Nature in Translation is an ethnographic exploration in the cultural politics of the translation of knowledge about nature. Shiho Satsuka follows the Japanese tour guides who lead hikes, nature walks, and sightseeing bus tours for Japanese tourists in Canada's Banff National Park and illustrates how they aspired to become local "nature interpreters" by learning the ecological knowledge authorized by the National Park. The guides assumed the universal appeal of Canada's magnificent nature, but their struggle in translating nature reveals that our understanding of nature-including scientific knowledge-is always shaped by the specific socio-cultural concerns of the particular historical context. These include the changing meanings of work in a neoliberal economy, as well as culturally-specific dreams of finding freedom and self-actualization in Canada's vast nature. Drawing on nearly two years of fieldwork in Banff and a decade of conversations with the guides, Satsuka argues that knowing nature is an unending process of cultural translation, full of tensions, contradictions, and frictions. Ultimately, the translation of nature concerns what counts as human, what kind of society is envisioned, and who is included and excluded in the society as a legitimate subject.


About the Author
Shiho Satsuka is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto.

Reviews
"Nature in Translation is an excellent ethnographic monograph that is both theoretically innovative and eminently readable.... Her work is pioneering in bringing both the Japanese studies and STS into one volume.... Nature in Translation is an excellent read for scholars and students who are interested in contemporary Japan as well as science studies of nature. Satsuka's discussion of translation should provide fertile theoretical ground for upcoming studies on STS, and it has also opened up exciting new ways to study contemporary Japan." -- Satsuki Takahashi * Journal of Anthropological Research *
"I... recommend this book to serious scholars of the cross-cultural dimensions of tourism. It is not a light read but it is an insightful read for tourism scholars with an interest in nature, translation and cross-cultural interactions." -- Tom Hinch * Tourism Geographies *
"...an extraordinary achievement; a work at once ethnographically sensitive and theoretically innovative-not to mention operating as a marvelous travel guide to the travels of other guides. I hope this beautiful ethnography will be read widely by those who are interested in postcolonial science studies, in ecology, Japan studies, in the ontological turn(s) in STS and anthropology, and, of course, in multispecies anthropology." -- Moe Nakazora * Science as Culture *
"Nature in Translation will interest many who wish to know more about how perceptions of nature and environment, as well as the explanatory framework, vary in different cultures and intellectual traditions, between Japan and Canada in particular. It will also benefit those in tourism studies in that it directs our attention to more complicated touristic encounters than a simple and straightforward encounter between hosts and guests." -- Okpyo Moon * Journal of Japanese Studies *



Book Information
ISBN 9780822358800
Author Shiho Satsuka
Format Paperback
Page Count 280
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 363g