The Politics of the Anthropocene: Temporality, Ecology, and Indigeneity

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Randazzo ◽  
Hannah Richter
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Indigenous Studies ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Research ◽  
Ecological Changes ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
Critical Social Science ◽  
Indigenous Thought

Abstract The notion of the Anthropocene has become an instrumental backdrop against which post-foundational social theory and political research frame political action in a way that defies modern certainty and, somewhat paradoxically, anthropocentrism, under conditions of drastic ecological changes. But what exactly is the theoretical promise of the Anthropocene? This paper seeks to explore what the concept can offer to critical social science and, conversely, how these critical approaches define and locate the analytical and the political purchase of the Anthropocene, through the critical lens of Indigenous scholarship. The paper genealogically retraces the transition from a science-led, discontinuous-descriptive to a continuous-ontological conceptualization of the Anthropocene. It then unpacks how the notions of ecological relationality and non-human agency deployed in the latter closely parallel certain lines of argumentation in Indigenous thought and politics. Drawing on critical Indigenous studies, the paper formulates a critique of how relational perspectives enfold alternative ontologies and politics within an overarching Anthropocene ontology that is not only problematically universalizing, but also replaces the genuine engagement with differences and resistance.

Political Regime and Economic Actors: The Response of Firms to the End of Colonial Rule

1981 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miles Kahler
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Economic System ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Political Perceptions ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between economic system and political regime has recently reemerged as a central issue in social science. An examination of the political perceptions and actions of individual firms and of sectors during the uncertainties of decolonization permits a new approach to this question, using the concept of political exposure. The firm or sector characteristics that are associated with greater political exposure are assessed. Political preferences cannot be equated with either political action or outcomes, however. The links between capitalism and political regime require further refinement and qualification.

Toward a critical theory of globalization

2004 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Bohman
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Social ◽  
Practical Synthesis ◽  
Social Distribution

One of the central ideas of both Critical Theory social theory and of pragmatist theories of knowledge is that epistemic and normative claims are embedded in some practical context. This “practical turn” of epistemology is especially relevant to the social sciences, whose main practical contribution, according to pragmatism, is to supply methods for identifying and solving problems. The problem of realizing the democratic ideal under modern social conditions is not only an instance of pragmatist inspired social science, pragmatists would also argue that it is the political context for practical inquiry today, now all the more pressing with the political problems of globalization. Despite weaknesses in the pragmatist idea of social science as the reflexive practical knowledge of praxis, a pragmatic interpretation of critical social inquiry is the best way to develop such practical knowledge in a distinctly critical or democratic manner. That is, the accent shifts from the epistemic superiority of the social scientist as expert to something based on the wider social distribution of relevant practical knowledge; the missing term for such a practical synthesis is what I call “multiperspectival theory.” As an example of this sort of practical inquiry, I discuss democratic experiments involving “minipublics” and argue that they can help us think about democracy in new, transnational contexts.

scholarly journals Growing Appetites and Hungry Subjects: Addicts, the Undead, and the Long Arc of Theory in Western Social Science

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-133
Author(s):  
A. Jamie Saris
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Need Satisfaction ◽  
Western Society ◽  
The Political ◽  
Philosophical Idea ◽  
Technological Complexity ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Economic

Abstract This paper explores the Western philosophical idea of “appetites” through the lens of “addiction.” I begin with a brief ethnographic description of a woman whose subjectivity seems to emerge only in the play of her unmanageable desire for various pharmaceuticals. In other words, she is a self-described “addict.” I then look at the relationships between addicts and the undead, especially vampires and zombies, who are seemingly enslaved to their appetites. This leads me to an analysis of the centrality of what I am calling “recursive need satisfaction” in much of Western (especially Anglophone and Francophone) Social Theory that, I argue, relies on a particular understanding of “appetite” in establishing the political-economic subjectivity that lies at the heart of market-oriented state. This same understanding also pushes this formation in a specific historical direction of increasing growth and organisational and technological complexity. As a globalised Western society in the last few decades has become ever more anxious of its place in the world, its impact on various interdependent systems, and the validity of the grand récits that served as its charter, such growth and complexity have emerged as objects of anxiety, even apocalyptic fear, and the terms “addict” and “addiction” have seemed ever more useful for modelling these concerns. I end with some reflections on how we use both zombies and addicts to think through some of the same issues of unchecked and damaging consumption.

Pillars in the works of Loïc Wacquant

Thesis Eleven ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 137 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristian Nagel Delica ◽  
Christian Sandbjerg Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Political Sociology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Dual Form ◽  
Critical Social Science ◽  
Professional Specialty ◽  
Constant Practice ◽  
Critical Social

The critical and polemic receptions of the work of Loïc Wacquant has been extensive, but to a large extent focused on specific works and colored by professional specialty, that is, in a word: fragmented. In counteracting that fragmented response, the article sheds light on the undercurrents in Wacquant’s works by stressing four prominent and consistent features: his heritage from (and updating of) Bourdieu; his emphasis on and constant practice of theory (implicit as well as explicit); the distinct ethos with which he addresses political sociology (in the dual form of a sociology analyzing the effects of the political productions of populations categories and a so-called ‘civic sociology’); and finally, the persistent and ubiquitous critique of everything in existence – a thematic indicator permeating each and every one of his works. Thus the article proposes a unifying reading of Wacquant as an interpretation advocating revitalization of a critical social science.

scholarly journals Das Waldsterben in der Informationsgesellschaft : zur Anwendung der sprachpragmatischen Handlungstheorie in Sozialgeographie und Humanökologie

1998 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 60-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Zierhofer
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Forest Decline ◽  
Action Theory ◽  
Social Geography ◽  
The Political ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
Conceptual Frameworks ◽  
Theory Of Structuration ◽  
Critical Social Science

Abstract. Since the eighties action theory and theory of structuration have increasingly been accepted as basic conceptual frameworks for social geography. This article contnbutes to this debate by demonstrating the potential of a certain variant of action theory (see ZIERHOFER 1997) for empirical re search. First the author sets out in detail how this "language pragmatics approach" has been applied in a research pro ject on the processing of "Waldsterben" (forest decline, litterally: dying forest) in science and mass media (ZIERHOFER 1998). He shows in particular in what ways the empirical ana lysis is guided by a specific reference to the normative di mension of interactions, and he discusses the possibilities of a critical social science that are provided by such an approach. Finally,he argues that particularly in the first few years of the debate on "Waldsterben" neither forestry science nor mass media met those Standards of critical-reflexive processing of informations that guarantee the political sovereignity of Citizens.

“We Speak the Truth!”

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-80
Author(s):  
Sari Hanafi
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Social Science ◽  
The Political ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
The Social ◽  
Academic Qualifications

This study investigates the preachers and their Friday sermons in Lebanon, raising the following questions: What are the profiles of preachers in Lebanon and their academic qualifications? What are the topics evoked in their sermons? In instances where they diagnosis and analyze the political and the social, what kind of arguments are used to persuade their audiences? What kind of contact do they have with the social sciences? It draws on forty-two semi-structured interviews with preachers and content analysis of 210 preachers’ Friday sermons, all conducted between 2012 and 2015 among Sunni and Shia mosques. Drawing from Max Weber’s typology, the analysis of Friday sermons shows that most of the preachers represent both the saint and the traditional, but rarely the scholar. While they are dealing extensively with political and social phenomena, rarely do they have knowledge of social science

Between the Social and the Political

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 90-98
Author(s):  
Pia Rowe ◽  
David Marsh
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The Political ◽  
Conventional Theory ◽  
Important Relationship ◽  
The Social ◽  
Action Language

While Wood and Flinders’ work to broaden the scope of what counts as “politics” in political science is a needed adjustment to conventional theory, it skirts an important relationship between society, the protopolitical sphere, and arena politics. We contend, in particular, that the language of everyday people articulates tensions in society, that such tensions are particularly observable online, and that this language can constitute the beginning of political action. Language can be protopolitical and should, therefore, be included in the authors’ revised theory of what counts as political participation.

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