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Increasingly, non‐human geographies have unfastened nature from its foundational moorings. In a parallel development, the benefits of adhering to precautionary and participatory forms of decision‐making have become common place in environmental geography and in government policy. And yet, on closer inspection, there is a danger in these latter approaches that old certainties regarding non‐human natures remain unquestioned. The result can be a tendency to gravitate towards bureaucratic and technical solutions to, or closures on, what are, first and foremost, political and open‐ended problems. This paper uses an empirical engagement with BSE‐related scientific and policy practices, along with insights from non‐human geographies, science studies and poststructuralism to suggest that such certainties and resolutions are misplaced.
Steve Hinchliffe (Fri,) studied this question.