Haciendo más salvaje el Antropoceno : rewilding y domesticación

Cada vez resuena con más fuerza la propuesta de designar nuestra época como la del "Antropoceno". Se destaca así el creciente papel de Homo sapiens en la transformación del planeta a escala global, como si de una fuerza geológica se tratara. Hay quienes saludan esta situación, pues conciben la relación de nuestra especie con la naturaleza como un combate, cuyo resultado debe ser la domesticación completa de Gaia (y acaso nuestra propia auto-domesticación) gracias a los avances tecnológicos. Otros, por contra, desean hacer más salvaje nuestro entorno y a nosotros mismos mediante la aplicación intensiva de programas de lo que se conoce como "rewilding". Como telón de fondo, detectamos el conflicto creciente entre visiones humanistas y transhumanistas. Mi objetivo principal en este trabajo es el de sugerir una convivencia pacífica de domesticación y rewilding con el fin de poder encarar los gravísimos problemas que vienen de la mano del Antropoceno.There is increasing support for a proposal to designate our age as the "Anthropocene". It highlights the growing role of Homo sapiens in the transformation of the planet on a global scale, as if human actions were a geological force. There are those who embrace this situation, because they conceive the relationship of our species with nature as a combat, the result of which must be the complete domestication of Gaia (and perhaps our own self-domestication) through technological advances. However, others want to make our surroundings and ourselves more savage through intensive "rewilding" programs. In the background is a growing conflict between humanist and transhumanist visions. My main objective in this work is to suggest a peaceful coexistence of domestication and rewilding in order to face the very serious problems that are coming with the Anthropocene

Animals in Our Midst: The Challenges of Co-existing with Animals in the Anthropocene

This Open Access book brings together authoritative voices in animal and environmental ethics, who address the many different facets of changing human-animal relationships in the Anthropocene. As we are living in complex times, the issue of how to establish meaningful relationships with other animals under Anthropocene conditions needs to be approached from a multitude of angles. This book offers the reader insight into the different discussions that exist around the topics of how we should understand animal agency, how we could take animal agency seriously in farms, urban areas and the wild, and what technologies are appropriate and morally desirable to use regarding animals. This book is of interest to both animal studies scholars and environmental ethics scholars, as well as to practitioners working with animals, such as wildlife managers, zookeepers, and conservation biologists

Para além do controle: estratégias para a agência do design no Antropoceno

This thesis provides a moral appeal. It sets out to inspire makers, doers and thinkers to strategically act, beyond control, in knocking at the door of socio-ecological crisis in Anthropocene. What is the role of design in the Anthropocene? What kind of ethical principles can be considered? And what does this imply for ‘response-able’ practices? These questions bind together the non-linear assemblage that this thesis is. Action, reflection, problem and solution are interdependent and unfold together, like the petals of a blooming rose. Complexity may be absorbed with honesty rather than with confidence. The voice in this thesis is an ‘I’, and ‘I’ am an ecological constructivist. The grounds for ecological constructivism are inter-personal or rather inter-actor relationships. Places, objects, processes and organisms are seen as entangled entities and are approached with a ‘tentacular’ sensitivity: the humanities’ object of study is no longer ‘man.’ Research and researcher, life and the living, site and situation are inevitably interwoven. Every ‘thing’ and every ‘action’ are data. The data is collected through a personal, subjective lens combining design practice with theory. It is assumed that when carried out trough time, with honesty and integrity, research (about, through and for design) can bring us closer to morphs of truth. With a creative hunch, I collect clues as a hunter-gather. By coding, categorizing and interpreting like a detective, with frames such as ‘entanglement’, ‘submergence’ and ‘contamination’ the research employs the method of abduction to develop constructs and theories. These are then used to build the argument for seven moral pleas meant as persuasions: normative aspirations for design agency in the Anthropocene. Design actions may focus on themes such as: unfolding together; responding beyond control; loving our monsters; an obligation to disobedience; form follows potential and being into Anthropocene fiction. The journey then concludes with a re-enchantment of decency towards all that matters, an animistic approach with pragmatic logic that sees the wellbeing of humans, animals and environments as deeply connected. Human interventions would preferably set out to enable autonomous ‘sympoeitic’ stewardship of the planet by including intentions for the unintentional. The implications of this research are related to context and method. A recursive use of a myriad of methodologies, playing their role at different moments of the research, may have given completely different results in another context, which may not appeal to all researchers. Eventually the exploratory, rather than explanatory nature of this research, revealed one thing: the main aim is not to achieve results, but to create a stage on which many perspectives can unfold: the result is that results are not all that counts. Attitude, rather than telos, lies at the heart of design agency beyond control.Esta tese oferece um apelo moral. Tem como objetivo inspirar os criadores, realizadores e pensadores a agirem estrategicamente, além do controle, batendo à porta da crise socioecológica no Antropoceno. Qual é o papel do design no Antropoceno? Que tipo de princípios éticos podem ser considerados? E o que isso significa para práticas "capazes de responder"? Essas questões a não linearidade metodológica desta tese. Ação, reflexão, problema e solução são interdependentes e desdobram-se juntos, como as pétalas de uma rosa desabrochando. A complexidade pode ser absorvida com honestidade e não com confiança. A voz nesta tese é um 'eu' e 'eu' sou um construtivista ecológico. As bases para o construtivismo ecológico são as relações interpessoais, ou melhor, entre os atores. Lugares, objetos, processos e organismos são vistos como entidades entrosadas e são abordadas com uma sensibilidade 'tentacular': o objeto de estudo das humanidades não é mais 'homem'. Pesquisa e pesquisador, vida e vivência, local e situação estão inevitavelmente entrelaçados. Cada "coisa" e cada "ação" são dados. Os dados são coletados por meio de lentes subjetivas e pessoais, combinando a prática do design com a teoria. Presume-se que, quando realizada ao longo do tempo, com honestidade e integridade, a investigação (sobre, por meio de, e, para design) pode aproximar-nos de formas de verdade. Com um palpite criativo, coleto pistas como um caçador-coletor. Ao codificar, categorizar e interpretar como um detetive, com quadros como "entrosamento", "submersão" e "contaminação", a pesquisa emprega o método de abdução para desenvolver construções e teorias. Estas são então usadas para construir o argumento para os sete fundamentos morais significados como persuasões: aspirações normativas para agência de design no Antropoceno. As ações de design podem concentrar-se em temas como: desdobramento conjunto; respondendo além do controle; amar nossos monstros; uma obrigação de desobediência; a forma segue o potencial e o ser (existência) na ficção do Antropoceno. A viagem então termina com um reencantamento da decência em relação a tudo o que importa, uma abordagem animista com uma lógica pragmática que vê o bem-estar de humanos, animais e ambientes profundamente conectados. Intervenções humanas seriam preferencialmente estabelecidas para permitir a administração "simpoeítica" autónoma do planeta, incluindo as intenções para o não ntencional. As implicações desta investigação estão relacionadas com o contexto e com o método. O uso recursivo de uma miríade de metodologias, desempenhando o seu papel em diferentes momentos da investigação, poderá dar resultados diferentes em outros contextos, o que poderá não ser consensual na comunidade científica. Por fim, o caráter exploratório, ao invés de explicativo, desta investigação revelou que o objetivo principal não é alcançar resultados, mas criar um palco no qual muitas perspetivas possam desdobrar-se: o resultado é que os resultados não são tudo o que conta em investigação mas a jornada é em si também um aspeto importante. Atitude, ao invés de perseguir um fim (telos), está na essência de design agency consciente da impossibilidade de controle.Programa Doutoral em Desig

Ecotopia rising: an ecocritical analysis of radical environmental activists as ecotopian expressions amid Anthropocene decline

The current socio-ecological crisis that marks the Anthropocene era of extensive human impacts on natural systems, exhibited most starkly by the predicted loss of 67% of monitored vertebrate species by 2020 and anthropogenic climatic perturbations, suggests a multifariously distorted human-nature relationship that is in need of radical reconstitution. Radical environmental activists (REA’s) from groups such as the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and EarthFirst! have arisen in response to the intrusion of socio-ecological breakdown into the ‘Now’ that marks the Anthropocene, fervently mobilising against the status quo of late capitalism and calling for fundamental transformations in the human-animal-nature relationship. This project employs the analytical lens of utopian and critical posthuman theory - which both variedly seek to critique oppressive and exploitative structures and modes of thought and explore more ethical modes of relationality - in order to critically assess the ecological sensibilities, diagnostic framing narratives, and ecotopian potentialities of radical environmental activists. The project draws on data in the form of 26 semi-structured interviews with radical environmental activists from a variety of groups, organizational documents and supplementary excerpts from canonical ecotopian literary texts for a thorough understanding of contemporary empirical manifestations of ecotopianism. An ecocritical-thematic analytical framework is utilized in order to assess the nature of REA ecotopianism, in particular how they as well as ecotopian texts posit and engage with the non-human ‘other’, and how they relate to central utopian concepts such as hope and futurity. REA’s exhibit post-anthropocentric sensibilities that disavow the ontological centrality of the ‘human’ and call for extending bounds of ethical consideration to include all life and even non-living entities, although at times they fail to deconstruct and occasionally reproduce hierarchical and dualistic constructs of human-animal-nature relationality. REA’s largely exhibit a critical and terrestrial modality of ecotopianism that seeks to dismantle growth and profit-oriented capitalist systems and enact more liveable worlds within the ‘here and now’. Their transfigured relations to hope and futurity are in part a reflection of the pervasiveness of loss and ecological disintegration amid the present. Yet, while evincing a deep post-modern aversion to complete closure around desired alternatives, they nevertheless gesture towards more liveable worlds and express a desire for a future-to-come devoid of the widespread loss of cherished Earth kin. The extant widescale severing of cherished kinship bonds to Earth others engenders a critical modality of hope amidst REA’s wherein grief over loss serves as fuel for their continued strivings against Anthropocene decline and towards more abundant worlds

Better: navigating imaginaries in design and synthetic biology to question 'better'

Designers, engineers, marketers, politicians, and scientists all craft motivating visions of better futures. In some of these, “better” will be delivered by science and technology; in others, the consumption of designed things will better us or the world. “Better” has become a contemporary version of progress, shed of some of its philosophical baggage. But better is not a universal good or a verified measure: it is imbued with politics and values. And better will not be delivered equally, if at all. “What is better?”, “Whose better?”, and “Who decides?” are questions with great implications for the way we live and hope to live. At a time when social, economic, and environmental conditions place in question the dominant paradigms of better defined by globalisation and technology, Better, a PhD by project, investigates some of the powerful dreams triggered by a banal word and develops critical design techniques to find new ways to ask better questions. This thesis contends that the “dream of better” is so influential in advanced technological societies that it is what science and technology studies scholars term a sociotechnical imaginary. The imaginary is used as a critical design tool to examine better, revealing links between design and the emerging technoscience of synthetic biology and other ideological spaces, like Silicon Valley. As a young field, synthetic biology offers a space to test and expand critical design’s potential. The practical research includes six critical design projects that engage with synthetic biology and its vision-making processes, using techniques from designed fictions to curation. The written thesis comprises six chapters informed throughout by commentary on the practice. The first chapter looks at the influence of dominant concepts of better on design, separating design’s intrinsic optimism from engineering and market-led ideas of the optimum and optimisation. It situates critical design practice as an optimistic activity, seeking alternative meanings of better. The next three chapters track how the imaginary of better has shaped synthetic biology and the field’s evolving culture of design. Meanings of better have proliferated since 1999, as synthetic biology’s visionaries promise to better biology, better the world, and even to better nature itself. But resistance has revealed the existence of alternative betters. Chapter Five explores critical design’s examination of synthetic biology’s dreams of betters. Recognising the mutual colonisation of critical design and synthetic biology, which is contributing to the emerging platform of biodesign, the chapter discusses how navigating imaginaries can improve future critical practice. It encourages framing technoscience within society, rather than placing society downstream of it. Chapter Six proposes that the social imaginary itself can be a critical design object. Designing “critical imaginaries” can open up our understanding of better, offering a process to reimagine the world. The critical imaginary is not a utopian effort to produce prescriptive visions of how the world ought to be. It is a heterotopian design technique to include diverse views and generate worlds that could be made, asking “what ought the world to be?

Bearing Witness

This open access book is the biography of one of Britain’s foremost animal welfare campaigners and of the world of activism, science, and politics she inhabited. In 1964, Ruth Harrison’s bestseller Animal Machines triggered a gear change in modern animal protection by popularising the term ‘factory farming’ alongside a new way of thinking about animal welfare. Here, historian Claas Kirchhelle explores Harrison’s avant-garde upbringing, Quakerism, and how animal welfare debates were linked to concerns about the wider ethical and environmental trajectories of post-war Britain. Breaking the myth of Harrison as a one-hit wonder, Kirchhelle reconstructs Harrison’s 46 years of campaigning and the rapid transformation of welfare politics and science during this time. Exacerbated by Harrison’s own actions, the decades after 1964 saw a polarisation of animal politics, a professionalisation of British activism, and the rise of a new animal welfare science. Harrison’s belief in incremental reform allowed her to form ties to leading scientists but alienated her from more radical campaigners. Many of her 1964 demands gradually became part of mainstream politics. However, farm animal welfare’s increasing marketisation has also led to a relative divorce from the wider agenda of social improvement that Harrison once bore witness to. This is the first book to cast light on the interlinked histories of British farm animal welfare activism, science, and legislation. Its unique scope allows it to go beyond existing accounts of modern British animal welfare and will be of interest to those interested in animal welfare, environmentalism, and the behavioural sciences

What People Leave Behind

This open access book focuses on a particular but significant topic in the social sciences: the concepts of “footprint” and “trace”. It associates these concepts with hotly debated topics such as surveillance capitalism and knowledge society. The editors and authors discuss the concept footprints and traces as unintended by-products of other (differently focused and oriented) actions that remain empirically imprinted in virtual and real spaces. The volume therefore opens new scenarios for social theory and applied social research in asking what the stakes, risks and potential of this approach are. It systematically raises and addresses these questions within a consistent framework, bringing together a heterogeneous group of international social scientists. Given the multifaceted objectives involved in exploring footprints and traces, the volume discusses heuristic aspects and ethical dimensions, scientific analyses and political considerations, empirical perspectives and theoretical foundations. At the same time, it brings together perspectives from cultural analysis and social theory, communication and Internet studies, big-data informed research and computational social science. This innovative volume is of interest to a broad interdisciplinary readership: sociologists, communication researchers, Internet scholars, anthropologists, cognitive and behavioral scientists, historians, and epistemologists, among others

What People Leave Behind

This open access book focuses on a particular but significant topic in the social sciences: the concepts of “footprint” and “trace”. It associates these concepts with hotly debated topics such as surveillance capitalism and knowledge society. The editors and authors discuss the concept footprints and traces as unintended by-products of other (differently focused and oriented) actions that remain empirically imprinted in virtual and real spaces. The volume therefore opens new scenarios for social theory and applied social research in asking what the stakes, risks and potential of this approach are. It systematically raises and addresses these questions within a consistent framework, bringing together a heterogeneous group of international social scientists. Given the multifaceted objectives involved in exploring footprints and traces, the volume discusses heuristic aspects and ethical dimensions, scientific analyses and political considerations, empirical perspectives and theoretical foundations. At the same time, it brings together perspectives from cultural analysis and social theory, communication and Internet studies, big-data informed research and computational social science. This innovative volume is of interest to a broad interdisciplinary readership: sociologists, communication researchers, Internet scholars, anthropologists, cognitive and behavioral scientists, historians, and epistemologists, among others