Thesis
Nature-As-Wilderness: Expressions of an American Cultural Model for Nature and Society Among Park Workers in the Inland Northwest
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
2023
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000005365
Abstract
In many cultural contexts, understandings of the domain of nature and the domain of society seem to be interrelated. This is to say that the underlying logics that are contained in culturally shared mental constructs, or cultural models, for these areas seem to inform one another. However, little recent scholarship addresses the dichotomy in the American context. By studying the cultural models for nature and society held by park workers at a state park in north central Idaho, I provide a case study that begins to remedy this oversight. Using both unstructured and semi-structured interviews as well as participant observation, I collected data at this park in the summer of 2022. With this data, I used cognitive anthropological analytical methods to deduce the models that these state park-working participants held. The central model that I deduced – nature-as-wilderness – is predicated on and perpetuates a strong nature-culture dichotomy and, thus, informs models of nature and society, not in parallel logics, but in their polarity, their presumed oppositeness. Although this type of nature-culture dichotomy is not new to Western thought, the models that I found reversed the classic valuation of culture over nature. I believe that this model of nature-as-wilderness provides an important glimpse into a foundational model in the American consciousness.
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Details
- Title
- Nature-As-Wilderness
- Creators
- Daniel Timothy McCloskey
- Contributors
- Jeannette Mageo (Advisor)Marsha Quinlan (Advisor)Bonnie Hewlett (Committee Member)Andrew Duff (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Anthropology, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 61
- Identifiers
- 99901031140201842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis