which required us to walk behind
each other, limiting social contact .....................................................................................153
Figure 5.11: The material geographies on the top of Mt. Armstrong allowed for a different hu-
man/nature relationship to emerge .....................................................................................154
Figure 5.12: Walking in "Winter Wonderland" with only a base layer due to the warming sun of a
nurturing Mother Nature .....................................................................................................158
Figure 5.13: James' hiking poles became indispensable, not problematic items in our engagement
with nature ..........................................................................................................................166
Figure 5.14: Bonnie’s appropriation of romantic imagery ...........................................................171
Figure 5.15: Albert’s appropriation of romantic imagery ............................................................172

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“It’s harmony between man, nature, and machine.”

(Advertising claim for the third-generation Toyota Prius)

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