Reply To: Mon 14 Apr: The Perception of the Environment

Reply to Erika’s post
By Yongliang Gao

I agree with you that Ingold’s book is deep and complex to understand. What surprises me is that you think Ingold’s idea “to perceive the landscape as the qualitative and heterogeneous, as well as discussing the entity of it, let us resurrect it and make it complex and dynamic. Even though this kind of approach may pose some new issues in understanding the environment, at the same time it fulfills the gaps in the network of interdependent between nature and human”. Just like you said, Ingold is an ideological mentor to you and I can see that from this quotation. But I don’t understand what do you mean by “it fulfills the gaps in the network of interdependent between nature and human”. Besides, I don’t see any benefits to “resurrect it and make it complex and dynamic”. For me, If tedious text doesn’t help simplify or clarify anything, then it’s unnecessarily wordless. Apart from that, I also have a question mark where you claim that “as the environmental historians, this approach offers us different paradigm to interpret the boundaries that create the relationship between human and the nature.” I’m curious of the different paradigms Ingold offers to you. As for the chapter “Building, dwelling, living: How animals and people make themselves at home in the world”, I have no comments on it as I haven’t read it.