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social existence in its own right’ (Osborne in Bennett 2013, p. 25). Culture thus becomes a

sphere that can be governed. In sum it is a:

...historically specific “transactional reality” that has its locus in specific
governmental practices and technologies and which has to be considered in
relation to other “universals” if its modus operandi, spheres of action and effects
are to be properly understood. (Bennett 2013, p. 12)

There are a few points to draw from this quote. The first, is that culture is a sphere that can be

governed through a variety of institutions, expertise, instruments, problems, roundtables and

summits (such as the 2002 summit) that comprise the culture complex. This in turn is part of

governance, understood as the conduct of conduct (from Foucault’s definition of

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governmentality) .

Through this complex, culture has become a core part of environmental issues and

their solutions, and an integrated model of sustainability has become an organising principle

for policy makers, fisheries, NGOs and consumers, to name a few. The second point to draw

from the above quote is that the concept of culture coevolves through other universals. In this

chapter I look briefly at how culture emerged as a specific category differentiated from the

categories of the social and economic (hence the need for a fourth pillar), before turning to

the specific other universal, nature. I consider how culture gained a “transactional reality”

(Bennett 2013, p. 12) in environmental conflicts and management, and how culture was

negotiated in relation to the concept of nature. I include academia as a place of epistemic

authority and so look at specific ways that culture has been shaken from the enduring

nature/culture binary and its subsequent remaking and mobilisation in social science fields. I

argue that the critiques of nature/culture binaries, which became heated in the 1990s and that

continue today in social science fields, are part of a culture complex that also includes global

organisations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

(UNESCO). I suggest that there was a “cultural turn” in global environmental governing

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