The Refiguration of Conservation: Introducing the Concept of 'Staging Nature' in the Case of Botanical Gardens

Abstract

Botanical garden museums are undergoing profound transformations. At the beginning of the 21st century refiguring processes, including climate change, the imperative of decolonisation, and advances in digital technology have led to a shift in the positioning of botanical gardens from Humboldtian collectors of nature to protectors of biodiversity. In this paper, through the sociospatial investigation of Berlin’s Botanical Garden and Museum, we analysed the ordering logics underpinning the staging of nature within the glasshouses - caught between permanence and change. Pursuing this investigation on a double analytical level, we analysed how the Berlin botanical garden is adapting to, or indeed struggling with a shifting conservation mission; and secondly, what are the consequences for the destabilisation of the conservation regime’s modernist underpinnings. We conclude the paper by speculating about the necessity of a nature-culture conservation regime.