KULTUROWE CZYNNIKI POSTAW WOBEC „CZWARTEJ PRZYRODY” W PRZESTRZENI MIEJSKIEJ
CULTURAL FACTORS OF ATTITUDES TOWARDS “NATURE OF THE FOURTH KIND” IN URBAN SPACE

Summary/Abstract: The return of spontaneous plants to the city is now considered a valuable process helping to balance degraded urban ecosystems (Kowarik, Körner 2005, Jakubowski 2019, 2020). However, research on public attitudes towards the “nature of the fourth kind” in the city and peri-urban areas shows that they are not unequivocally positive and are accompanied by conflicting feelings (Hun- ziker 1995, Bauer 2005, Sonti 2019). Addressing the issue of ambivalence associated with new wilderness, the article proposes its cultural interpretation. Firstly, it contextualises ambivalence as a contemporary form of the “numinous” experience (Otto 1999) that arises in encounters with the life dynamics of spontaneous plants that escape human control. Secondly, it identifies archetypal spatial figures of Western urban culture, namely wall and parcel, as cultural factors shaping atti- tudes toward the new wilderness both at the level of “situations” and “ideologies” (Kłoskowska 1973). Thirdly, it aims to reorient the view of new wilderness in the city with the use of the topo- logical concept of “figuration” (Lash 2012) and the idea of thinking together with plants (Haraway 2016). The above issues are presented against the backdrop of two questions: about the politics guiding research on the social perception of the new wilderness and about the possibility of devel- oping a more nuanced understanding of the “nature of the fourth kind” concept that goes beyond the scale of the wastelands by taking into account the micro-perspective of the mobile urban subject and the unconventional creativity of plants.

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