Name: Recitation Number: Date: Discussion Prep #5: Social Construction Read William Cronon, ‘The problem with wilderness” and answer the following questions. 1. What does Cronon mean when he says that wilderness is a social construction? 2. How have ideas about wilderness changed over time? 3. Cronon suggests that there are two main reasons for the transformation of wilderness into the contemporary cultural construction: the sublime and the frontier. Please explain what he means by these two concepts (provide examples). 4. Cronon suggests that the way we currently think about wilderness is troubling. Why? 5. How does some of what Cronon is saying relate to what we learned regarding environmental justice in terms of the sorts of natures we want to protect? 6. Cronon discusses the power of memory in terms of maintaining our own associations with wilderness. Describe one such memory you have a particular Name: Recitation Number: Date: place, or a particular experience with ‘nature’. Reflect on how your memory of or knowledge of this place is “socially constructed” as a specific kind of nature. 7. Is a national park a more “natural” place than a region dominated by farms? Draw from both Cronon and your text book to answer this question from a constructionist perspective. 8. After reading Cronon, and learning about the social construction of nature, what can you say is potentially problematic about the way that “nature” is marketed for ecotourism or other ecosystem services? 9. What does social construction perspective provide and what are some of the limitations? (compare and contrast to other perspectives, for example does it address ethical issues? Does it acknowledge political economy issues?). 10. Boulder has set aside a lot of its land as protected. Does this reflect Cronon’s concern about our focus on wilderness, if not how? If yes, in what ways?
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