Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Progress in Human Geography
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Bakker, K.
Right arrow Articles by Bridge, G.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?

Material worlds? Resource geographies and the `matter of nature'

Karen Bakker

Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Room 217, 1984 West Mall, Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z2, Canada, bakker{at}geog.ubc.ca

Gavin Bridge

Geography, School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK

Concepts of `materiality' are increasingly invoked in human geography. This paper discusses several recent and influential workings of materiality, and examines their implications for resource geographies. First, we identify a set of analytical questions at the heart of resource geography and characterize the dominant approaches to these questions - the `production of nature' and the `social construction of nature' - as yielding diminishing returns. Second, we survey recent work on materiality relating to commodities, corporeality and hybridity and advance the claim that this work provides a number of fresh perspectives with which to revive resource geography. Third, we highlight three specific themes within this research: a radical redistribution and decentering of agency; a revitalization of the concept of `construction'; and an acknowledgement of the political-economic implications that flow from a world that is biophysically heterogeneous. Finally, we draw on this analysis to explore how progress might be made in the conceptualization and empirical study of resources.

Key Words: agency • embodiment • environment • hybrid • materiality • nature • resource geography • resources • textuality

Progress in Human Geography, Vol. 30, No. 1, 5-27 (2006)
DOI: 10.1191/0309132506ph588oa
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Prog Hum GeogrHome page
T. J. Barnes
History and philosophy of geography: life and death 2005--2007
Progress in Human Geography, October 1, 2008; 32(5): 650 - 658.
[PDF]

Home page
 Prog Hum GeogrHome page
A. Kent
Book review: Williams, C.C. 2005: A commodified world? Mapping the limits of capitalism. London: Zed Books. 308 pp. {pound}55 cloth, {pound}19.99 paper. ISBN: 978 1 84277 354 3 cloth, 978 1 84277 355 0 paper
Progress in Human Geography, August 1, 2008; 32(4): 594 - 596.
[PDF]

Home page
 Prog Hum GeogrHome page
K. S. Zimmerer
Cultural ecology (and political ecology) in the 'environmental borderlands': exploring the expanded connectivities within geography
Progress in Human Geography, April 1, 2007; 31(2): 227 - 244.
[PDF]

Home page
 Prog Hum GeogrHome page
I. Cook et al.
Geographies of food: following
Progress in Human Geography, October 1, 2006; 30(5): 655 - 666.
[PDF]