Disrupting Anthropocentrism Through Relationality

Anthropocentrism, Ecocentrism and Hunter-Gatherer Societies: A Strong Structurationist Approach to Values and Environmental Change

“…More recent articulations of the anthropocentrism thesis (e.g. Kopnina et al 2018;McGregor et al 2020;Reddekop and Trownsell 2021;Taylor et al 2020;Washington 2018) continue to draw on the association between the values of hunter-gatherer peoples and ecological sustainability. For example, Haydn Washington et al state, 'We believe that ecocentrism, through its recognition of humanity's duties towards nature, is central to solving our unprecedented environmental crisis' (Washington et al 2017: 39).…”

Alternative Global Entanglements: ‘Detachment from Knowledge’ and the Limits of Decolonial Emancipation

“…For instance, while 'green' emancipatory takes on politics have been advanced, 142 a common thread running through these works is the idea that a more attuned focus on environmental concerns might potentially 'emancipate' human and non-humans from degradation and subjugation, thus reinforcing the hierarchical and anthropocentric idea that humans alone can and should be masters of nature for their own sake. 143 Yet, beyond this basic anthropocentric premise, I subscribe to a conception of anthropocentrism that simultaneously includes its effects, for as it has been argued, 'anthropocentrism can also be understood as to constitute and compound the species boundary of politics in ways that bear negatively on both human life and nonhuman life'. 144 In this respect, rather than denying the ongoing environmental degradation, what I point out here is that such views do not compel us to question our own existential suppositions and in turn do not disrupt such overly rational and universalising emancipatory drive through which interhuman relations are given priority as the standard of other types of relations.…”