The relationship with nature is increasingly being analysed as a historic phenomenon; it has a history and it has the power to shape and change history. The perspective in this thesis can be classified as a take on genealogical (and thus historical) political ecology, as it centres around identifying and interpreting the development of the ideology of ‘mastery over nature’ in the Western epistemological framework. Through examining the both complex and dynamic relationship between ontological, epistemological and cosmological understandings, religious and scientific beliefs and theories, and material practices, this thesis examines the genealogy of how Western human (mal)adaptive processes have catapulted humanity into the Anthropocene. The intention is to seek a possibility of deconstructing and breaking from the current episteme, which has not only environmental and thus ethical, but also social, political and economic implications.
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