Epilogue: Knowing Nature, Making Space

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book highlights the role of ecology in spatio-epistemic processes in which knowledge and space are co-produced. It discusses the ways in which ecologists have understood and imagined the world in spatial terms, or, in other words, the role that ecologists have played in the discursive ordering of nature. The book also discusses the kind of ecological fieldwork practices from nonintrusive forms of observation and record-taking, to material interventions such as digging in the soil of the Wadden Sea or the placing of sample plants in Brussels' streets. It looks into the spatial organization of ecological research itself or the geographies of ecological practice. The book highlights the ways in which this research was used to manage the environment and how it left its traces in the material world.