Common Sense in Environmental Management [electronic resource] : Thinking Through English Land and Water.

Description based upon print version of record.

Cover; Half Title; Series Page; Title Page; Copyright Page; Dedication; Table of Contents; List of Illustrations; Figures; Tables; Preface: common sense -- a briefing for policymakers; The problem -- siloing obstructs effective environmental land management; What is common sense?; How does common sense shape English society and land management?; Acknowledgements; Introduction: common-sense questions; Why: why common sense?; Where: the Broads as a fieldsite; What: a common-sense argument; Notes; References; 1 Do academics have common sense?

Koinē aísthēsis and other opinions: key philosophical debates on common sense"Sons of the Soil": etymologies of common sense; Common sense as a social scientific object; Common sense as a political object; Conclusion: the need for ethnographies of common sense; Notes; References; 2 What is common sense?; Common sense as a vernacular object; Common sense in vernacular use; Notes; References; 3 Where is common sense to be found?; Learned voices: common land in environmental histories of Broadland; Working voices: "bad farming", tidiness, and the balance of contemporary rural life in Norfolk

Concerned voices: current trends in Britain's rural economyAnalysis: work, common land, and the process of enclosure in Broadland; Conclusion: the institution of common ground; Notes; References; 4 Can you learn common sense?; Overview: Strumpshaw Fen as a place of desire; Underview: thicket description of working your way through the landscape; Counterview: quiet enjoyment and visitor experience; Interview: farmers, children, and the acquisition of common sense; Teleview: "Broadland Consciousness" versus "Barrier Consciousness; Conclusion: common sense and English sensoria; Notes; References

5 Why is common sense so scarce?Hickling Broad: a lack of common ground; Bird farmers: Catfield Fen and landscape-scale conservation; Fragmenting corporeal attitudes: habitus and "the silo effect"; Trials and errors: the trouble with common sense; Conclusion: Chedgrave Common and the apogee of commoning; Notes; References; Conclusions: what do we need to know about common sense?; Gillian Tett, Robert Kett, and the division of labour; Note; References; Index

Common Sense in Environmental Management examines common sense not in theory, but in practice. Jonathan Woolley argues that common sense as a concept is rooted in English experiences of landscape and land management and examines it ethnographically - unveiling common sense as key to understanding how British nature and public life are transforming in the present day. Common sense encourages English people to tacitly assume that the management of land and other resources should organically converge on a consensus that yields self-evident, practical results. Furthermore, the English then tend to assume that their own position reflects that consensus. Other stakeholders are not seen as having legitimate but distinct expertise and interests - but are rather viewed as being stupid and/or immoral, for ignoring self-evident, pragmatic truths. Compromise is therefore less likely, and land management practices become entrenched and resistant to innovation and improvement. Through a detailed ethnographic study of the Norfolk Broads, this book explores how environmental policy and land management in rural areas could be more effective if a truly common sense was restored in the way we manage our shared environment. Using academic and lay deployments of common sense as a route into the political economy of rural environments, this book will be of great interest to scholars and students of socio-cultural anthropology, sociology, human geography, cultural studies, social history, and the environmental humanities.

OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.