Tasmanian natures: an ethnographic story of contemporary nature politics

© 2014 Dr. Michaela Louise SpencerBy narrating episodes and events which arose in the course of eighteen months fieldwork in Tasmania, I offer an account of Tasmanian nature politics as enacting places and natures in two differing and interrelating modes. While it was the enactment of an ‘originary’ nature oriented around the protection and sustainable use of native bushland and habitats which I initially became accustomed to, appearing alongside the entities and arrangements of this familiar nature there also appeared to be another, rather different, ‘value-able’ nature which was able to support native bushland habitats while also translating them into forms amenable to new emerging orders of governance and economy. I have variously inhabited these natures as an embodied ethnographer-in-the-field. As an author-in-the-text I work towards generating a form of storytelling and material semiotic analysis which enables me to hold in view both of these natures and the means of their enactment. In this way, I offer an account of the new Tasmanian Forests Agreement (2013) and of a contemporary nature politics which appears to be emerging alongside its enactment