Deleuze and Environmental Damage

Violence of the Text

Mark Halsey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351945523
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Kriminologie

This book offers a post-structuralist critique of the problems associated with modernist accounts of environmental harm and regulation. Through a notably detailed micro-political analysis of forest conflict, the author explores the limits of academic commentary on environmental issues and suggests that the traditional variables of political economy, race and gender need to be recast in light of four key modalities through which 'the environment' and 'environmental damage' are (re)produced. Focusing on vision, speed, lexicon and affect, the book engages a new ethic for categorizing and regulating 'nature' and challenges criminologists, sociologists, cultural theorists and others to reconsider what it is possible to say and do about environmental problems.

Part B

Chapter 5
Becoming Known

Nature is acquainted with neither shape nor size; only to the knower do things appear to be large or small.

Nietzsche, The Philosopher, (1992) [1872], §123

The texts examined over the course of the next three chapters have been arranged chronologically. However, this should not be taken to mean that 'history' happens in linear fashion (see De Landa, 1997). Deleuze and Guattari write that' [Everything operates through abstract-real machines which have names and dates' (1996, p. 146, parentheses removed). This means that the formation of bodies (a mineral body, a forest body, a recreational body) cannot be divorced from the enunciations (or process of naming) that brings them into being. Put differently, bodies cannot and should not be separated from the convergence of times and nomenclatures that divide and organise the plane of consistency into discrete zones of such and such proportions and uses. Adding to the methodological notes given in the previous chapter, the names and dates outlined below are derived from texts which speak both of indexes (that is the lines dividing one body or territory from another) and intensities (that is the types of forces able to occupy such bodies or territories). In simpler terms, indexes can be taken to concern the geographic or administrative units effecting Goolengook (for example pastoral district, water catchment), whilst intensities can be understood as having to do with the attributes deemed to fall within such units (for example cattle, riparian environment).

It is also important to understand that each text is both productive and produced, which is to say that machines are both constitutive and constituted. In the first instance texts make the world, but in a second instance their matter and form are always already the result of numerous machinic convergences. For example, a government gazettal notice proclaiming a water supply catchment produces machinic effects (carving the world into this or that unit and bringing about a new arrangement of bodies and practices) but is only made possible by countless other machines (political, geodetic, hydrological. botanical, geological, agricultural, pastoral, and so on) which have already executed their task, so to speak. Among my objectives below will be firstly to name each type of machine, and. secondly, to explicate the particular type of transformation that Goolengook undergoes as a result. Here, I acknowledge that ascribing a name to a machine is always already a political act insofar as machines do not come ready made with some kind of transcendental name (or function, or resulting series of effects). A 'conservation machine' could just as well be labelled an 'unemployment machine'. Similarly, a 'forestry machine' could, by some means. be called an 'ecosimplification machine'. This largely depends upon one's own site of enunciation and the politic or ethic that pervades a work. Following Deleuze and Guattari, I intend to name machines according to the primary or dominant flows they seek to interrupt or redirect. If a text speaks of the exploration of minerals, then the primary flow will be one of metal, and the machine will be that of a mining machine. If, on the other hand, a text speaks of assessing the distribution of flora and fauna, then the primary flows will be vegetation and flesh and the machine will most likely be a scientific machine. In selected instances, various texts, various machinic incisions, will be accompanied by a map of the body or bodies of Coolengook. This will give a visual basis to the stratifications and sedimentations that have occurred across the site in question. With all this in mind I now turn to the texts themselves.

18,000 BCE: site of Aboriginal occupation

Prior to the landing of Captain James Cook at Possession Island in 1770, Goolengook was inhabited by the Aboriginal peoples of the Bidwell tribe. Clearly, there is no single text attesting to this situation. Instead, it could be said that such texts are embedded in the features located at and around Goolengook. On this count it is the scar trees, the middens, the stone implements, the rock carvings and paintings, the burial grounds and so forth that function as sites of multiple textual performances. These are in no way 'exterior' to Goolengook (as Western documentation of its aspects is) but immanent to it. A micropolitics of this site could not possibly proceed without acknowledging the presence of and the role played by the first humans to occupy Goolengook, regardless of the precise 'nature' or form of these texts. What is of significance here is that it is only very recently that such texts have been reclaimed as part of a strategy to highlight Indigenous occupation of Goolengook and surrounding regions. Aborigines are known to have occupied East Gippsland – the region of which Goolengook has been deemed a part – for at least 18,000 years (Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, 1993a, p. 4). The Bidwell people traversed the area around the headwaters of the Bemm River which adjoins the main river in Goolengook. Probably in collaboration with bands such as the Kurnai and Ngarigo, the Bidwell gave a number of different names to the territory within and around Goolengook. These names, which exist today as Parishes, are 'Goolengook', 'Noonga', 'Bungywarr', 'Goongerah' and 'Kuark'. Each of these had/has different tribal significance. It is generally accepted amongst the descendants of the Bidwell people that the territory of Goolengook (as opposed to the larger area later called Goolengook forest management block) was used as a place of banishment for those who broke tribal law. The remaining territories were used for hunting and ceremonial purposes. Aboriginal occupation of these areas came to a decidedly abrupt end as a result of Europeans moving into the East Gippsland region early in the eighteenth century. It has been estimated that there were between 15,000 and 50,000 Aborigines in East Gippsland in the early 1800s. However, contact with Europeans over subsequent decades brought 'conflict and attendant problems of disease and depressed birth rates ... so that by 1877, the recorded Aboriginal population of the region had dropped to 213' (Australian Heritage Commission/Department of Natural Resources and Environment, 1996, p. 8).

1770: site within the British Empire

On August 21, 1770 Captain James Cook, at Possession Island off Cape York, 'formally claimed for his country all of eastern New Holland and named it New South Wales' (Ward, 1965, pp. 23-24). Here, the colonial machine interrupts the flow of (Indigenous) sovereignty in order to (re)discover a 'new' land. This seemingly simple act transformed Goolengook into an outpost of the British Empire. The scale at which the management and movement of bodies took place was transformed from tribal territory (several hundred square kilometres and ill-defined) to subcontinental (eastern third of Australia). A new way of envisioning the landscape was also brought to the fore insofar as Eurocentric visions were pitted against that of indigenous ways of seeing. The name 'New South Wales' was so chosen because 'The mildness of the climate of an Australian autumn, and the picturesque ruggedness of the coast, reminded Cook of familiar scenes in the southern part of Wales' (Cornish, 1975 [1880], p. 260).

1788: site within the waste lands of the Colony of New South Wales

On January 26, 1788, under the provisions of an Imperial Act, Captain Arthur Phillip raised the Union Jack at Port Jackson (Sydney) and took possession of all land 'from Cape York in the north in latitude 10° 37' south to South Cape in 43° 39' south and inland as far as the 135^th degree of east longitude' on behalf of King George III (Auchmuty, 1976, p. 48). This area was equivalent to about the eastern third of the land mass of Australia – well over 100 million hectares.¹ New South Wales fell under English law and 'at [a] ceremony on February 7, this "already established fact" was proclaimed' (Shaw. 1976. p. 8). From the moment of Phillips' declaration 'Australia' became Crown land of the Colony of New South Wales. Such land was 'under direct control of the Ministers of the Crown in London' and fell into two broad categories - land within proclaimed counties, and waste lands of the Crown (Historical Subcommittee of Centenary Celebrations Council, 1934, p. 124),

The term 'waste lands' embraced all lands outside the limits of location, which simply meant beyond the boundaries of the proclaimed counties within which land could be sold or leased, at auction solely. These boundaries were known as the border, and therefore waste lands were beyond the border. The authorisation of occupation of these lands was in the hands of the Commissioners of Crown Lands, generally known by the abbreviated designation of C.C.L. (Historical Subcommittee of Centenary Celebrations Council, 1934, p. 124).

Since Goolengook fell well outside the boundaries of proclaimed counties it was deemed to fall under the term 'waste lands'. As a category, 'waste lands of the Crown' speaks of a new way of valuing or envisioning the world, one that would have been anathema to the indigenous inhabitants. It is a category that casts the land beyond counties as (use)less, without value, and without form. It is a category stemming from the invocation of the colonial machine whose task is to contain the flow of population resulting from European settlement as well as those of disease, money, labour, knowledge, food and so forth.² Political, juridical, social, industrial and scientific assemblages are constituted anew, each striving to control a whole host of new forces.

1836: site within the Pastoral District of Port Phillip

Around 1828, the Home Office in London issued a decree to Sydney Colonial Office to stem the spread of population beyond penal settlements. 'In 1829 ... Governor Darling proclaimed nineteen Counties, beyond the boundaries of which settlement was strictly forbidden' (Dunlop and Pike, 1965, p. 82). Despite this measure, the influx of settlers into territories beyond Counties continued. This 'unchecked' occupation of land quickly led to the invocation of additional administrative boundaries. In 1836 an Act was passed by the New South Wales legislature to legalise the occupation of land beyond Counties for pastoral purposes. These lands, of course, were the aforementioned 'waste lands of the Crown'.³ In conjunction with this legislation, the Sydney Colonial Office divided the colony of New South Wales into a series of Pastoral Districts and ascribed each district a Commissioner of Crown Lands (CCL). At such time Goolengook became a potential site for depasturing within the District of Port Phillip.⁴ The way of envisioning the landscape was altered as a result of the 1836 Act. Lands previously held to be 'waste lands' were ascribed a specific function – namely, cattle grazing. The administrative boundary used to manage persons associated with this and other activities was transformed from a sub-continental to district scale (although the district of Port Phillip was at this time roughly equivalent to the area later inscribed by the State of Victoria spanning some 22,740,400 hectares).

1847: site within unsettled districts

'[A]n Order in Council of [9 March] 1847 divided the pastoral lands of the Colony [of New South Wales] into three classes – settled, intermediate, and unsettled' (Dunlop and Pike, 1965, p. 93). The Order w as published in the New South Wales Government Gazette, October 7, 1847. Due to its isolation from European settlements. Goolengook was ascribed the category of 'unsettled' – despite it still being occupied by members of the Bidwell people. Goolengook was now therefore part of the 'unsettled' districts within the larger District of Port Phillip of the Colony of New South Wales. Apart from the obligations imposed by the Crown Land Sales Act 1842 – that all Crown lands be subject to competitive bidding prior to occupation – there were no specific regulations governing the use of land within Goolengook at this time. However, both the scale and mode of envisioning the land at Goolengook had changed. 'Unsettled districts' was, necessarily, a smaller unit of administration than the District of Port Phillip as a whole. The unit of which Goolengook became a part was therefore of a more defined nature (however large this unit may have been). Further, the category 'unsettled districts', like that of 'waste lands of the crown', speaks to the issue of vision in that it construes the landscape in terms of a lack – as an 'empty' body that somehow would neither 'come to life' nor yield its 'true potential' until 'settled' (or rendered as a full or molar body with only one function).

1848—55: site of depasturing

The history of pastoral licences in the District of Port Phillip is concomitant with the history of the earliest European settlement in what would later become the State of Victoria.⁵ Depasturing licenses gave the owners of cattle the right to occupy a specific territory for the purpose of grazing their stock. As mentioned previously, Goolengook became an 'unsettled district' in 1847. This meant a lease over such land could run for a period of 14 years (as opposed to one and eight years within intermediate and settled districts respectively). Records at the Land and Survey Information Centre – a division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment – show that from 1848 to 1863 a pastoral run known as 'Cann' existed in the vicinity of Goolengook. Whilst the run was by no means permanently occupied, those who did occupy it would have been amongst the first Europeans to impact on Goolengook in a material sense.⁶ For present purposes, the degree to which the run was actually occupied (as opposed to merely tendered for) is not of ultimate consequence. What is of interest though, is, firstly, the way the applications for the Cann Run describe (or envision) the territory around Goolengook, and, secondly, the process of administration used to connect 'humans' (pastoralists) with certain parts of 'nature' (land). As will hopefully become clear, the decidedly vague descriptions of the land tendered for in these texts stands in stark contrast to later techniques of mapping, surveying and apportioning land for specific uses (although, as shall be seen, these 'modem' techniques carry their own set of problems). In short, these early texts illustrate the predominantly destratified nature of the site (lands) in question – they speak, in other words, of a space still to be named, marked, segmented, and controlled.

Microfiche reproductions of pastoral run tenders show that Cann was Run No. 207 – the details of which are located in Pastoral Run Papers 259 and 260. The name is variously spelt in these papers as 'Cann', 'Khan' and 'Kann' (Microfiche 259 Copy 3 (M259, 3)). The first application is dated 4 August 1848, and, excepting the handwriting too difficult to decipher, reads,

Tender for a Lease of a New Run of Crown Lands.

INTERMEDIATE OR UNSETTLED DISTRICTS.

In accordance with the pro...