Emiliano TOLUSSO, Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy
During the generalised lockdown in 2020, several European countries witnessed a significant increase in the number of direct observations of wildlife in urban and peri-urban spaces. The roaming of wildlife in such spaces has been echoed by an increased focus on categories such as 'Wildlife' and ‘Nature’ in the general press and media. If the consequences of the lockdowns have made it possible to understand how large-scale shifts of human activities can impact wildlife (Manenti et al., 2020), they have also turned the spotlight on how we conceptualise our relationship with the wild, or nature at large. A distinctive spatial experience – such as the exploration of everyday places from wild animals – triggered the construction of a new environmental discourse. This contribution, starting from a cross-analysis of Italian classic media (newspapers, magazines) and new media (social networks), shows how the emergence and circulation of great narratives such as "the awakening of nature" can reveal epistemic dynamics common to different socio-economic contexts, but also substantially different responses to the various phenomenology of the wild and definitions of "nature" itself. The analysis then provides a critical re-reading of such representations of nature starting from the most recent contributions of hybrid geography (Whatmore S., 2002) and more-than-human geography (Lorimer H., 2006; Lorimer J., 2015). The final goal is to highlight how the plurality of epistemic postures specific to the geographical sciences can open new paths of exploration around a fundamental question: what idea of nature should guide our approaches to contemporary conservation?
Mots clés : Environmental discourse|Wildlife|Media|Epistemic communities|Nature
A104493ET