Reinstituting Nature: A Latourian Workshop

Debaise, Didier; Jensen, Pablo; Montebello, Matthew; Prignot, Nicolas; Stengers, Isabelle; Wiame, Aline

doi:10.1215/22011919-3615943

Cited by 10 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…Anthropos) into "the masters and possessors of nature." 6 Anthropos' motivations for socio-ecological transformation were not solely profit-driven but entailed a broader effort to order socio-ecological sites according to modern capitalist cosmology (Bauman, 2007;Debaise et al, 2015;Latour, 2010;O'Gorman & van Dooren, 2017;Plumwood, 1993;Scott, 1998;Serres, 1998). However, the chief objective of this reality-remaking endeavour is to make what and who is classified as "human" (hence, belonging to "society", or "culture") and what is relegated to the realm of "Nature", work at the lowest possible cost for capital generation and circulation.…”

Section: Halyomorpha Halys' First Lesson: Species Become Pests Becaus...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Pestering capitalism: thinking with Halyomorpha halys about multispecies relations and ecological unsustainability

Aldeia

2022

Journal of Political Ecology

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Many non-human species trouble human-oriented forms of multispecies life, which leads to classifying some of these species as pests. One of the fields of daily life most disturbed by the action of pests is modern capitalist agriculture, leading to different types of pest management by which human beings attempt to eliminate pests’ opposition to the anthropogenic appropriation of the work/energy of multispecies assemblages, an appropriation which is essential for capital circulation. In dominant modern capitalist cosmologies, the disturbances caused by pests automatically justify and require their attempted extermination. Without denying that pests are troubling, I argue that the technoscientific framing of our relationship with these species is insufficient as a way of understanding and interacting with them. Rather than exclusively seeing pests as a problem, the manner in which humans interact with these species points us to several foundational - and in themselves problematic – aspects of modern capitalist world-ecology. Taking my research on networks concerned with kiwifruit farming and commercialization in Portugal as a basis for my arguments, I look at how actors in these networks propose to deal with Halyomorpha halys, the brown marmorated stink bug, in an attempt to think with this species about the (inextricably connected) socio-ecological unsustainability of modern capitalist world-ecology and the bio-thanato-political strategies of immunization employed to deal with non-human species in this political ecological system.

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Section: Halyomorpha Halys' First Lesson: Species Become Pests Becaus...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Pestering capitalism: thinking with Halyomorpha halys about multispecies relations and ecological unsustainability

Aldeia

2022

Journal of Political Ecology

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“…In the same manner, nature's essence is unchangeable. The modern project of dominion of nature (Plumwood, 1993 ; Scott, 1998 ; Serres, 1998 ; Latour, 2010 ; Debaise et al, 2015 ) operates around the idea of taming nature, of molding it to humanity's wishes (or rather to the wishes of some members of humanity). In this fashion, Western modern human action is able to reshape nature's appearance, to cut down trees, to relocate animals and plants, to make water change its course, to hollow out nature by extracting what lies within it, to disrupt its homeostatic equilibriums.…”

Section: Questioning Naturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such a sociology most definitely does not study the dynamic and heterogeneous interrelations between different things of and in the world, it does not highlight how these temporally and spatially specific interconnections between human and extra-human life-elements are precisely the processes by which worlds and those who live in them are collectively enacted. In short, it does not address the various forms of creating certain space-time specific arrangements of life, i.e., of creating contingent and precarious realities and of distributing their component elements in them by processes of categorization as human and other-than-human (Law, 2004 ; Latour, 2007 , 2010 ; Debaise et al, 2015 ; Haraway, 2016 ; Moore, 2016b ).…”

Section: Nature Becomes the Environment Of The Humanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Against the Environment. Problems in Society/Nature Relations

Aldeia

Alvés

2019

Front. Sociol.

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The dominant manners in which environmental issues have been framed by sociology are deeply problematic. Environmental sociology is still firmly rooted in the Cartesian separation of Society and Nature. This separation is one of the epistemic foundations of Western modernity-one which is inextricably linked to its capitalist, colonial, and patriarchal dimensions. This societal model reifies both humanity and nature as entities that exist in an undeniably anthropocentric cosmos in which the former is the only true actor. Anthropos makes himself and the world around him. He conquers, masters, and appropriates the non-human, turning it into the mere environment of his existence, there solely for his use. If sociology remains trapped in this paradigm it continues to be blind to the multiple space-time specific interrelations of life-elements through which heterogeneous and contingent ontologies of humans and extra-humans are enacted. If these processes of interconnection are not given due attention, the socioecological worlds in which we-human as well as others-live cannot be adequately understood. But misunderstandings are not the only issue at stake. When dealing with life-or-death phenomena such as climate change, to remain trapped inside the Society/Nature divide is to be fundamentally unable to contribute to world reenactments that do not oppress-or, potentially, extinguish-life, both human and extra-human. From the inside of Anthropos' relation to his environment the only way of conceiving current socioecological problems is by framing them in terms of an environmental crisis which could, hypothetically, be solved by the very same societal model that created it. But if the transformation of some of the world(s)' life-elements into the environment of the Human is part of the problem, then, socioecological issues cannot be adequately understood or addressed if they are framed as an environmental crisis. Instead, these problems need to be conceived as a crisis of Western modernity itself and of the kind of worlds that are possible and impossible to build within it.

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“…Les insectes ne sont pas indifférents à nos questions : « Nous traitons avec des êtres pour qui la situation à laquelle ils sont confrontés compte. » (Debaise et al 2015, Stengers 2011). On verra ce que l'insecte, cette entité parfois insaisissable, « fait à l'oeuvre », non du point de vue des infestations ou de la biodégradation des objets, mais en termes d'innovation des pratiques de préservation muséale : la taille de l'insecte construit-elle le corps de la menace ?…”

Section: Instabilités D'échellesunclassified

L’insecte à l’œuvre

Beltrame¹

2017

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Reinstituting Nature: A Latourian Workshop

Cited by 10 publications

References 1 publication

Pestering capitalism: thinking with Halyomorpha halys about multispecies relations and ecological unsustainability

Pestering capitalism: thinking with Halyomorpha halys about multispecies relations and ecological unsustainability

Against the Environment. Problems in Society/Nature Relations

L’insecte à l’œuvre

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