Calling for a More-Than-Human Politics

now, more than ever, we need to reject the division within ourselves, between ourselves, and from the deep ecology that sustains us. Because we don’t exist in isolation, we never have. And we are now entering a time where we face our own destruction if we continue to live in the illusion of isolation.

The Anthropocene → The Dithering: The Anthropocene continues to be the endearing term used — popular, specifically in academic bubbles. “We, human people everywhere, must address intense, systemic urgencies; yet, so far, as Kim Stanley Robinson put it in 2312, we are living in times of “The Dithering”, a “state of indecisive agitation.” Perhaps the... See more

In the same frame, Latour proposes a move from ‘production’ towards more interrogative processes of questioning the ways in which things are brought to the world: existence, survival, reproducing, giving birth and losing territory. A process of engendering.

Global → Terrestrial; Producing → Engendering: for these two frames, I am taken by Latour’s idea of ‘terrestrial’ as a move towards post-human exceptionalism. His proposal explores the possibility of 'de-centring the human', and acknowledging that we are in constant interaction with other beings and natural phenomena. And more importantly, a demand... See more

Extinction → Precarity: The philosophical construct of considering ‘life as precarious’ (Ann Tsing) foregrounds both life and death. It focuses on how human existence is deeply interdependent with other life and therefore necessitates the need for care of others, the need for being vulnerable to others and to put unpredictable encounters at the cen... See more

Innovation → Resurgence: Innovation is a tricky one, unfortunately, co-opted by the association-of-move-fast-and-break-things as (infinite) growth, addition and mutation. Innovation fixates on new; different; change. On the other hand, ‘resurgence’ (renewing, restoring, regenerating) focuses less on endless growth and more on cyclical forms of nurt... See more

Systems → Assemblages; Nodes → Knots: Social theorist Manuel Delanda adopted the term ‘assemblage’ to argue that social bodies on all scales are best analysed through their individual components. Assemblages are diverse, indeterminate and precarious. Our journeys through assemblages are drawn in numerous, ever-changing knots, rather than static nod... See more

Planning → Gardening: Numerous people from architects to permaculturists have advocated the move from top down ‘planning’, towards the nurturing practice of gardening, when we design cities.

Fixing → Caring: I start by moving away from the techno-deterministic pull of the language around ‘fixing’ and instead urge the use of ‘caring’. When we foreground the idea of care, it inherently embodies ideas of fixing, building, making — everything necessary to-take-care-of that particular thing, person, tree, insect, bird, animal, us, them, eve... See more