Writing Geographies of Hope

摘要

Hybrid Geographies is a book that believes in the world. It marvels at its ongoing fabrication, at the way that "becomings take, hold and change shape" (Whatmore 2002:5). It revels in its potential, in worldly futures that are not already given by the past. It is, for these reasons, a joyful book: a book that finds in the open-ended nature of being the basis for hope. Precisely because it believes in the world some may underestimate Hybrid Geographies' significance. Whatmore's focus is, after all, insistently empirical. There are no grand theories to be found, no universalizing ambition hiding behind a modest facade. There is only the patient elaboration of practices and networks; only close attention to how individual bodies are fabricated, particular knowledges crafted and specific properties exchanged. From elephants and soybeans to law, property and the nation-state, Whatmore seeks to explain nothing more than what is immediately at hand, starting "in the middle of things" and working from there. It would be a great mistake, however, to assume that Hybrid Geographies has nothing to say to those not interested in the crocodiles, leopards, elephants and soybeans that populate its pages.