The Fire Ant Wars
Nature and Science in the Pesticide Controversies of the Late Twentieth Century
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3387947 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Joshua Blu Buhs (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2002 |
| Volume | 93 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 377-400 |
| Publication date | 2002-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Isis (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-1753 • E-ISSN: 1545-6994 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/512523 |
| PMID | 12592885 |
| OpenAlex | W2253111171 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 29 |
This essay uses an approach borrowed from environmental history to investigate the interaction of science and nature in a late twentieth-century controversy. This debate, over the proper response to fire ants that had been imported into the American South accidentally and then spread across the region, pitted Rachel Carson and loosely federated groups of conservationists, scientists, and citizens against the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The analysis falls into three sections: an examination of the natural history of the ants; an examination of the views of the competing factions; and an examination of how those views, transformed into action, affected the natural world. Both sides saw the ants in terms of a constellation of beliefs about the relationship between nature, science, and democracy. As various ideas were put into play, they interacted with the natural history of the insects in unexpected ways--and with consequences for the cultural authority of the antagonists. Combining insights from the history of science and environmental history helps explain how scientists gain and lose cultural authority and, more fundamentally, allows for an examination of how nature can be integrated into the history of science
Action (physics) · Archaeology · Biology · Cultural history · Democracy · Economic history · Environmental ethics · Environmental history · Epistemology · History of science · Natural (archaeology) · Natural history · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Animal and Plant Science Education · Anthropology · Ecology · History · Insect and Arachnid Ecology and Behavior · Law · Philosophy · Plant and animal studies
The Burden of Southern History
American Environmental History
Environmental History, Ecology, and Meaning
Modes of Prophecy and Production
Transformations of the Earth
A Place for Stories
History as Natural History
History of Science and its Sociological Reconstructions
The Renaissance of the Southern Plantation
The Mangle of Practice
Dirty Birds, Filthy Immigrants, and the English Sparrow War
The Sociology of Knowledge
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,29 |
| Citation span | 2002 - 2014 (13) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |