From persons and their acts to webs of relationships: some theoretical resources for environmental justice

Abstract

Naming the “Anthropocene” as the spatiotemporality in which we live is a theoretical action that resonates with two separate traditions that can, for a limited purpose, be brought into relation with one another. The first is that identified with Foucault’s work, which is anti-humanist in a post-structuralist manner. The second is a set of ideas and resources for thought and action developed by indigenous peoples, namely “indigenous legal traditions”, which are anti-humanist in a different way. I argue here that since both of these intellectual traditions begin by de-centering the classic liberal subject, and even de-centering “man”, they have some affinities. In both perspectives, action is seen as a feature of webs of relationships, rather than as the willed acts of the classic European “person”. Thus, borrowing from both of these could help to elaborate a framework for thinking about responsibility, action, and governance that does not reproduce the very anthropocentrism that underpinned the destructive exploitation of the environment.