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E-book Pathways : Exploring the Routes of a Movement Heritage

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Penilaian

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Humans are a walking species. We tread on the surface of the Earth. Without this primary mobility we would not be here and even when other means of getting around have become accessible, we don’t cease to walk. Our walking leaves traces. This is inevitable. No culture or civilisation or society can escape from this primordial mark-making. Some of these traces cluster and congregate into patterns that remain. They become paths and pathways. With the spread of humans, they have expanded and densified to cover literally the entire planet. From this primary mobility came a primary layer of human planetary signature. This network of paths and its meanings – at once discreet and monumental – is the topic of this book.Humans added a layer to the earth. Nowadays the patterns of the paths are only one of the multiple signatures humans have left behind. The human footprint on the planet is immense and it has been argued that it is now big and lasting enough to be acknowledged on the geological time scale. It may be helpful, for a sense of continuity, to keep in mind that this imprint of humanity on the Earth and its complex systems in a way started with traces of upright walking people. In more recent millennia, the human footprint expanded, multiplied, overlapped into ever more layers of material blur. This footprint has now reached Anthropocene proportions – a civilisation weighing (in historical sum total) thirty trillion tons,1 capable of covering the entire world in plastic,2and with stratigraphic signatures from nuclear blasts3 to leaking ammunition alloys4 to exploding carbon dioxide records.5The subtle scribblings of human feet, although still significant, have become dwarfed and marginalised, at least relatively speaking and especially as far as the impact on sustainability is concerned. Paths are mostly quite earth-friendly. They sit leisurely and inviting in the landscape and were, in fact, often begun by animals whose treading on the land opened ways for humans to follow. These have been called ‘desire paths’, referring to human needs to get from a place to the next, but also cow paths, pirate paths, kemonomichi (beat trails), donkey paths, Olifantenpad (elephant trails), depending on geographical context, but essentially referring to the same phenomenon.6 But, albeit separate, special, primordial or even clandestine, they belong, when humans make them, essen-tially within the same overall formation of a tight, mutual and ever-growing material and spiritual human-earth relationship. They are a fundamental feature of it, one that has received too little interest.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

304.2 SVE p

Penerbit

London : The White Horse Press., 2022

Deskripsi Fisik

359 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9781912186600

Klasifikasi

304.2

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Human Ecology

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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