Nature Identification: The Power of Pointing and Naming

“Tour naturalists and visitor centers used identification to convey nature’s messages about orca scarcity, matriarchal cultures, and the ills of captures, often invoking consubstantiality (Burke, 1950, 1984).”

“Scholars studying culture and nature point to the force of discursive abstractions as distancing and objectifying nature, further reifying human nature binaries and exacerbating humanity’s devastating ecological destruction (Abram, 1997; Lease, 1995; Valladolid & Apffel-Marglin, 2001).”

“Scholars have long argued that human symbolic relations with nature cannot be disentangled from material relations (Cantrill & Oravec, 1996; Cox, 2007; Cronon, 1996; Haraway, 1989; Milstein, 2007, 2009a; Williams, 1980/1972).”

“’’ If one views culture as working like a repertoire from which people draw meanings and cultivate capacities they integrate into larger, more stable ‘‘strategies of action’’ (Swidler, 2001), study participants can be understood as using nature identification to mediate particular meanings and create larger strategies…”

“Nature-oriented tourism can range in form from zoo visits (Milstein, 2009b), to scenic drives (Wilson, 1992), to climbing Mount Everest (Frohlick, 2003), to ecojustice tours (Pezzullo, 2007).”

“…were suspected by scientists to be sterile or dying before reaching full reproductive maturity due to exposure to persistent human-created toxins (Ross, 2000, 2006).11 Likely, due to L57’s status as a hope for the reproductive future, insiders often remarked on him being a particularly handsome…”

“Identification usage disrupted a dominant Western ideological assumption that each non-human animal is a replaceable categorical unit with a contrasting notion of intrinsically valued individuals (Stibbe, 2001).”

“The act of identification also opens channels to listening to nature (Carbaugh, 1999), illustrating that abstract nature representations can have restorative potential despite important concerns expressed by Abram (1997) and others, and even in categorizing forms such as alphanumeric codes.”

“Davis (1997) and Desmond (1999) both examine communicative aspects of Sea World’s performances and the central role captive orcas play.”

“…were suspected by scientists to be sterile or dying before reaching full reproductive maturity due to exposure to persistent human-created toxins (Ross, 2000, 2006).11 Likely, due to L57’s status as a hope for the reproductive future, insiders often remarked on him being a particularly handsome…”

“Orcas have transformed from mysterious or villainous creatures North Americans used for military target practice, to marine park performers profiteers captured for entertainment, to cultural icons advocates argue must be heeded as the pulse of oceanic health (Milstein, 2008).”

“Scholars have long argued that human symbolic relations with nature cannot be disentangled from material relations (Cantrill & Oravec, 1996; Cox, 2007; Cronon, 1996; Haraway, 1989; Milstein, 2007, 2009a; Williams, 1980/1972).”

“Sowards (2006), who argues an emphasis on consubstantiality can help overcome human nature binaries, found similar forms in her endangered orangutan study.”

“Nature-oriented tourism can range in form from zoo visits (Milstein, 2009b), to scenic drives (Wilson, 1992), to climbing Mount Everest (Frohlick, 2003), to ecojustice tours (Pezzullo, 2007).”

“…(Kurz, Donaghue, & Rapley, 2005; Meisner, 2007), energy (Russell et al., 2011), animals (Glenn, 2004; Goatly, 2006; Stibbe, 2012a), ecotourism (Milstein, 2008, 2011), the concept of ‘nature’ (Hansen, 2006; Knight, 2010), climate change (Doulton & Brown, 2009; Ihlen, 2009) and…”

“Milstein (2011) points out that naming can also fulfill a restorative function.”

“…entities and elements in our lives, are often discussed as deliberate and emphasizing the role of language or linguistic reflection (Rautio, 2011; Russell, 2005): from reflective walks (Scollo Sawyer, 2004) to nature journaling (Buell, 1995) or to simply pointing and naming (Milstein, 2011).”

“What we have in mind is their use in a natural environment, perhaps accompanied by a pointing gesture (Milstein, 2011), as we can imagine Carol’s grandfather pointing in the scene she suggests: ‘‘That rock wasn’t there the last time we were here.’’”

“Sometimes conceptualizing your surroundings as if fellow humans, aids in opening up to imaginative encounters with them and befriending them (Milstein 2011, 5; Rautio 2011), yielding agency to them in constituting the relational field within which you all co-exist: I enjoyed precisely this moment.”

“In examinations of American and Canadian tourism discourses revolving around endangered whales, Milstein (2008, 2011) found whales are perceived as something to be identified, protected, sublimely experienced, and as a doorway or deadend to more sustainable humanature relations; however, tourist…”

“…but is present in some form or other, there is a concern that if the Image 6 Affordability for activities connections between nature and wellbeing remain only implicit, it may be less likely that they will get involved in conscious efforts to protect and sustain the environment (Milstein, 2011).”

“For example, Milstein (2011) writes that the simple practice of naming something in the context of a wildlife sightseeing tourist experience caries the function of marking out various aspects of nature from the general environment, ‘setting apart from the whole’, sorting them out, categorizing and…”

“…environment’’ from humanity and, instead, shifts toward lexical and reciprocal intertwining of nature and culture as interrelated historical and contemporary entities, in league with Haraway’s (2008) use of ‘‘naturecultures’’ (Milstein, 2011; Milstein, Anguiano, Sandoval, Chen, & Dickinson, 2011).”

“These anthropomorphic marine park representations are in stark contrast to insider identification statements about SRKW that “knowing who the animals are was everything” in that scientific identification of individuals not only revealed pods led by century-old matriarchs, but also dangerously low population numbers du…”

“…of global environmental discourses (such as wat mɨlna in Awapit) entails an epistemological and ontological challenge one of which is to exceed the human realm to include the more-than-human – katza su, territory – as an agentic subject mediating ‘humanature alignments’ (Milstein, 2011).”

“…nonhuman animals do play an increasingly significant role (see, for example, DeLuca and Slawter-Volkening 2009, Milstein 2008, Milstein 2009, Milstein 2011, Nash 1996, and Sowards 2006), but the act of bringing animals into the human-dominated sphere of rhetoric has gone relatively…”

“Whale tourists jostle for position, exclaim to humans and whales, and aim cameras (Milstein, 2008, 2011); pregnant women massage their bellies, jump up and down to change fetal position, and imitate fetus facial movements (Kroløkke, 2011).”

“For example, inher ethnographic study of the communicative practices shaping orca ecotourism, Milstein (2016) argues that “the edutainment model [of wildlife tourism], a product of Western consumer culture, falls short of the claims that tourists will become attuned to complex interconnected, and vulnerable ecosystems…”

“The displacement across 10Regarding the use of humanature, Milstein (2011) states: “I use the compound terms humanature and ecoculture throughout my writing as a way to reflexively engage human and nature, ecology and culture, in integral conversation in research as they are in life.”

“the Earth depicted as a person or identifying animals by names, for example, helps to build connections with the non-human world and motivate environmental protection (Milstein 2011; Tam, Lee, and Chao 2013).”

“As Milstein (2011) suggested, even the cultural practice of pointing and naming enables people to identify, to classify, and thus sometimes to objectify the natural world.”

“[18] In environmental communication, see the work of Tema Milstein (2008, 2011).”

“We use compound terms such as “humanature” and “ecoculture” and phrases such as “with/in/as ‘nature’” to reflexively entwine humans, culture, and the more-than-human world in scholarly writing as they are in life (Milstein 2011; Milstein et al. 2011).”

“Among the first things children do when they start to relate to nature is pointing and naming (Milstein 2011) and all human societies have a diverse range of names for the categories into which they place animals and plants (Brown 1984), as well as many systems of categorisation (Ritvo 1997).”

“To this end, Milstein (2011) discusses how wild “whale insiders” see the potential relationship between orcas in the wild and captive orcas, understanding “the first captive orcas as, in a sense, serving as ambassadors for wild orcas” (p. 8).”

“This descriptive pointing to objects to identify “nature” (Milstein, 2011), as well as participant use of redundant terms (e.g. nature is “natural”), revealed blockages in narrative and scarcity in lexicon for representing “nature” and ecological relationships and appeared symptomatic of a…”

“cultural and humanature to bring attention to the problematic binaries of ecology–culture and human–nature and instead bring them into integral relationship.(16) There are already foundations and inspirations for intercultural communication to make an ecological turn.”

“A wolf, like an orangutan (Sowards, 2006), a gorilla (Milstein, 2013), or a large dolphin such as an orca (Milstein, 2008, 2011), is a bridge species, one with which humans often identify as we “polish an animal mirror to look for ourselves” (Haraway, 1978, p. 37).”

“The naming of animals to reflect the novelty of their features, such as charismatic coloration, further allows them to be easily distinguished and remembered, building a collective sense of ownership or responsibility toward these individuals (Borkfelt, 2011; Milstein, 2011; Wilkinson, 2023).”

“Similarly, Milstein (2011) suggests the rhetorical ability to point and name is “a foundational act” that creates a “basic entry to socially discerning and categorizing parts of nature” (p. 4).”

“From May to September, an average of twenty boats hover within a half mile of the orcas during most of the day, with peak numbers in the fifties [Koski (2010); see also Milstein (2008; 2011); on the whale-watching industry more generally, see Neves (2010)].”

“In addition to drawing from recent scholarship on museums dealing in and with nature, this essay builds on the alreadyrich resources of environmental communication scholarship on the problematics of the mutually constitutive yet commonly binary categories of “nature” and “culture” (Milstein, 2011; Peterson, 1998; Roge…”

“Much of the canonical work on environmental naming has focused on the impact of names in dictating public responses to places, spaces, and more-than-human beings (see Endres, 2009; Milstein, 2011).”

“Memes are powerful tools for indexing, or “pointing and naming,” different topoi through the circulation and transformation of tropes (Milstein, 2011).”

“In addition to perhaps more accurately representing core organizational activism missions, we argue with representations, as well as an ecological–individual lens (Milstein, 2011; Milstein and Dickinson, 2012) – which emphasizes wildlife and other subjects and aspects of the biosphere as interdependent parts of ecosys…”

“Dichotomies such as the human/nature divide created by conceiving of nature-as-sublime beget unequal distributions of value (Derrida, 1978, 2008; Milstein, 2011) and open space for humanisms to multiply (Stormer, 2004) alongside capitalist practices.”

““The world” in von Humboldt’s terms, that is, nature, prompts recognition or awe, followed by a human urge to point out and name (Milstein, 2011), which tends to be learnt and taught in a social setting, that is, through “society” (Nyberg et al., 2021).”

“Womanature’s physical communication performs “a way of sensing” and “strategically speak[ing] for nature” that invites audiences to share in their substance and mutual care, fostering transcorporeal identification (Milstein, 2011, p. 18).”

“Nuestro propósito es, en cambio, motivar una comprensión dialéctica especie-ecológica (Milstein, 2011), que puede encontrarse en la interpretación de algunos nombres de musgos en lenguas amerindias, como el Mapudungun (de la cultura Mapuche; ver más adelante) y también en algunos nombres…”

“Naming practices are not necessarily problematic; naming can promote perceptions of animals and other aspects of the more-than-human world as “unique, complex, and intrinsically valued subjects” (Milstein, 2011, p. 4).”

“Milstein (2008, 2011) further investigates how ecotourism narratives can both support and undermine ecological conservation efforts, emphasizing the need for a critical discourse analysis in this field.”

“Geography of the self has traditionally been used to describe oppositional tensions brought forth by the co-existence ‘of different cities or countries who stand at the threshold of numerous mundos [worlds]’ (Anzaldúa, 2000, p. 255), and we extend this idea to humanature contexts (Milstein, 2011).”

“Language classification and naming is not solely a scientific procedure; it also impacts the individuals and groups who use these languages and influences linguistic diversity, language endangerment, and ultimately a sustainable ecosystem (Milstein, 2011; Skutnabb-Kangas, 2002).”

“This aligns with the view by environmental communication practitioners like Cox (2013) and Milstein (2011) about the construction of sustainability discourses in context-specific storytelling and local meaning-making.”

“within education and teacher education) began to theorise about and research naturedeficit disorder (e.g. see Dickinson, 2013; Malone, 2007; Milstein, 2011; Russell, Cameron, Socha, & McNinch, 2013; Sandry, 2013).”

“Signs, as Milstein (2011) states, act as a ‘‘pointing and naming’’ device for voiceless nature providing language via which humans can speak for it.”

“Central to this covenant-affirming work is an iteration of a powerful rhetorical performance known as pointing and naming (Milstein, 2011).”

“This raptor show utilizes the displacement of these birds for educational, performative purposes, reducing their existence to the forced role of “ambassador” (Milstein, 2011) embodying the zoological gaze.”

“Such research, for example, set the project within the context of earlier investigations of human/animal boundaries and relations (e.g., Milstein, 2008, 2011; Schutten, 2008), predators including wolves (e.g., Clarke, 1999; Corbett, 2006; Salvador & Clarke, 2011), and indigenous cultural…”

“…about exploitation of nat-ural resources (e.g., Chen et al. 2021), environmental matters (e.g., Alexander 2018; Poole 2016), ecotourism (e.g., Milstein 2011; Stamou and Paraskevopoulos 2008), climate change (e.g., Al-Shboul 2023; Carvalho 2005; Doulton and Brown 2009) and bicycle use (e.g.,…”

“This approach is consistent with the concept of ’nature identification’ discussed by Milstein [75], where the act of pointing and naming in environmental communication plays a powerful role in shaping human perceptions and relationships with nature.”

“In so doing, I illustrate how an aquarium’s use of ‘‘pointing and naming’’ can impact the ‘‘material-symbolic human relations with nature’’ (Milstein, 2011, p. 4), and I show how naming practices can complicate the aquarium’s stated purpose of environmental education.”