Technical wildness: modernity, romanticism, and a new culture of nature in the Scottish rewilding movement

Stanley, Theo (2025) Technical wildness: modernity, romanticism, and a new culture of nature in the Scottish rewilding movement. Nordic STS, , Stockholm, Sweden.

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

In Scotland, and I wager elsewhere, rewilding is increasingly developing along a technocratic trajectory. This paper marks the emergence of technical wildness, a new and increasingly influential culture of nature within Scotland’s land sector. Drawing on extended ethnographic fieldwork—including participant observation, stakeholder interviews, and analysis of natural capital reports—it traces how private rewilding companies position advanced measurement technologies, science-led land management, and natural capital markets as the best mechanisms for producing a wild, authentic, and flourishing ecosystem. Situating recent developments in Scotland’s rewilding movement within a longer environmental history, the paper argues that technical wildness constitutes a novel cultural synthesis of the modern and the romantic traditions which have dominated Scottish environmentalism. It examines the discursive and representational boundary work that enables actors to smooth tensions between seemingly incommensurable approaches to valuing, governing, and financing nature. Through close analysis of a flagship natural capital report, the paper identifies three interwoven discursive strategies— ecological aesthetics, trust in numbers, and spectacular science—that generate significant political economic power. Technical wildness renders rewilding legible and investable to stakeholders with significant power and capital, who might have little interest or knowledge in ecology. The conclusion considers the broader implications of technical wildness for scholarship on natural capital and the evolving politics of rewilding in Scotland and beyond.

This record has no associated files available for download.