Rethinking Relating in the Anthropocene

This book explores the idea of the urgency and difficulty of relating across differences, and is located at the intersection of ethics, political philosophy and ecological thought. Offering a model of relating across diversity, it develops this it into an understanding of politics, before showing how this conception can be applied to thinking about politics in times of the anthropogenic planetary crisis (often referred to as ‘the Anthropocene’), when other-than-human beings become increasingly relevant to politics. As such, the book is guided by the question of what the urgency and difficulty of communicating across human differences means for the possibility of relating to other-than-human beings. The author also introduces a set of complementary concepts including wonder, reflective judgment, the world, the environment and heterotopia. As the book develops this network of categories, it draws on the contemporary and recent works of such authors as Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault, Jeremy Bendik-Keymer, Malcom Ferdinand and Steven Vogel. It will appeal to students and research in philosophy, political science and sociology with interest in the planetary crisis and Anthropocene.