Books by Nils Lindahl Elliot
Mediating Nature offers a history of the present nature of mass mediation. It examines the ways i... more Mediating Nature offers a history of the present nature of mass mediation. It examines the ways in which a number of discourses, technologies and institutions have historically shaped the current ways of imagining nature in the mass media. Where much of the existing research treats mass mediation as a matter of media technologies, texts, or institutions, this text adopts a somewhat different approach: it considers mass mediation as a historical process by means of which the members of audiences and indeed the public more generally came to be incorporated as observers in, and of mass culture. This approach allows the book to investigate the roles that a wide range of genres relating to nature played in constructing senses of nature but also of mass culture itself. The genres include landscape paintings and gardens, modern zoos, photography, early cinema, nature essays, disaster and ‘animal attack’ films, as well as wildlife documentaries on television. The investigation develops what Lindahl Elliot describes as a ‘social semeiotic’ approach that combines the semeiotic theory of Charles Peirce with a historical sociology of cultural formations.
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Observing Wildlife in Tropical Forests, Vol. 1: A Geosemeiotic Approach, 2019
The preface, prologue and introduction to the first volume of Observing Wildlife in Tropical Fore... more The preface, prologue and introduction to the first volume of Observing Wildlife in Tropical Forests – a transdisciplinary study about wildlife observation amongst tourists visiting tropical forests. Originally published via Delome/Amazon KDP, currently being revised for a second edition.
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Hybrid Geographies by Nils Lindahl Elliot
Routledge Handbook of Ecotourism, 2021
Over the last two decades, the policy of 'rewilding' has attracted a growing number of advocates ... more Over the last two decades, the policy of 'rewilding' has attracted a growing number of advocates across the world. As first theorised in the late 1990s by ecologists working in the US, the aim of rewilding is to restore wildernesses by preserving core areas, establishing corridors between them, and reintroducing apex carnivores. Unsurprisingly, initiatives of this kind have been opposed by various parties-not least, graziers concerned about the impact of large carnivores on livestock. However, in recent times rewilding has begun to be embraced by institutional actors keen to take advantage of the so-called 'ecological services' generated via rewilding projects. Amongst other activities, the services in question make possible ecotourism and wildlife tourism, which may replace older forms of rural industry. The following chapter problematises the ostensibly symbiotic relation between rewilding and ecotourism. It does so via a case study about Rewilding Europe, an initiative which started in the 2010s and which plans to reintroduce keystone species to several regions across the European Union.
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JLACS - Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, 2010
In this paper, I draw on a combination of ethnographic and historical research to consider some ... more In this paper, I draw on a combination of ethnographic and historical research to consider some of the paradoxes and contradictions associated with Barro Colorado Island. Barro Colorado is an internationally renowned biological reserve located in the Gatún Lake, a part of the Panama Canal. It has what many regard as Panama’s best-preserved tropical moist forest, with that country’s largest trees and an extraordinary biodiversity. These features, together with ease of access, have long drawn both scientists and tourists to the island. However, Barro Colorado is only an island thanks to the fact that between 1910 and 1913, US engineers dammed the Chagres River Valley to create the Gatún Lake. Both above and beneath the Gatún’s emerald green waters one finds a history of colonialism that may be erased by the current emphasis on Barro Colorado’s remarkable forest.
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Pedagogy, Polity & Climate Change by Nils Lindahl Elliot
Observing Wildlife in Tropical Forests, Vol. 1: A Geosemeiotic Approach, 2019
Unless one has a vested interest in doing so, it is no longer possible to deny anthropogenic clim... more Unless one has a vested interest in doing so, it is no longer possible to deny anthropogenic climate change. More importantly, it is no longer reasonable, and increasingly no longer practicable to continue living as if nothing had really changed in the world. 'Pedagogies of Affect in the Times of Catastrophic Climate Change' explores the pedagogic requirements for a meaningful, democratic transition to new forms of co-existence (perhaps one should speak of ‘co-survival’). But this on the premise that the kinds of teaching and learning that are now required – and with them, pedagogic philosophies – must themselves be scrutinised, and where necessary, changed. The following text, which first appeared in the Postscript of my recently published Observing Wildlife in Tropical Forests, Vol. 1, is in some sense an inaugural one in so far as it suggests some avenues for a different kind of academic praxis.
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Zoos, Museums and Wildlife Parks by Nils Lindahl Elliot
International Handbook of Museum Studies, Vol. 3: Museum Media (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell), edited by Michelle Henning, 2015
This essay offers a case study about the Wildwalk museum in Bristol, UK. Wildwalk, originally cal... more This essay offers a case study about the Wildwalk museum in Bristol, UK. Wildwalk, originally called Wildscreen, was the brainchild of the internationally renowned wildlife documentary producer Christopher Parsons. Parsons conceived of the attraction as a peripatetic version of wildlife TV; Wildwalk was, in effect, to bring together the best of wildlife films and natural history museums – but also zoos and even botanic gardens – in order to promote a better understanding of biodiversity. Despite some initial success, the museum, which opened in time for Britain's Millennium celebrations, was forced to close less than seven years after it opened. The chapter develops a genealogical inquiry, and employs social semiotic analyses to describe the museum's remarkable innovations, but also to explain its failure to bring to fruition a truly new genre of exhibition.
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The Senses and Society, 2006
Contemporary zoos publicize their role as centers for the conservation of endangered species and ... more Contemporary zoos publicize their role as centers for the conservation of endangered species and include so-called “naturalistic displays.” These and other aspects of the new zoos can be fruitfully analyzed from the perspective of what some analysts describe as the predominance of “visual culture” in modern societies. The following essay nonetheless makes the case for an interpretation of zoos that highlights their multisensual character. On the basis of the semeiotic theory of Charles Sanders Peirce and the results of visitor research at two British zoos, the essay develops an account that articulates four different modalities of observation and their corresponding economies of multisensuality.
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Wildlife Documentaries on TV by Nils Lindahl Elliot
Social Semiotics, 2001
This article employs Charles S. Peirce's triadic concept of the sign, and Deleuze's theory of the... more This article employs Charles S. Peirce's triadic concept of the sign, and Deleuze's theory of the image-movement to propose a social semiotic account of the ways in which visual signs in British and US natural history anthropomorphicise 'nature'. Peirce's semiotic is employed to critique both realist and relativist accounts of anthropomorphism. Although there may be a causally indexical relation between photographic signs and object, the fact that all signs are constituted by a three-way relationship between sign, object, and interpretant means that natural history documentaries, like the scientific texts that purportedly inform them, are ineluctably anthropomorphic. Deleuze's account of the image-movement is employed to explain why, far from being a dispassionate capturing of 'any-instants-whatsoevers', natural history image-movements organise movement in ways that are mediated by the semiotics of the natural history genre. As such, image-movements also constitute a form of anthropomorphism.
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Niin et Näin, the Journal of the European Society of Philosophy, Finland, 2008
This paper is a written version of a keynote presentation offered in 2008 at the ‘What’s Wrong wi... more This paper is a written version of a keynote presentation offered in 2008 at the ‘What’s Wrong with Nature’ symposium organised by the Estonian Naturalist Society and by the Jakob von Uexküll Centre at the University of Tartu, Estonia. The paper develops a social semeiotic critique of the naturalistic aesthetics of wildlife documentaries on TV. The extra 'e' in semeiotics is a reference to the theory and philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce. The paper, originally in English, was translated by Ville Lähde.
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Coenoscopics by Nils Lindahl Elliot
About Coenoscopics, 2019
This brief paper describes the rationale of the Coenoscopics series, published at nilslindahl.net... more This brief paper describes the rationale of the Coenoscopics series, published at nilslindahl.net/coenoscopics, and also on my academia.edu page.
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Observing Wildlife in Tropical Forests, Volume 1: A Geosemeiotic Approach (Bristol: Delome Publications), Chapter 1, 2019
The following paper offers a critical account of positivist research principles, based primarily ... more The following paper offers a critical account of positivist research principles, based primarily on the work of Leszek Kolakowski. The paper considers the limitations of the rules of phenomenalism, nominalism, objectivism, and consilience as a prelude to the development of a geosemeiotic approach to observational practices.
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Observing Wildlife in Tropical Forests, Volume 1: A Geosemeiotic Approach, Chapter 3, 2019
The following paper offers a critical account of the computational theory of visual perception de... more The following paper offers a critical account of the computational theory of visual perception developed by David Marr in Vision (1982). The account is a prelude to the development of an alternative theory based on what the author describes as a geosemeiotic approach to observation.
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Observing Wildlife in Tropical Forests, Volume 1: A Geosemeiotic Approach, Chapter 4, 2019
The following paper offers a critical account of the theory of perception developed by James J. G... more The following paper offers a critical account of the theory of perception developed by James J. Gibson. The account is a prelude to an alternative perspective based on what the author describes as a geosemeiotic approach to observation.
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Observing Wildlife in Tropical Forests, Vol 1: A Geosemeiotic Approach, Chapter 6, 2019
The following paper offers an introduction to the semeiotic logic, and phenomenology of Charles S... more The following paper offers an introduction to the semeiotic logic, and phenomenology of Charles S. Peirce. The introduction is part of a broader account of Peircian semeiotic phenomenology that appears in Observing Wildlife in Tropical Forests, a book about the geosemeiotics of wildlife observation amongst tourists.
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Observing Wildlife in Tropical Forests, Vol. 1: A Geosemeiotic Approach, Chapter 8, 2019
The following paper offers a cultural sociological account of wildlife observation amongst touris... more The following paper offers a cultural sociological account of wildlife observation amongst tourists visiting tropical forests. The account is part of a transdisciplinary, geosemeiotic approach which articulates sociological with semeiotic phenomenological (Peirce), and ecological-geographic perspectives.
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Observing Wildlife in Tropical Forests, Vol. 1: A Geosemeiotic Approach, Chapter 12, 2019
The following paper offers a cultural geographic account of wildlife observation amongst tourists... more The following paper offers a cultural geographic account of wildlife observation amongst tourists visiting tropical forests. The account is part of a transdisciplinary, geosemeiotic approach that articulates geographic with ecological, socio-anthropological and philosophical perspectives on wildlife observation.
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Blog Posts by Nils Lindahl Elliot
cmcee.org blog, 2008
Greenpeace was, from the start, something akin to a single-interest media organisation—one that s... more Greenpeace was, from the start, something akin to a single-interest media organisation—one that specialised in what was then a new mass-mediated risk politics.
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Books by Nils Lindahl Elliot
Hybrid Geographies by Nils Lindahl Elliot
Pedagogy, Polity & Climate Change by Nils Lindahl Elliot
Zoos, Museums and Wildlife Parks by Nils Lindahl Elliot
Wildlife Documentaries on TV by Nils Lindahl Elliot
Coenoscopics by Nils Lindahl Elliot
Blog Posts by Nils Lindahl Elliot