From bioregions to heterotopias: alternative pathways to territorialising the environment

This chapter focuses specifically on urban locales due to the multitude of ways that environmental territories are being realised in cities around the world. It defines the pathways approach and how it is useful for interpreting and making sense of the multiple ways that the environment is territorialised today. The chapter describes several alternative pathways of environmental territorialisation that serve as a counter to the dominant understanding of the environment as being defined and managed by either ecological flows or by the geographical extent of governmental jurisdiction. It argues that the various ways that the environment is being spatialised today have implicit normative assumptions about desirable futures and the governance of human/nature relations. A number of academics have adopted a pathways approach to address or manage the diversity of ideas about the environment, nature, sustainability and sustainable development. The identified pathways reveal the alternative territories that are defined by different actors and agendas.