Under the Volcano: Media, Ecology and the Crisis of Nature

Abstract

The 2011 Japanese earthquake and subsequent malfunction at the Fukushima nuclear power plant occurred at the apex of a complex crisis of nature. While some commentators claim that the Fukushima malfunction was the result of a ‘natural disaster’, others situate the event within a broader context of human interventions in ecological and natural systems. Exercised through the global mediasphere, these environmental language wars are formed within crisis conditions and a crisis consciousness that have extensive genealogical roots. This article examines the crisis of nature in terms of contemporary and genealogical language wars that are embedded in a cultural politics of apocalysm. In particular, the article problematises the concept of ‘nature’ in terms of the disaggregation of human and non-human life systems. It argues that this disaggregation confounds the cultural politics of life (-death) systems, leading to excessive violence on the one hand, and Romantic idealisation on the other. The article recommends a reconceptualisation of nature that implicates all humans and human desires across the global mediasphere.