Global monocultures and local diversity: Gilbert White, and natural observation as a form of community-building

我的研究探讨了吉尔伯特白色的自然史写作，社区，使他的意见制定，其潜在的共鸣，为现代生态学。本研究以白色的《塞尔伯恩的自然历史与古物》、他的日记和信件为基础进行文学分析。它还探讨了更广泛的十八世纪自然史，语境白色在这个新兴学科的位置。在写自然史，白色使用各种观察来源-从著名的自然学家和学术文本，以当地人民和个人经验-形成一个不同的社区围绕观察自然。我的作品探讨了白色如何建立和互动与这个地方，文本社区，以及它如何影响他的思想和写作。从这里开始，我将质疑自然主义者的观察和自然写作本身如何作为一个社区的形成过程，以及现代生态学家是否可以利用白色的例子来重新参与当地社区与自然。通过将白色与现代生态问题联系起来，这项研究将进一步细微地改变我们对白色开创性文本的理解，并揭示白色的实践与当代生态学之间的新共鸣，重新评估他在他的时代和我们自己的时代中的位置。吉尔伯特白色通常被认为是一个先驱-里克鲍尔斯声称“他是第一个全球化思考和本地化行动”-打破了主流的十八世纪自然主义，关注收集和分类标本。相反，通过观察栖息地中的生物体，白色，特德·达德斯韦尔认为，“有效地避开了这类[分类学]问题”。然而，自然史并没有表现出一种新的自然主义取代旧的，而是一种来自各种来源的知识的复杂交织。白色从生活中观察，并将它们与林奈分类的考虑结合起来，陷入“分类学拉丁语的丛林”。我的研究探讨了白色在这个“知识社区”中的地位，考察了他如何形成这个自然主义者网络，他如何对他的资料进行资格鉴定和比较，以及这些不同的资料如何在他完成的文本中呈现。通过生态批评的透镜研究白色可以揭示他的工作的新深度，同时也扩大了它的相关性-Rhian威廉姆斯对白色的日记的生态批评方法，暴露了白色日常自然观察中潜在的生态激进主义。汤姆·林奇（Tom Lynch）等人在《生物区域想象》（The Bioregional Imagination）一书中警告说：“我们越来越多地生活在全球单一文化中，吃同样的食物，看同样的电影。思考着同样的想法。当地社区正在消失，人们与当地景观的联系正在更快地消失。像阿米塔夫·戈什（Amitav Ghosh）、唐纳德·沃斯特（Donald Worster）和伊丽莎白·德洛弗雷（Elizabeth DeLoughrey）这样的生态批评家将此归因于18和19世纪思想的持续主导地位。因此，分析白色的协商，这些想法在他的社区建设是中肯的现代生态学生态学家显示偏好的学术来源以上的地方知识，现代生态学家如何可能培养一个社区周围的自然像白色没有？我的研究考察了自然历史的遗产，它激发了社区，并质疑自然观察是否可以在重新参与生态学的现代社区中发挥有意义的作用。这项研究还将导致与吉尔伯特白色的房子和花园的公众参与项目。我对社区建设的关注为一个多学科项目提供了空间，邀请白色和现代创意之间的新对话，以应对气候变化的紧迫问题，同时培养白色和现在之间的跨时间社区。结合密切的手稿研究和量身定制的公众参与项目，我的研究将阐明白色的关系和网络，同时也揭示了他的文本的生态共鸣延伸到十八世纪到现在。

My research explores Gilbert White's natural history writing, the community-making his observations enacted, and its potential resonances for modern ecology. This research is based in literary analysis of White's The Natural History and Antiquities of Selbourne, his journals and letters. It also explores wider eighteenth-century natural history, contextualising White's place within this emerging discipline.In writing Natural History, White used various sources of observation-from renowned naturalists and academic texts to local people and personal experience- fashioning a disparate community centred around observing nature. My work examines how White built and interacted with this local, textual community, and how it influenced his thinking and writing. From here, I will question how naturalist observation and nature writing itself might function as a community-making process, and whether modern ecologists can utilise White's example to re-engage local communities with nature. By looking at White in relation to modern ecological concerns, this research will further nuance our understanding of White's seminal text and uncover new resonances between White's practice and contemporary ecology, reassessing his place within his time and our own. Gilbert White is commonly viewed as a pioneer-Rick Bowers claims 'he was the first to think globally and act locally'-breaking away from mainstream eighteenth-century naturalism that was concerned with collecting and categorising specimens. Rather, by observing organisms in their habitats, White was, Ted Dadswell argues, 'effectively turning away from [taxonomic] concerns of this kind'. However, Natural History displays not so much a new naturalism supplanting the old, but a complex intertwining of knowledge from various sources. White takes observations from life and couples them with considerations of Linnaean categories, plunging into 'thickets of taxonomic Latin'. My research explores White's position in this 'community of knowledge', examining how he formed this network of naturalists, how he qualified and compared his sources against each other, and how these disparate sources were rendered in his finished text.Researching White through an ecocritical lens can reveal new depths to his work, while also expanding its relevance outwards-Rhian Williams' ecocritical approach to White's journal-keeping, exposed a latent ecological radicalism in White's daily routine of natural observation. In The Bioregional Imagination, Tom Lynch et al. warn that 'we increasingly inhabit a global monoculture, consuming the same food, watching the same movies [...] thinking the same thoughts'. Local communities are fading, and people's connection to local landscapes are fading faster. Ecocritics like Amitav Ghosh, Donald Worster and Elizabeth DeLoughrey, attribute this to the continued dominance of eighteenth and nineteenth century ideas. Therefore, analysing White's negotiation of such ideas in his community-making is pertinent for modern ecology-do ecologists show preference for academic sources above local knowledge; how might modern ecologists cultivate a community around nature like White did? My research examines the Natural History's legacy, the community it galvanised, and question whether natural observation can play a meaningful role in re-engaging modern communities in ecology. This research will also lead to a public engagement project with Gilbert White's House and Gardens. My focus on community-building offers scope for a multidisciplinary project, inviting new conversations between White and modern creatives to confront pressing questions of climate change, while cultivating cross-temporal communities between White and the present. Combining close manuscript study and a well-tailored public engagement project, my research will elucidate White's relationships and networks, while also uncovering his text's ecological resonances stretching beyond the eighteenth century to the present.