Ecosemiotics is the study of sign processes (semioses) in relation to the natural environment in which they occur. The paper examines the cultural, biological, and evolutionary dimensions of ecosemioses on the basis of C. S. Peirce's theory of continuity between matter and mind and investigates the ecosemiotic dimensions of natural signs. Ecosemiotics and the semiotics of nature are distinguished from pansemiotism, and the coevolution of sign processes with their natural enviromnent is discussed as a determining factor of ecosemiosis.

The emerging epistemic community of ecosemioticians and the multidisciplinary field of inquiry known as ecosemiotics offer a radical and relevant approach to so-called global environmental crisis. There are no environmental fixes within the dominant code, since that code overdetermines the future, thereby perpetuating ecologically untenable cultural forms. The possibility of a sustainability transition (the attempt to overcome destitution and avoid ecocatastrophe) becomes real when mediated by and through ecosemiotics. In short, reflexive awareness of humankind's linguisticality is a necessary (...) condition for transforming ecologically maladaptive cultural forms. As a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary research program integrating the human and natural sciences, ecosemiotic inquiry closes the gap between biophysical ecology and human ecology. A provisional outline of a pragmatic theory of ecoserniotics attempts to describe the processes by which adaptive cultural changes might be facilitated and points toward substantive content areas that constitute sites for further research. Ecosemiotic inquiry frames cultural codes as these shape and reproduce the ongoing stream of individual and societal choices that shape distinctively human existence in a larger context of biophysical realities that drive natural selection. However, while ecosemiotics is a necessary condition for the sustainability transition, it is not a sufficient condition. (shrink)

Place-lore, which has been systematically collected and archived in Estonia since the 19th century, is a part of various national, communal and institutional practices. Until now, Estonian researchers have resorted to conceptualizing place-lore from the perspective of archival texts, and the focus has been on collecting and archiving the material. At the same time, theoretical study of place-lore has remained in the background. In the article I approach place-lore from the perspective of ecosemiotics and suggest a new definition of (...) place-lore that is based on semiotic relations these narratives have with the environment they represent. Outlining different ways of how vernacular tradition and the environment it represents are semiotically related, and analysing the ways in which these relations are expressed in place-related folklore allows seeing how place-lore can be defined through (1) localizability, (2) representation of the characteristics of a place, and (3) manifestation of place experience. Defining place-lore and presenting the preliminary conceptual tools is much needed in practical collection work and archiving and serves as an important prerequisite for studying the place-related folklore in the context of contemporary challenges, such as changing textual practices, cultural disruptions, and environmental crisis. Examples are drawn from folklore associated with mires, specifically from narratives about the Kakerdaja Bog in northern Estonia. (shrink)

Through history, predatory features are used to constructs when constructing textual representations on the human/animal frontier. The predatory act has remained a recurring motif that emerges from a metaphoric system in cultural imagination. An ecosemiotic approach to this topic allows us to understand how specific predatory behaviours constitute a source of meaning: in other words, how an alleged “animal tendency” is appropriated (translated) into various cultural texts through metaphors, creating a rhetorical order. To illustrate this, some features of metaphors of (...) predatoriness in certain texts in Argentinian culture will be reviewed. A particularly vivid example is provided by two species, the cougar and the jaguar, that have generated cultural translations which expand and proliferate into contemporaneity. These translations constitute a form in which culture metaphorizes aggressiveness and interprets certain species from a historical and ideological perspective. The Argentinian cases suggest a revision of how history has treated the cultural other in terms of cultural and biological inferiority. (shrink)

The emerging epistemic community of ecosemioticians and the multidisciplinary field of inquiry known as ecosemiotics offer a radical and relevant approach to so-called global environmental crisis. There are no environmental fixes within the dominant code, since that code overdetermines the future, thereby perpetuating ecologically untenable cultural forms. The possibility of a sustainability transition (the attempt to overcome destitution and avoid ecocatastrophe) becomes real when mediated by and through ecosemiotics. In short, reflexive awareness of humankind's linguisticality is a necessary (...) condition for transforming ecologically maladaptive cultural forms. As a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary research program integrating the human and natural sciences, ecosemiotic inquiry closes the gap between biophysical ecology and human ecology. A provisional outline of a pragmatic theory of ecoserniotics attempts to describe the processes by which adaptive cultural changes might be facilitated and points toward substantive content areas that constitute sites for further research. Ecosemiotic inquiry frames cultural codes as these shape and reproduce the ongoing stream of individual and societal choices that shape distinctively human existence in a larger context of biophysical realities that drive natural selection. However, while ecosemiotics is a necessary condition for the sustainability transition, it is not a sufficient condition. (shrink)

Species conservation activities are gaining more attention in the context of environmental degradation. This article proposes to tackle different semiotic aspects of reintroduction as one possible way of furthering species conservation. More specifically, we aim to bring forth the strength of ecosemiotic perspective when dealing with such a complex matter with many different human and non-human subjects. We concentrate on animal agency, search and function tone, semiotic fitting and changes in umwelten when analysing the reintroduction process from the perspective of (...) the animal. When considering the locals’ perspective, we take into account the appeal and cultural placement of the species, as well as human and non-human umwelt overlap when it comes to resources. As our case study we use the European mink (Mustela lutreola) and its reintroduction to the island of Hiiumaa and planned reintroduction to the island of Saaremaa in Estonia. By employing semiotic analysis, we discover that reintroduced animals need to exhibit innovation and plasticity to establish novel semiotic relations but also restore relations characteristic to the historical environments of the species. We argue that human views and expectations towards the species and (re)introduction efforts account for animals’ appearance and agency. Additionally, contrast with other wild species, the perceived overlap of human and non-human umwelten, and broader conservation discourse are decisive for the formation of interspecific relations in situ. Thus, ecosemiotcs proves to be a valuable research platform for an analysis of conservation practices that targets both, sociocultural context and animal umwelten. (shrink)

This essay presents ecosemiotics as an approach to interpreting Heidegger in environmental philosophy. Comparisons between Heidegger’s philosophy and ecosemiotics have often focused on the 1929–1930 lecture course where Heidegger discusses Jakob von Uexküll’s notion of Umwelt. These and other ecological interpretations reach an impasse with the sharp ontological boundary Heidegger places between Dasein and more-than-human lifeforms. This essay revisits the theme by focusing on a central concept from Heidegger’s later work: enframing [Gestell]. Enframing, it is argued, can be (...) understood as a rupture between human (cultural) and natural signs, which is a consequence of technological modernity. Although this interpretation diverges from Heidegger’s philosophy, such critical readings may be necessary if Heidegger’s work is to speak to today’s technologies and ecological issues. (shrink)

This essay presents ecosemiotics as an approach to interpreting Heidegger in environmental philosophy. Comparisons between Heidegger’s philosophy and ecosemiotics have often focused on the 1929–1930 lecture course where Heidegger discusses Jakob von Uexküll’s notion of Umwelt. These and other ecological interpretations reach an impasse with the sharp ontological boundary Heidegger places between Dasein and more-than-human lifeforms. This essay revisits the theme by focusing on a central concept from Heidegger’s later work: enframing [Gestell]. Enframing, it is argued, can be (...) understood as a rupture between human and natural signs, which is a consequence of technological modernity. Although this interpretation diverges from Heidegger’s philosophy, such critical readings may be necessary if Heidegger’s work is to speak to today’s technologies and ecological issues. (shrink)

This article investigates the use of wolves to enchant the rationalization of Thompson Manitoba. The city attempted to refocus towards a more touristic economy based around the large wolf population in the surrounding regions. The paper also examines why this attempt at a tourist economy has not produced its intended results. I accomplish this by first discussing the McDonaldization and enchantment of the city. This discussion is framed through George Ritzer and Jeffery C. Alexander’s work. I then integrate Umwelt analysis (...) by focusing on Timo Maran’s Umwelt mapping to create a comparative approach in which wolf Umwelts within rationalized and enchanted settings can be compared to those in situ. I then make use of qualitative data analysis (QDA) to code a corpus of 50 articles from a local online newspaper that discuss the development of the tourism economy. Accordingly, I apply the theoretical perspectives mentioned to the QDA codes and themes. In the discussion section and conclusion of this paper, I note that wolf Umwelt was largely incompatible with the rationalizing system created within the city and that the use of wolves as enchantment relied on motifs of overly hyperreal intersubjectivity between humans and wolves. Consequently, collective representation regarding the tourist initiative was not constructed by this rationalization and enchantment. (shrink)

Vivoscape, from Latin ‘vivo’ and the English ‘scape’ is presented as a new ecosemiotic agency that integrates the interactions between biological and ecological components of a taxon with the environment. According to this model, the interactions between species and the environment are fused into a new functional unity driven by external and internal events. Sensorial and relational channels are used by a taxon to sense external energy gradients, matter, information and to return actions and proactions in an external operational environment. (...) The eco-field model is suggested as the functional ecosemiotic mechanism associated with each vivoevent. (shrink)

A Rural Sanctuary is defined as an area where farming activity creates habitats for a diverse assemblage of species that find a broad spectrum of resources along the season. A Rural Sanctuary is proposed as a new model of land management to protect nature inside a framework of cultural identity and agro-forestry sustainability. A Rural Sanctuary has a dual mission: to provide immaterial and material resources for people, and to guarantee living spaces to a large assemblage of species. A Rural (...) Sanctuary represents an ecosemiotic agency in which human eco-fields and animal eco-fields interact. This reflects a model that is rooted in the Mediterranean region, where for long time people and nature have harmoniously lived in strict contact and inter-dependence. An example of a Rural Sanctuary from this region is proposed to demonstrate the amazing diversity of living beings observed on only few hectares of farmland. A Rural Sanctuary offers possibilities to educate people about a more sustainable approach to nature, and it represents a unique place to investigate animal perception. Finally, between the different approach to certify the validity of a Rural Sanctuary, sound recording is suggested as one of the less invasive methods for ecological investigation and long-term monitoring. (shrink)

This article is interdisciplinary in its claims. Evolving around the ecological concept of affordance, it brings together pragmatics and ecological psychology. Starting from the theoretical writings of Peirce, Dewey and James, the biosemiotic claims of von Uexküll, Gibson’s ecological approach to perception and some empirical evidence from recent neurobiological research, it elaborates on the concepts of experiential and enactive cognition as applied to music. In order to provide an operational description of this approach, it introduces some conceptual tools from the (...) domain of cybernetics with a major focus on the concept of circularity, which links perception to action in a continuous process of sense-making and interaction with the environment. As such, it is closely related to some pragmatic, biosemiotic and ecosemiotic claims which can be subsumed under the general notion of functional significance. An attempt is made to apply this conceptual framework to the process of musical sense-making which involves the realisation of systemic cognition in the context of epistemic interactions that are grounded in our biology and possibilities for adaptive control. Central in this approach is the concept of coping with the environment, or, in musical terms, to perceive the sounding music in terms of what it affords for the consummation of musical behaviour. (shrink)

A report on the conference “Ecosemiotic Paradigm for Nature and Culture”.

"Wilderness" is a concept which has undergone a radical change in recent years. Owing to the scale of global destruction of the wilderness and its various ecosystems, the idea of wilderness has been transformed from its original negative sense as an Other into a matter of public concern. This as replaced the understanding of "wilderness " not only as a place but as a category closely linked with the development of buman culture. As the result of human practice and representation, (...) nature is thus also political Models and concepts of nature in the creative arts can be indicative of a certain culture's relationship with nature, as they communicate prevailing ideologies. This is particularly pertinent to concepts of nature in Canada where wilderness includes vast tracts of forests, lakes and an Arctic North, which has led to a distinctively Canadian relationship between Canadians and their natural environment. The change in the literary representations of interactions between humankind and environment in Canadian fiction - from the "double vision" resulting from the view of the wilderness both as a threatening Other and free space; to the view of threatened nature as a means of identification; and, finally, as a post-modem place of transgression and possibility - invites questions about both the semiotic threshold between nature and culture, and about the function of boundaries in the constitution of identity. (shrink)

This article argues that the work of the late Johan van der Keuken offers a contribution to ecological semiotics, and that it also defines the relationship between the semiotic animal and nature in ways that avoid glottocentricism. Taking from the recent work of Kalevi Kull, Jesper Hoffmeyer, and John Deely amongst others, I will argue that van der Keuken’s documentaries offer a view of ecology that is broader than a study of bio-physical processes that might reduce ecology to a narrow (...) political issue.In order to support this argument, I will be looking at two contrasting films from van der Keuken – Flat Jungle (1978) and Face Value (1991). The first film examines natural habitats within a confined coastal area in Western Europe, while the second film looks at human beings in the different urban environments of late-20th-century Europe. I will then argue that van der Keuken does not collapse the vital distinctions between umwelt and Lebenswelt, yet his films also succeed at reminding us of their constant interdependence. (shrink)

Umwelt theory is an expression of von Uexküll’s subjective biology and as such usually applied in analysis of individual animals, yet it is fundamentally relational and therefore also suitable for analysis of more complex wholes. Since the birth of the modern environmental movement in the 1960s, there has been growing scientific and political acknowledgement of there being a global environmental crisis, which today manifests itself as a climate change and biodiversity crisis. This calls for a multi-scale ecosemiotic approach to analysis (...) of human ecology at various levels and scales. In this article I explore to what extent ecosemiotic methodology, drawing on Umwelt theory and its consistently subjective perspective, can be applied in analysis of human ecology at different geographical and ecological scales ranging from the global to the local. The article incorporates a case study of human–animal relations in Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve in the Central Amazon. This is a seasonal floodplain forest area surrounded by rivers. I investigate aspects of the living conditions and ecology of the reserve, with a main focus on indigenous communities and the circumstances of two primate species, namely the red howler monkey and the black-headed squirrel monkey. I outline matrixes of levels of study in ecosemiotics, and scales in human ecology, and apply two scales to the Mamirauá case. These take an individual animal’s and an individual human being’s subjective experience as their respectively starting points. This allows for multi-scale studies of human ecology from complementary angles. (shrink)

The increasing problem of bioinvasion (the mixing up of natural species characterising the planet's local ecosystems due to globalisation) is investigated as an example of an ecosemiotic problematic. One concern is the scarcity of scientific knowledge about long term ecological and evolutionary consequences of invading species. It is argued that a natural science conception of the ecology of bioinvasion should be supplemented with an ecosemiotic understanding of the significance of these problems in relation to human culture, the question of cultural (...) diversity, and what it means to be indigenous or foreign. Bioinvasion, extinction of native species, and overall decrease in biodiversity, may go along with decreased cultural diversity; as when the loss of local agricultural traditions lead to genetic erosion. There are possible ecosemiotic parallels between language extinction and species extinction, both being related to globalisation. It is argued that the case of bioinvasion reveals the existence of two kinds of ecosemiotic contingency, (1) evolutionary openended and partly random generation of new species and extinction of old ones; (2) the historicity of culture in general and "culture's nature" specifically in the demarcation of a set of landscapes characteristic to a particular nation and piece of human history. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to elaborate ecosemiotics towards practical methodology of analysis. For that, the article first discusses the relation between meaning and context seen as a possibility for an ecological view immanent in semiotics. Then various perspectives in ecosemiotics are analyzed by describing biological and cultural ecosemiotics and critically reading the ecosemiotic works of W. Nöth and K. Kull. Emphasizes is laid on the need to integrate these approaches so that the resulting synthesis would (...) both take into account the semioticity of nature itself as well as allow analyzing the depiction of nature in the written texts. To this end, a model of nature-text is introduced. This relates two parties intertwined by meaningrelations — the written text and the natural environment. In support of theconcept of nature-text, the article discusses the Tartu–Moscow semioticians’ concepts of text, which are regarded as broad enough to accommodate the semiotic activity and environment creation of other animals besides humans. In the final section the concept of nature-text is used to describe nature writing as an appreciation of an alien semiotic sphere and to elucidate the nature writing’s marginality, explaining it with the need to interpret two different types of texts. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to elaborate ecosemiotics towards practical methodology of analysis. For that, the article first discusses the relation between meaning and context seen as a possibility for an ecological view immanent in semiotics. Then various perspectives in ecosemiotics are analyzed by describing biological and cultural ecosemiotics and critically reading the ecosemiotic works of W. Nöth and K. Kull. Emphasizes is laid on the need to integrate these approaches so that the resulting synthesis would (...) both take into account the semioticity of nature itself as well as allow analyzing the depiction of nature in the written texts. To this end, a model of nature-text is introduced. This relates two parties intertwined by meaningrelations — the written text and the natural environment. In support of theconcept of nature-text, the article discusses the Tartu–Moscow semioticians’ concepts of text, which are regarded as broad enough to accommodate the semiotic activity and environment creation of other animals besides humans. In the final section the concept of nature-text is used to describe nature writing as an appreciation of an alien semiotic sphere and to elucidate the nature writing’s marginality, explaining it with the need to interpret two different types of texts. (shrink)

This study examines the entanglements of natural disasters and cultural changes from an ecosemiotic point of view. Taking the case of Mt. Merapi’s periodic eruptions and the locals’ interpretations of such constant natural hazards, it is based on empirical data gathered through longitudinal qualitative fieldworks on the local communities surrounding this volcano. In order to adapt to the constant natural hazards in their environment, disaster prone societies develop unique sign systems binding cultural and natural processes. This study shows that traditionally, (...) unique sensorial-environmental sign systems have formed the basis of communication between human and environment, allowing the locals to perceive the eruption as a communication involving them and local environmental agencies. Recently, the eruptions have triggered the adoption of new livelihoods of local people, as well as the acceptance of new scientific signs for the interpretation of the activities of the volcano. The latter has been accompanied by significant cultural changes, including the adoption of the idea of progress and the transformation of the previous entanglements of local culture and its natural environment. The study concludes that natural disasters, entangled with ongoing social transformations, may play a fundamental role as triggers of semiotic change in a community. Such semiotic change can in turn modify the interpretation of the natural disaster itself, and in that way shift the way humans perceive and interact with their environment. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question whether we can conceive of music cognition in ecosemiotic terms. It claims that music knowledge must be generated as a tool for adaptation to the sonic world and calls forth a shift from a structural description of music as an artifact to a process-like approach to dealing with music. As listeners, we are observers who construct and organize our knowledge and bring with us our observational tools. What matters is not merely the sonic world in (...) its objective qualities, but the world as perceived. In order to make these claims operational we can rely on the ecological concept of coping with the sonic world and the cybernetic concepts of artificial and adaptive devices. Listeners, on this view, are able to change their semantic relations with the sonic world through functional adaptations at the level of sensing, acting and coordinating between action and perception. This allows us to understand music in functional terms of what it affords to us and not merely in terms of its acoustic qualities. There are, however, degrees of freedom and constraints which shape the semiotization of the sonic world. As such we must consider the role of event perception and cognitive economy: listeners do not perceive the acoustical environment in terms of phenomenological descriptions but as ecological events. (shrink)

Ecosemiotics represents a theoretical approach to human ecology that can be applied across several disciplines. lts primary justification lies inthe ambition to transcend "Cartesian", conceptual dichotomies such as culture/nature. society/nature, mental/material. etc. It argues that ecosystems areconstituted no less by flows of signs than by flows of matter and energy. This paper discusses the roles of different kinds of hmnan sign systems in the ecologyof Amazonia, ranging from the phenomenology of unconscious sensations. through linguistic signs such as metaphors and (...) ethnobiological taxonomies, to money and the political economy of environmental destruction. Human-environmental relations mediated by direct, sensory and (oral) linguistic communication have tended to enhance biological diversity, suggesting modes of calibrating the long-term co-evolution of human and non-human populations. Economic sign systems, on the other hand, have rapidly and drastically transfonned human-environmental relations in Amazonia to the point where the entire rainforest ecosystem is illlder threat. In detaching themselves from the direct, "face-to-face" communication between humans and their natural environments, flows of money and commodities - and the decontextualized knowledge systems that they engender - have no means of staying geared to the long-term negotiation of local, ecological co-existence. It is argued that the ongoing deterioration of the biosphere can be viewed as a problem of communication, deserving semiotic analysis. (shrink)

Ecosemiotics represents a theoretical approach to human ecology that can be applied across several disciplines. lts primary justification lies inthe ambition to transcend "Cartesian", conceptual dichotomies such as culture/nature. society/nature, mental/material. etc. It argues that ecosystems areconstituted no less by flows of signs than by flows of matter and energy. This paper discusses the roles of different kinds of hmnan sign systems in the ecologyof Amazonia, ranging from the phenomenology of unconscious sensations. through linguistic signs such as metaphors and (...) ethnobiological taxonomies, to money and the political economy of environmental destruction. Human-environmental relations mediated by direct, sensory and (oral) linguistic communication have tended to enhance biological diversity, suggesting modes of calibrating the long-term co-evolution of human and non-human populations. Economic sign systems, on the other hand, have rapidly and drastically transfonned human-environmental relations in Amazonia to the point where the entire rainforest ecosystem is illlder threat. In detaching themselves from the direct, "face-to-face" communication between humans and their natural environments, flows of money and commodities - and the decontextualized knowledge systems that they engender - have no means of staying geared to the long-term negotiation of local, ecological co-existence. It is argued that the ongoing deterioration of the biosphere can be viewed as a problem of communication, deserving semiotic analysis. (shrink)

У статті досліджується екосеміотика (термін запропонований Вілфрідом Нотом) – міждисциплінарна галузь, що має на меті: 1) поглибити розуміння особливостей взаємодії між людиною і довкіллям, культурою і природою на основі застосування семіотичного підходу; 2) розширення пізнавальних можливостей людини у природнознавчій і культурознавчій сферах за допомогою семіотичного інструментарію. Відзначається, що екосеміотика безпосередньо пов’язана з біосеміотикою, семіотикою культури (культурною семіотикою), а також з екологічною (інвайронментальною) філософією. Вона спирається на принцип неперервності (спадкоємності) у розвитку природи та розуму (свідомості) (Ч. Пірс), уявлення про внутрішній зв'язок (...) між живими (природними) та семіотичними процесами (Дж. Хофмейер), голістичний (системний) погляд на семіосферу (Ю. Лотман). Екосеміотика розглядає взаємодію культури і природи як двосторонній процес, в якому природа визначає культуру так само, як і культура у різний спосіб окреслює природу. Зауважується, що для екосеміотики як порівняно нового дослідницького напряму не вироблено єдиного методологічного базису та бачення досліджуваного ним кола проблем, що цілком релевантно ситуації в семіотиці загалом. Автор доходить висновку, що на тлі постійного зростання досліджень, які позиціонують себе як екосеміотичні, цей напрям потребує відповідних методологічних рефлексій і оцінок. (shrink)

This article poses the hypothesis that the problem of the intrinsic value of nature that stems from the work of G. E. Moore and is widely discussed in environmental philosophy, bas a parallel in a contemporary discussion in semiotics on the existence of semiosis in nature. From a semiotic point of view. value can be defined as an intentional dimension of sign. This is concordant with a biological interpretation of value that relates to biological needs. Thus. a semiotic approach in (...) biology may provide a useful tool for further analysis of the intrinsic value problem in the biological realm. From an ecosemiotic point of view, the problem is also related to the concepts of bioart and ecoart. Ecoart viz environmental art is that which encompasses the human ambience, e.g., landscape or its components. Bioart call be defined as the art whose material ("clay") is a living body, living matter or communication of organisms (which may include, e.g., genetic engineering). It is concluded that the acceptance of biosemiotic view has implications for a large area of ecological philosophy. (shrink)

The expression "artificial animal" denotes a range of different objects from teddy bears to the results of genetic engineering. As a basis for further investigation, this article first of all presents the main interpretations and traces their systematic interconnections. The subsequent sections concentrate on artificial animals in the context of play. The development of material toys is fueled by robotics. It gives toys artificial sense organs, limbs, and cognitive abilities, thus enabling them to act in the real world. The second (...) line of development, closely related to research into Artificial Life, creates virtual beings "living" on computer screens. Themost essential difference between these variants are the sense modalities involved in interaction. Virtual beings can only be seen and heard, whereas material toys can be touched as well. Therefore, the simulation of haptic qualities plays an important role. In order to complete the proposed typology, two further areas are outlined, namely artificial animals outside play and "artificial animals in the medium of flesh" which are alive but designed and created by man. Research on artificial animals belongs to an extended notion of ecosemiotics, as they are part of ecosystems which may themselves be virtual such as the Internet. (shrink)

This article compares the work of Jakob von Uexkull and Charles S. Peirce to elucidate two contrasting yet connected images of ecosemiotics. The intent is not simply to oppose their work, but to explore a tension which has implications for the ethical dimension of this emerging discipline. Uexkull’s functional cycle is associated with the image of a circle, which, while emphasizing the integration of organism and environment, is shown to invoke solipsism, and an overly deterministic depiction of ecological relations. (...) Peirce’s drawing of a labyrinth is taken to represent a maze, which, while exemplifying the evolutionary play of ecosystems, may entail a level of unpredictability that is catastrophically chaotic. The root of these diverging depictions is identified with the role of subjectivity in engendering semiotic relations in the work of both Uexkull and Peirce. Where the more regressive aspects of Uexkull’s theoretical biology are mitigated by a teleological interpretation of life’s underlying causality, orientating agency within Peirce’s work depends upon attention to the idea of the self in his philosophy of signs. In conclusion, Eduardo Kohn’s conception of an ‘ecology of selves’ is cited, and the status of the organism as a living symbol of its environment is reaffirmed. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question whether we can conceive of music cognition in ecosemiotic terms. It claims that music knowledge must be generated as a tool for adaptation to the sonic world and calls forth a shift from a structural description of music as an artifact to a process-like approach to dealing with music. As listeners, we are observers who construct and organize our knowledge and bring with us our observational tools. What matters is not merely the sonic world in (...) its objective qualities, but the world as perceived. In order to make these claims operational we can rely on the ecological concept of coping with the sonic world and the cybernetic concepts of artificial and adaptive devices. Listeners, on this view, are able to change their semantic relations with the sonic world through functional adaptations at the level of sensing, acting and coordinating between action and perception. This allows us to understand music in functional terms of what it affords to us and not merely in terms of its acoustic qualities. There are, however, degrees of freedom and constraints which shape the semiotization of the sonic world. As such we must consider the role of event perception and cognitive economy: listeners do not perceive the acoustical environment in terms of phenomenological descriptions but as ecological events. (shrink)

Jean Baudrillard, the scholar and critic of postmodernity, struggled with questions of postmodern ontology: representation of the real through the semioticprocess of signification is threatened with the rise of simulacra, the simulated real. With this rise, seductive semiotic relationships between signs replace any traditional ontological representamen. This struggle has implications for environmentalism since the problems of contemporary environmental philosophy are rooted in problems with ontology. Hence the question of postmodern ecology: can the natural survive postmodern simulation? Baudrillard’s communicative analysis of (...) semiotic postmodernity can both support and extend ecosemiotic theses in response to these questions, questions that must be answered in order to explore our paradoxical understandings of the natural and confirm an understanding of environmentalism for postmodernity. In this paper I will argue for the merit of a semiotic understanding of postmodernity, develop the idea of ecology in this context, and then compare Baudrillard’s approach to the contemporary development of ecosemiotics. (shrink)

This article conceptualizes contemporary geopolitical violence in the Arctic through a semiotic register. Different living beings perceive different things, and these differences amount to different worlds, not merely different worldviews. Building on Eduardo Kohn’s reading of the semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce, and theorists of biosemiotics and ecosemiotics, the article analyses how signs in and between living organisms and their environments are political matters of life and death. Via the themes of invisibility, colors, and snow, the article traces semiotic (...) relations between different living beings and their Arctic ecologies to weave a semiotic understanding of contemporary geopolitical violence in the Arctic and the role of climate change therein. The article defines the violence of climate change as a violence of not being able to recognize oneself, and builds on Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s concept of multinaturalism to explain what it means that one world ruins other worlds. (shrink)

When ancient Chinese philosophy culminated in the sixth to third centuries BCE, “hundreds of flowers [intellectual schools] were blooming”, yet not many theoreticians were particularly interested in questions regarding the relationship between animal and human life — despite their profuse discussion of, and heated debates about, both “nature” and “human nature” in their writings. This indifferent attitude towards creatures lower than humans is best illustrated by Confucius (551–479 BCE), who observed: “It is impossible to associate with birds and beasts, as (...) if they were the same as us.” Later, however, this condescending attitude of the Sage would be challenged by the Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi (370 to 301 BCE), who untiringly advocates the equity of all creatures in the universe — a place where both living and fabulous organisms cohabit and co-evolve with one another, as well as with their environments. Morever, even Confucius’s descendent Mencius (c.372–289 BCE) did not endorse his mentor’s position, for the latter’s own writings are likewise inhabited by all kinds of creatures which not only serve the passive role of poetic figuration, but actually also construct their respective Umwelten, paralleled by the umwelt-construction of human beings. Recent advances in biosemiotics and ecosemiotics have enabled us to reread some of these philosophical texts, and to shed new light on this obscure aspect of Chinese thinking. This paper will draw upon the sign reflections of C. S. Peirce (1839–1914) and Jakob von Uexküll (1864–1944), and make use of a composite analytical method of text semiotics and dialogue studies, to examine a number of political and ethical allegories by Zhuangzi and Mencius. Acknowledging the necessarycircularity of interpretation and the homogeneity of observer and observed, the essay explores the ways in which ancient philosophical texts can be made compatible with contemporary biological and semiotic thinking. (shrink)

The concept of intrasemiotics designates the semiosis of the interpenetration between the biological and psychological autopoietic systems as Luhmann defines them in his theory. Combining a Peircian concept of semiosis with Luhmann’s theory in the framework of biosemiotics makes it possible for us to view the interplay of mind and body as a sign play. The recently suggested term ‘sign play’ pertains to ecosemiotics processes between animals of the same species stretching Wittgenstein’s language concept into the animal world of (...) signs. With intrasemiotics there is an inner interplay. Lorenz in ethology has used the concept of motivation, and Uexküll the concept of tone, mostly describing the outgoing effect on perception and the reactions on perception. One could view intrasemiotics as the interplay between Lorenz’ biologically defined motivations and Freud’s Id, understood as the psychological aspect of many of the natural drives. In the last years of development of his theory Lorenz studied how emotional feedback can introduce just a little learning through pleasurable feelings also into the instinctivesystems because, as he reasoned, there must be some kind of reward going through instinctive movements, thus making the appetitive searching behaviourfor sign stimuli possible. But he never found an acceptable way of modelling motivation in biological science. A cybersemiotic model may combine these approaches, defining various concepts of thoughtsemiotics, phenosemiotic and intrasemiotics, combining them with the already known concepts of exosemiotics, ecosemiotics, endosemiotics to an approach which studies the self-organising semiotic processes in living systems. (shrink)

Jean Baudrillard, the scholar and critic of postmodernity, struggled with questions of postmodern ontology: representation of the real through the semioticprocess of signification is threatened with the rise of simulacra, the simulated real. With this rise, seductive semiotic relationships between signs replace any traditional ontological representamen. This struggle has implications for environmentalism since the problems of contemporary environmental philosophy are rooted in problems with ontology. Hence the question of postmodern ecology: can the natural survive postmodern simulation? Baudrillard’s communicative analysis of (...) semiotic postmodernity can both support and extend ecosemiotic theses in response to these questions, questions that must be answered in order to explore our paradoxical understandings of the natural and confirm an understanding of environmentalism for postmodernity. In this paper I will argue for the merit of a semiotic understanding of postmodernity, develop the idea of ecology in this context, and then compare Baudrillard’s approach to the contemporary development of ecosemiotics. (shrink)

Michael Marder in Dump Philosophy claims that that there has been so much dumping with modern civilization that we now live in a dump, with those parts of our environment not contaminated by dumping, now rare. The growth of the dump is portrayed as the triumph of nihilism, predicted by Nietzsche as the outcome of life denying Neoplatonist metaphysics. Marder’s proposed solution, characterized as “undumping”, is to accept the dump and to promote reinterpretations and informal communities within the dump. It (...) is argued here that Marder provides great insight into our current situation and its causes; however, his proposed solution is too weak. To respond to the situation described, it is argued, it is necessary to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy dumping, or more broadly, healthy and unhealthy participation in nature. To make this distinction, it is necessary see humans as ecosystems and components of ecosystems, including the global ecosystem, as these have been characterized by anti-reductionist ecologists. Ecosystems can be healthy or unhealthy. Dumping and dumps should be identified as problematic outputs when they damage the health of ecosystems. The products of human activity not destined to be consumed or used for further productive activity, can then be identified and judged according to whether they augment or damage ecosystems’ health. Dumping should be severely restricted. This should be associated with making a commitment to life and its value, and living to augment life, developing the social and economic forms and institutions that facilitate living in this way. (shrink)

Since their introduction in Colombia in the '80s for Pablo Escobar’s extravagant zoo, hippos have become an ecological problem around the basin of the Magdalena River. This article proposes an ecosemiotic discourse analysis of different visions of nature enacted by stakeholders and public opinion around the management of hippos in Colombia. Concretely, we focus on three particular discourses and visions of nature: animalista, narco-cultural, and conservacionista. In this article, we present the relevant social and ecological context of Colombia, the visions (...) of nature theory and the impact of such visions on conservation measures regarding so-called invasive species; we describe and analyze the three visions of nature we center on, and present a computational analysis of discourse dynamics and controversies in Twitter between of such visions of nature; and we reflect on possible courses of action and recommendations about addressing the close interrelation of public discourses and ecosystem conservation by proposing an alternative view, based on the biosemiotic framework of semiocide, to the concept of invasive species. (shrink)

The following points, which represent a path to a semiotics of being, are pertinent to various sub-fields at the conjunction of semiotics of nature (biosemiotics, ecosemiotics, zoosemiotics) and semiotics of culture—semioethics and existential semiotics included. 1) Semiotics of being entails inquiry at all levels of biological organization, albeit, wherever there are individuals, with emphasis on the living qua individuals (integrated biological individualism). 2) An Umwelt is the public aspect (cf. the Innenwelt, the private aspect) of a phenomenal/experienced world that (...) is organism-specific (rather than species-specific) and ultimately refers to an existential realm. 3) Existential universals at work on Earth include seeking out the edible, dwelling in a medium, holding a phenomenal world (possibly an Umwelt) and being endowed with life, and consequently being mortal. 4) Human Umwelten include speechless Umwelten, spoken Umwelten and alphabetic Umwelten. 5) An Uexküllian phenomenology—stating that semiotic states represent the general class to which all mental/cognitive states belong—can draw on the works of the phenomenologists David Abram and Ted Toadvine (The notion of semiotic states is treated in Tønnessen 2009a: 62–63. For an introduction to eco-phenomenology, see Brown and Toadvine (eds.) 2003). 6) A task for such a phenomenology is to portray the natural history of the phenomenal world. 7) An imperative task in our contemporary world of faltering biological diversity is that of Umwelt mapping, i.e. a mapping of ontological niches. 8) The ecological crisis is an ontological crisis with historical roots in humankind’s domestication of animals and plants, which can be taken as archetypical for our attempted planet-scale taming of the wild. 9) The process of globalization is expressed by correlated trends of depletion of semiotic diversity and semiotic diversification. 10) Semiotic economy is a field which task it is to map the human ontological niche insofar as its semiotic relations are of an economic nature. All ten points will be commented (explicitly or implicitly) in due time. (shrink)

Jean Baudrillard, the scholar and critic of postmodernity, struggled with questions of postmodern ontology: representation of the real through the semioticprocess of signification is threatened with the rise of simulacra, the simulated real. With this rise, seductive semiotic relationships between signs replace any traditional ontological representamen. This struggle has implications for environmentalism since the problems of contemporary environmental philosophy are rooted in problems with ontology. Hence the question of postmodern ecology: can the natural survive postmodern simulation? Baudrillard’s communicative analysis of (...) semiotic postmodernity can both support and extend ecosemiotic theses in response to these questions, questions that must be answered in order to explore our paradoxical understandings of the natural and confirm an understanding of environmentalism for postmodernity. In this paper I will argue for the merit of a semiotic understanding of postmodernity, develop the idea of ecology in this context, and then compare Baudrillard’s approach to the contemporary development of ecosemiotics. (shrink)

In programs of acoustic survey, the amount of data collected and the lack of automatic routines for their classification and interpretation can represent a serious obstacle to achieving quick results. To overcome these obstacles, we are proposing an ecosemiotic model of data mining, ecoacoustic event detection and identification, that uses a combination of the acoustic complexity indices and automatically extracts the ecoacoustic events of interest from the sound files. These events may be indicators of environmental functioning at the scale of (...) individual vocal species, the acoustic community, the sound marks, or the soundscape. The EEDI model is represented by three procedural steps: 1) selecting acoustic data according to environmental variables, 2) detecting the events by creating an ecoacoustic event space produced by plotting ACIft and its evenness, 3) identifying events according to the level of correlation between the acoustic signature of the detected events and an ad hoc library of previously identified events. The EEDI procedure can be extensively used in basic and applied research. In particular, EEDI may be used in long-term monitoring programs to assess the effect of climate change on individual vocal species behavior, population, and acoustic community dynamics. The EEDI model can be also used to investigate acoustic human intrusion in natural systems and the effect in urban areas. (shrink)

Semiotic Theory of Learning asks what learning is and what brings it about, challenging the hegemony of psychological and sociological constructions of learning in order to develop a burgeoning literature in semiotics as an educational foundation. Drawing on theoretical research and its application in empirical studies, the book attempts to avoid the problematization of the distinction between theory and practice in semiotics. It covers topics such as signs, significance and semiosis; the ontology of learning; the limits of learning; ecosemiotics; (...) ecology and sexuality. -/- The book is written by five of the key figures in the semiotics field, each committed to the belief that living is a process of interaction through acts of signification with a signifying environment. While the authors are agreed on the value of semiotic frameworks, the book aims not to present an entirely coherent line in every respect, but rather to reflect ongoing scholarship and debates in the area. In light of this, the book offers a range of possible interpretations of major semiotic theorists, unsettling assumptions while offering a fresh, and still developing, series of perspectives on learning from academics grounded in semiotics. -/- Semiotic Theory of Learning is a timely and valuable text that will be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduates working in the fields of educational studies, semiotics, psychology, philosophy, applied linguistics and media studies. (shrink)

Biosemiotics is a theoretical approach that makes a research on signs, sign systems and semantic processes of the biosphere. It provides a conceptual framework for describing biological phenomena at all levels of the organization of life, and its relevance may be due to the unstable relationship between culture and nature. We are able to use this approach to initiate safe cultural forms and practices. Biosemiotic approach makes it possible to combine cultural and semiotic concepts with biological and biosemiotic frames in (...) the relevance to ecosemiotics, as we are able to update cultural civilizational meanings and identify new vectors of human’s civilization development in the epoch of the post-anthropocentrism. (shrink)

Growing ecological problems have raised the need for conceptual tools dedicated to studying semiotic processes in cultural-ecological systems. Departing from both ecosemiotics and cultural semiotics, the concept of an ecosemiosphere is proposed to denote the entire complex of semiosis in an ecosystem, including the involvement of human cultural semiosis. More specifically, the ecosemiosphere is a semiotic system comprising all species and their umwelts, alongside the diverse semiotic relations (including humans with their culture) that they have in the given ecosystem, (...) and also the material supporting structures that enable the ecosemiosphere to thrive. Drawing parallels with Juri Lotman’s semiosphere concept, the ecosemiosphere is characterized by its heterogeneity, asymmetry, and boundedness. But unlike Lotman’s concept, the ecosemiosphere is not characterized by an overall boundedness, that is, by the presence of external binary boundaries and the shared identity arising from this unity. The involvement of human culture in the ecosemiosphere manifests in interspecies dialogues and semiotic engagements. We need to scrutinize what affordances and semiotic resources culture could offer to nonhuman species and how culture could, by semiotic means, raise the integrity, stability, and resiliency of the ecosystem. The ecosemiosphere is a grounded semiosphere. (shrink)

The increasing problem of bioinvasion (the mixing up of natural species characterising the planet's local ecosystems due to globalisation) is investigated as an example of an ecosemiotic problematic. One concern is the scarcity of scientific knowledge about long term ecological and evolutionary consequences of invading species. It is argued that a natural science conception of the ecology of bioinvasion should be supplemented with an ecosemiotic understanding of the significance of these problems in relation to human culture, the question of cultural (...) diversity, and what it means to be indigenous or foreign. Bioinvasion, extinction of native species, and overall decrease in biodiversity, may go along with decreased cultural diversity; as when the loss of local agricultural traditions lead to genetic erosion. There are possible ecosemiotic parallels between language extinction and species extinction, both being related to globalisation. It is argued that the case of bioinvasion reveals the existence of two kinds of ecosemiotic contingency, (1) evolutionary openended and partly random generation of new species and extinction of old ones; (2) the historicity of culture in general and "culture's nature" specifically in the demarcation of a set of landscapes characteristic to a particular nation and piece of human history. (shrink)

The article provides an overview of different approaches to the semiotic study of landscapes both in the field of semiotics proper and in landscape studiesin general. The article describes different approaches to the semiotic processes in landscapes from the semiological tradition where landscape has been seen as analogous to a text with its language, to more naturalized and phenomenological approaches, as well as ecosemiotic view of landscapes that goes beyond anthropocentric definitions. Special attention is paid to the potential of cultural (...) semiotics of Tartu–Moscow school for the analysis of landscapes and the possibilities held by a dynamic, dialogic and holistic landscape definition for the development of ecosemiotics. (shrink)

Juri Lotman distinguishes between two main types of communication. In addition to the classical I-YOU communication, he speaks about I-I communication, where both the addresser and the addressee are one and the same person. Contrary to how it sounds, autocommunication is not self-sufficient musing inside one’s self, it is remodelling oneself through a code from an entity outside oneself, be it animate or inanimate. According to Lotman, it is often the rhythmical phenomena like poetry, the rhythm of waves, etc. that (...) lend themselves for the act of autocommunication as external codes. After having received the message one is not identical to the original oneself anymore. Perceptual markers of landscape—specific rhythms, ephemera, the rhythm of human everyday activities, bodily movement—can be considered as a secondary code leading to autocommunication in the person who contemplates the landscape. Looking at the landscape—which also implies the rhythmical movement of the eyes—one uses it as a code to reconstitute oneself. A person who has confronted a landscape does not leave it as the same person. The present article poses a definition of autocommunication in landscapes and discusses the way in which other sensorial information apart from the visual—smell, movement, rhythms etc—are used culturally to reinforce autocommunication with oneself. It can be said that several institutionalised religious and cultural practices expect the subject to reconstitute him- or herself mainly through the bodily landscape experience. (shrink)