Deconstructing Anthropos: A Critical Legal Reflection on ‘Anthropocentric’ Law and Anthropocene ‘Humanity’

Grear, Anna

doi:10.1007/s10978-015-9161-0

Cited by 90 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…This, combined with the juridical privilege and disembodied advantages of the corporate body intensify the patterns of selective 'othering' and the property-centred appropriative dynamics visible in the colonial capitalist drivers of the Anthropocene and foundational to the international legal order co-emergent with it (McLean 2004;Anghie 2005;Malm and Hornborg 2014). Arguably, the ultimate expression of the ideological and structural primacy of the quasi-disembodied subject is the transnational corporation (TNC), which was functionally indispensible both to the colonial power structures underpinning the Eurocentric international legal order (Mclean 2004;Anghie 2005;Malm and Hornborg 2014), and to the mercantile and then corporate industrial origins of the colonial capitalist Anthropocene (Grear 2015).…”

Section: Legal Imaginary Of the Anthropocenementioning

confidence: 99%

Legal Imaginaries and the Anthropocene: ‘Of’ and ‘For’

Grear

2020

Law Critique

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This reflection contrasts the dominant imaginary underlying ‘law of the Anthropocene’ with an imaginary reaching towards ‘law/s for the Anthropocene’. It does so primarily by contrasting two imaginaries of human embodiment—law’s existing imaginary of quasi-disembodiment and an alternative imaginary of embodiment as co-woven with the lively incipiencies and tendencies of matter. It draws on ‘transcorporeality’ and ‘sympoiesis’ as inspiration for ‘sympoietic normativities’ as ways of co-living and co-organizing in the face of the catastrophic implications of the Anthropocene emergency.

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Section: Legal Imaginary Of the Anthropocenementioning

confidence: 99%

Legal Imaginaries and the Anthropocene: ‘Of’ and ‘For’

Grear

2020

Law Critique

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“…This dissonance arises where the recent history of corporate law and governance is not really material or grounded in matter (never mind geology). It is, rather, better understood as part and parcel of the idealistic and modern reflexive tradition, which has expressed itself powerfully within the economic sphere through the recognition and extension of separate corporate legal personality, as the ‘systemically privileged juridical “human” subject’ (Grear 2015 , p. 227; see also Baars 2019 , a ‘legal concept to “congeal” relations of production’, p. 11). This idealistic history of corporate legal personhood is concerned less with the build-up of matter and consequences around profit and investment as it is concerned with the advance of the corporate form and expectation , and with the development of industrial reason as a means of reconciling different bodies, interests, and goals.…”

Section: IImentioning

confidence: 99%

In the Air of the Natural History Museum: On Corporate Entanglement and Responsibility in Uncontained Times

Moncrieff

2020

Law Critique

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This paper discusses corporate entanglement, impactfulness and responsibility in the Anthropocene, amidst events and conditions that ‘uncontain’ time. It takes its direction of travel from artist Brian Jungen’s ‘Cetology’ (2002), a whalebone sculpture made out of cut-up plastic garden chairs, which conjoins the times of earth and world history, as it hangs in the air of the art gallery, ‘as if’ exhibited in the natural history museum. The paper relates ‘Cetology’s’ engagement with natural history, time, and commodification to matters of corporate entanglement and responsibility within company law and governance. Problems with understanding the comparable imprint of large and multinational companies on matters, places, and communities are identified, after the domination of corporate legal frameworks over nature and the stability and perfection of economic incentives at law. The reading of this (critical-legal) situation is developed through theory and engagement with materialist and critical thinkers, who unite in their concern with distributed human–nature relations and the ‘concreteness’ that attends collisions in time, ruin and affect. Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno’s writings are central to this analysis, and strengthen the commentary on ‘natural history’ themes curated by Jungen. The paper contemplates how times’ uncontainment might invoke a change in expectation and method for the company law field, assigning contingency to the corporation and provoking a new mode of reflection about corporate entanglement and responsibility at law.

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“…111, 119), and that are created and maintained by pursuing a deeply entrenched predatory paradigm of human mastery. Because the Anthropocene trope essentially dissolves the many pervasive socially constructed hierarchies of privilege, it is now increasingly clear that the entire living order is vulnerable and would require protection and care through social regulatory institutions [72]. Going forward, Earth system law will have to more thoroughly and deliberately embrace the vulnerability concerns of all humans and those of the non-human world.…”

Section: Interdependenciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Earth System Law for the Anthropocene

Kotzé

2019

Sustainability

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Law has failed to address the ever-deepening socio-ecological crisis of the Anthropocene. In the light of, and as a response to, law’s failures in this respect, this paper argues in support of developing a new legal paradigm for the Anthropocene epoch called Earth system law. It does so first by briefly describing the Anthropocene trope and the extent and dimensions of its socio-ecological crisis. The paper then specifically focuses on international environmental law as an example of how and why law has become incapable of, and inappropriate for, addressing this crisis, and for being unable to respond to the Anthropocene’s regulatory demands. By drawing on three Earth system-related regulatory implications of the Anthropocene trope (i.e., inclusivity, interdependencies and complexity), the final part of the paper makes out a case in support of reforming law and creating a new Earth system oriented legal paradigm that is fit for purpose in the Anthropocene epoch.

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Deconstructing Anthropos: A Critical Legal Reflection on ‘Anthropocentric’ Law and Anthropocene ‘Humanity’

Cited by 90 publications

References 34 publications

Legal Imaginaries and the Anthropocene: ‘Of’ and ‘For’

Legal Imaginaries and the Anthropocene: ‘Of’ and ‘For’

In the Air of the Natural History Museum: On Corporate Entanglement and Responsibility in Uncontained Times

Earth System Law for the Anthropocene

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