Social Nature is the core concept of a geographical work on the social construction of nature

Nature

Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...

, entitled Social nature: theory, practice and politics, which has been published by Noel Castree

Noel Castree

Noel Castree is a British geographer and associate professor in the School of Environment and Development at the University of Manchester whose research interests are in capitalism-environment relationships....

 and Bruce Braun in 2001.

It says that the concept of Social Nature was created by critical geographers

Critical geography

Critical geography takes a critical theory approach to the study and analysis of geography. The development of critical geography can be seen as one of the four major turning points in the history of geography...

 and embraces the idea of a socialized nature

Nature

Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...

. Critical geographers like David Harvey

David Harvey (geographer)

David Harvey is the Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York . A leading social theorist of international standing, he received his PhD in Geography from University of Cambridge in 1961. Widely influential, he is among the top 20 most cited...

 and Neil Smith

Neil Smith (geographer)

Neil Smith was born 1954 in Leith, Scotland. he is a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Geography, at the Graduate Center department of the City University of New York. From 2008 he holds a twenty percent appointment as Sixth Century Professor of Geography and Social Theory, at the...

"insisted that nature is social in three related ways":

• Knowledge "of nature is invariably inflected with the biases of the" knowers,
• "Though knowledges of nature are social through and through, the social dimensions of nature are not reducible to knowledge alone",
• Societies "physically reconstitute nature, both intentionally and unintentionally", to the point of internalizing nature into social processes (particularly in advanced Western societies).