Abiotic Ecosystems?: A Critical Examination of Arthur Tansley's Ecosystem Definition

Arthur Tansley first defined the term ecosystem in his seminal work "Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts," as an improved way of viewing the relationships between plants and their physical environments. However, his definition, while widely influential, privileges the living components...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Johnson, Benn (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Center for Environmental Philosophy, University of North Texas 2020
In: Environmental ethics
Year: 2020, Volume: 42, Issue: 1, Pages: 39-53
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Summary:Arthur Tansley first defined the term ecosystem in his seminal work "Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts," as an improved way of viewing the relationships between plants and their physical environments. However, his definition, while widely influential, privileges the living components over nonliving components of ecosystems, and has thus been unable to fully overcome the biocentrism of early plant ecologists. Moreover, the binary between life and nonlife is untenable, and serves only as a marker of the underlying biocentric values of a researcher. Drawing from Donna Haraway's argument for situated knowledges, one can critically examine the biocentrism implicit in much of ecology (and conservation), and reconsider our definition of ecosystem in order to highlight our devaluation of the nonliving, and expand our normative universe.
ISSN:2153-7895
Contains:Enthalten in: Environmental ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.5840/enviroethics20204215