Page 19 [19]
INTRODUCTION TO THE ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES 17
is needed to be able to trigger off the change, the process of social adaptation”
(Emmett — Nye 2017: 8). This, in turn, needs an inter- and transdisciplinary
approach which cannot succeed without the help of the humanities. EH is in a
sense translation: it translates natural scientific and technological results into texts,
sociocultural discourses that can capture the attention of both the public and the
political and economic actors more intensely than scientific explanation
(Oppermann - Iovino 2017: 6).
EH is not a new academic discipline but rather an area of and attitude towards
research that aims to integrate the disciplines that study nature with environmental
issues. The general idea is that these themes belong to the field of the natural sciences,
and that the humanities cannot competently address them. EH challenges the
relevance of this statement, proving its untenability by adducing contemporary
environmental-social problems and demonstrating that these highly complex
problems also demand complex approaches. “The truth is we can’t afford to look at
problems in narrow ways anymore.” Hubbell and Ryan emphasize (Hubbell — Ryan
2022: 4) in their explanation that we have arrived at the contemporary environmental
crisis precisely because we looked at every aspect of a given problem separately and
studied it using different scholarly disciplines, with the consequence that the resultant
knowledge also remained isolated. “What happens to the climate of the Earth today
happens at all — material, social and cultural — levels, including the individuals
microlevel, his way of living. That is why EH declares that the environmental
problems do not solely belong to the Earth sciences” (Castree 2021: 2-3).
The humanities (along with the majority of social sciences) apply an interpretive
approach: they conceive of the world as one of diverse truths and possibilities
where different, often contradictory views arise concerning moral, existential, and
aesthetic questions, and where the plurality of views also applies to the environment.
EH integrates the natural sciences and their findings, while at the same time
attaching great importance to an interpretation of the actors’ living space. The
humanities’ critical thinking through questions such as “How should we live?”,
“What is justice?”, “How should we see and interpret the world?” etc., take us
closer to understanding not only the relationship between human beings and
nature, but also natural scientific information as well (Castree 2021: 1-3).
“While the sciences may be unmatched in describing environmental change and
crisis, the humanities enable us to think more critically about the moral, ethical,
social, and cultural dimensions of environmental change and crisis. They enable us
to respond to ecological degradation and the dangers of human development and
progress in ways that complicate, complement, and extend scientific inquiry”
(Hubbell — Ryan 2022: 10).
EH cannot do without self-reflection: it is aware, and it emphasizes, that it is a cultural
product, so it is also influenced by the cultural perspective and historical viewpoint
in which it is embedded. Consequently, it conceives of the notions of key importance
(nature, environment, the human being, etc.) not as something given but as something
interpreted (see Schmidt — Soentgen — Zapf 2020: 228). It is assisted by such
contemporary critical studies and theories as post-colonialism, ecofeminism, etc.'?
® Post-colonialism: a critical trend which emerged from literary and cultural studies, it addresses