Showing papers in "European Journal of Social Theory in 2015"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the task of understanding and analysing car dependence, using this as a case through which to introduce and explore what we take to be central but underdeveloped questions about how infrastructures and complexes of social practice connect across space and time.
Abstract: Problems of climate change present new challenges for social theory. In this paper we focus on the task of understanding and analysing car dependence, using this as a case through which to introduce and explore what we take to be central but underdeveloped questions about how infrastructures and complexes of social practice connect across space and time. In taking this approach we work with the proposition that forms of energy consumption, including those associated with automobility, are usefully understood as outcomes of interconnected patterns of social practices, including working, shopping, visiting friends and family, going to school and so forth. We also acknowledge that social practices are partly constituted by, and always embedded in material arrangements. Linking these two features together we suggest that forms of car-dependence emerge through the intersection of infrastructural arrangements that are integral to the conduct of many practices at once. We consequently explore the significance of professional – and not only ‘ordinary’ – practices, especially those of planners and designers who are involved in reconfiguring infrastructures of different scales, and in the practice dynamics that follow.
193 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that vehicles, roads and routes merit a much more central place in theorizations of migration politics, and they develop a concept of viapolitics as a contribution to literatures on migration, mobilities and power.
Abstract: This article argues that vehicles, roads and routes merit a much more central place in theorizations of migration politics. This argument is developed in terms of three theses. First, the study of migration politics should examine how vehicles feature in the public mediation of migration and border controversies. Second, it is important to analyze vehicles as mobile sites of power and contestation in their own right. Third, an understanding of the materiality of transportation helps to explain how the vehicle can sometimes become a site of strategic political action. These arguments are in turn used to develop a concept of viapolitics as a contribution to literatures on migration, mobilities and power. Viapolitics orients us to see migration from the middle, that is, from the angle of the vehicle and not just the state. It also seeks to connect migration studies to the history of problematizations, cultural types and the mythopoetics of the road.
95 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the main contributions and limitations of the theory of reflexivity of Margaret Archer are discussed, focusing on the main contribution and limitation of Archer's approach, as well as the dimensions necessary for a more complex and multi-dimensional study of the concept, such as social origins, family socialization, processes of internalization of exteriority, the role of other structure mediation mechanisms and the persistence of social reproduction.
Abstract: Margaret Archer plays a leading role in the sociological analysis of the relation between structure and agency, and particularly in the study of reflexivity. The main aim of this article is to discuss her approach, focusing on the main contributions and limitations of Archer’s theory of reflexivity. It is argued that even though her research is a pioneering one, proposing an operationalization of the concept of reflexivity in view of its empirical implementation, it also minimizes crucial social factors and the dimensions necessary for a more complex and multi-dimensional study of the concept, such as social origins, family socialization, processes of internalization of exteriority, the role of other structure–agency mediation mechanisms and the persistence of social reproduction.
93 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the mythical nature of transparency from this perspective, explain its social-historical underpinnings and discuss its influence on contemporary organizations, and theorize in a more general sense about the relationship between myth, as a foundational understanding and description of the world, and the constellation of metaphors, as specific ways of framing and seeing organizational reality, to which it gives rise.
Abstract: Transparency has achieved a mythical status in society. Myths are not false accounts or understandings, but deep-seated and definitive descriptions of the world that ontologically ground the ways in which we frame and see the world around us. We explore the mythical nature of transparency from this perspective, explain its social-historical underpinnings and discuss its influence on contemporary organizations. In doing so, we also theorize in a more general sense about the relationship between myth, as a foundational understanding and description of the world, and the constellation of metaphors, as specific ways of framing and seeing organizational reality, to which it gives rise. While observations and evidence can always be adduced to challenge a particular set of metaphors, the endogenous force of the myth may sustain the overall project. This process is explained with a detailed analysis of the transparency myth.
93 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the administrative ecology in between the two extremes of inclusion and exclusion, arguing that information technologies encourage the emergence of an intermediary category of "non-publics" situated between the level of groups and level of individuals.
Abstract: Social sorting of migrants and travellers based on data stored in information systems is at the centre of border controls and mobility management in Europe. Recent literature finds that the inclusion-exclusion distinction is insufficiently equipped to do justice to the variety of classifications that is being applied. Instead, a proliferation of refined categorizations determines the outcome of visa and permit applications. This article explores the ‘administrative ecology’ in between the two extremes of inclusion and exclusion. It claims information technologies encourage the emergence of an intermediary category of ‘non-publics’ situated between the level of groups and the level of individuals. The ontological and normative status of these ‘non-publics’ will be analysed by using some key notions of Actor-Network Theory.
86 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a special issue of the European Journal of Social Theory investigates the phenomenon of transparency, including the spectacle that accompanies transparency projects launched by contemporary organizations and institutions, be they public, private or inbetweens.
Abstract: This special issue of the European Journal of Social Theory investigates the phenomenon of transparency, including the spectacle that accompanies transparency projects launched by contemporary organizations and institutions, be they public, private or inbetweens. The title ‘Logics of transparency in late modernity: paradoxes, mediation and governance’ alludes to the historicity of the transparency ideal, its paradoxes, forms of mediation and governing potentials. Within and across the five articles included in this volume we address questions such as the following: What is the historical and epistemological background to contemporary preoccupations with transparency? What is the role of the media and knowledge processes in the production of transparency? What kinds of politics are involved in the concerted focus on transparency? And, more generally, how can we theorize the current manifestations, potentialities and limits of transparency? Our endeavor is largely conceptual and comes with a normative challenge, which is important to address upfront. Many contemporary societal projects, ranging from the democratization of governments and organizations to the promotion and implementation of corporate social responsibility initiatives, generally assume that transparency can effectively steer individual and collective behavior towards desirable objectives. These objectives include holding elected or appointed public officers accountable, and making
75 citations
TL;DR: The authors argued that transparency is best understood as a theory of communication that excessively simplifies and thus is blind to the complexities of the contemporary state, government information, and the public, and that taking them fully into account, the article argues, should lead us to question the state's ability to control information, which in turn should make us question not only the improbability of the state making itself visible, but also the impossibility of making it visible.
Abstract: Transparency’s importance as an administrative norm seems self-evident. Prevailing ideals of political theory stipulate that the more visible government is, the more democratic, accountable, and legitimate it appears. The disclosure of state information consistently disappoints, however: there is never enough of it, while it often seems not to produce a truer democracy, a more accountable state, better policies, and a more contented populace. This gap between theory and practice suggests that the theoretical assumptions that provide the basis for transparency are wrong. This article argues that transparency is best understood as a theory of communication that excessively simplifies and thus is blind to the complexities of the contemporary state, government information, and the public. Taking them fully into account, the article argues, should lead us to question the state’s ability to control information, which in turn should make us question not only the improbability of the state making itself visible, ...
71 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that transparency efforts involve much more than the provision of information and other forms of "sunlight" and are rather a matter of managing visibilities than providing insight and clarity.
Abstract: While we witness a growing belief in transparency as an ideal solution to a wide range of societal problems, we know less about the practical workings of transparency as it guides conduct in organizational and regulatory settings. This article argues that transparency efforts involve much more than the provision of information and other forms of ‘sunlight’, and are rather a matter of managing visibilities than providing insight and clarity. Building on actor-network theory and Foucauldian governmentality studies, it calls for careful attention to the ways in which transparency ideals are translated into more situated practices and become associated with specific organizational and regulatory concerns. The article conceptualizes transparency as a force that shapes conduct in organizational and socio-political domains. In the second section, this conceptualization of transparency as a form of ‘ordering’ is substantiated further by using illustrations of the effects of transparency efforts in the internet do...
70 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the forms of transparency and risk in the context of numbers, media and surveillance studies, and theories of governance and risk, are analyzed in terms of the history and sociology of numbers.
Abstract: Building on conceptual insights from the history and sociology of numbers, media and surveillance studies, and theories of governance and risk, this article analyzes the forms of transparency produ...
57 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the implications of responsibilization, outsourcing, and commodification on the contract of representational democracy and ask if there are other forms of transparency that might better resist neoliberal formations and re-politicize the public subject.
Abstract: Given that the Obama administration still relies on many strategies we would think of as sitting on the side of secrecy, it seems that the only lasting transparency legacy of the Obama administration will be data-driven or e-transparency as exemplified by the web interface ‘data.gov’. As the data-driven transparency model is exported and assumes an ascendant position around the globe, it is imperative that we ask what kind of publics, subjects, and indeed, politics it will produce. Open government data is not just a matter concerning accountability but is seen as a necessary component of the new ‘data economy’. To participate and benefit from this info-capitalist-democracy, the data subject is called upon to be both auditor and entrepreneur. This article explores the implications of responsibilization, outsourcing, and commodification on the contract of representational democracy and asks if there are other forms of transparency that might better resist neoliberal formations and re-politicize the public s...
45 citations
TL;DR: Social theories of giving have often been shaped by anthropological accounts that present it as a form of pre-market reciprocal exchange, yet this exchangist discourse obscures important contempora... as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Social theories of giving have often been shaped by anthropological accounts that present it as a form of pre-market reciprocal exchange, yet this exchangist discourse obscures important contempora...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the critique of the very notion of the social, as manifest in neoliberal contributions to the socialist calculation debate from the 1920s onwards, and make the argument that new post-neoliberal forms of "social government" may now be entirely plausible, though focusing on the corporation rather than the state.
Abstract: In recent years, there has been a panoply of new forms of ‘social’ government, as manifest in ‘social enterprise’ and ‘social media’. This follows an era of neoliberalism in which social logics were apparently being eliminated, through the expansion of economic rationalities. To understand this, the article explores the critique of the very notion of the ‘social’, as manifest in neoliberal contributions to the socialist calculation debate from the 1920s onwards. Understood as a zone lying between market and state, the social was accused by Mises and Hayek of being both unaccountable (lacking any units of measurement) and formless (lacking instruments of explication). The article then asks to what extent these critiques still retain their purchase, following recent developments in hedonic measurement and data analytics. The argument is made that new post-neoliberal forms of ‘social government’ may now be entirely plausible, though focusing on the corporation rather than the state.
TL;DR: There has been an explosion of interest in the idea of European Union citizenship in recent years, as a defining example of postnational cosmopolitan citizenship potentially replacing or layered on... as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: There has been an explosion of interest in the idea of European Union citizenship in recent years, as a defining example of postnational cosmopolitan citizenship potentially replacing or layered on...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors model and empirically study social networks as emerging, stabilizing, and changing in the process of communication, where communicative events are conceptualized as the basic units.
Abstract: This article proposes to model and empirically study social networks as emerging, stabilizing, and changing in the process of communication. Rather than starting from actors, communicative events are conceptualized as the basic units. In the sequence of communication, these events are attributed to actors, together with underlying dispositions. Relational expectations about the behavior of actors towards others result, effectively structuring communication and making for the regularities of communication we observe as relationships and networks. Not only individuals, but also collective and corporate actors can feature as nodes in social networks – as long as action is attributed to them, and relational expectations about their behavior to other actors develop. The approach combines recent developments in the theory of social networks by Harrison White and others with Niklas Luhmann’s theory of communication.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors trace the roots and dynamics of normalization of same-sex practices and argue that the normalization process lowers the critical potential of homosexuals' claims and marginalizes other less acceptable forms of sexualities.
Abstract: Queer critics talk more and more about a normalization process whereby early lesbian and gay struggles against traditional values and institutions are being replaced by the pursuit of inclusion within mainstream society. The ‘assimilation’ of same-sex practices, critics contend, lowers the critical potential of homosexuals’ claims and marginalizes other less acceptable forms of sexualities. The present article contributes to this literature by tracing the roots and dynamics of normalization. It makes the claim that heteronormative categories infiltrated homosexual culture well before the spread of neoconservative gay movements and produced inner distinctions intended to exclude those who did not fit intergroup classifications. It then maintains that this analysis casts some interesting light on the current quest for gay rights, and in particular for same-sex marriage. By doing so, this article aims to tackle the broader question of how to produce societal changes able to circumvent rearguard reactions fro...
TL;DR: This paper examined the centrality of Brazil within the future of climate policy and politics and found that Brazilians are the most concerned about issues of climate change with less climate change scepticism as compared with more advanced societies.
Abstract: This article examines the centrality of Brazil within the future of climate policy and politics. The state of the carbon sink of the Amazon rainforest has long been an iconic marker of the condition of the Earth. Brazil has been innovative in developing many noncarbon forms of energy generation and use and it has played a major role in international debates on global warming since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. We examine various ways in which climate change has come to be centrally important in Brazilian public opinion. Survey evidence shows that Brazilians are the most concerned about issues of climate change – with less climate change scepticism as compared with more ‘advanced’ societies. Through using techniques of corpus linguistics we examine how Brazilian media has engendered and stabilized such a high and striking level of climate change concern. We show that the media helped to fix a ‘climate change framing’ of recent often strange weather. The article analyses the newly constructed Brazilian Corpus on Climate Change, presenting data on a scale and reach that is unique in this area of research.
TL;DR: The authors argued that the development of the sequential ordering system that is an inherent feature of Western-based contract manufacturing differentially shaped the industrial organization of East Asian economies and the resulting path-dependent trajectories of development encouraged government policy-makers to buy into' trends of global capitalism in different ways.
Abstract: In the mid-nineteenth century, Karl Marx issued several critiques of political economy writings stressing the exclusive duality of states and the national economies. He argued that capitalism had characteristic features quite apart from those shaped by the idiosyncrasies of national economies. In the first part of this article, we critique the contemporary state-centered explanations for the industrialization of East Asia on same grounds. We claim that most political economists misinterpret or entirely ignore the significance of export-led industrialization, which is a characteristic feature of East Asian capitalism. In the second part of the article, we demonstrate the importance of the retail revolution in the US and Europe on Asian industrialization. In particular, we show that the development of the sequential ordering system that is an inherent feature of Western-based contract manufacturing differentially shaped the industrial organization of East Asian economies. The resulting path-dependent trajectories of development, in turn, encouraged government policy-makers to buy into' trends of global capitalism in different ways. The trajectories also led business people to privilege and adapt some social institutions and cultural patterns over other ones. (Less)
TL;DR: In this article, a conceptualization of capitalism as a consequence of functional differentiation is proposed, and a general theoretical model of a functionally differentiated capitalist society is outlined in four stages, i.e.
Abstract: A conceptualization of capitalism as a consequence of functional differentiation is proposed. The general theoretical model of a functionally differentiated capitalist society is outlined in four s...
TL;DR: In the context of climate migration, the authors argue that the ability to secure one's freedom from ecological persecution denied is also contingent upon the circumstances in which one acts (if the individual is an inhabitant of a poorer, most climate vulnerable region in the world and flees his or her ecological victimization across state borders illegally, he or she relinquishes essential legal protections).
Abstract: There is a notably unequal quality to the global ecological interdependencies created today by climate change (Waldron 2002: 137). The misfortunes of those who are displaced by its worst effects, that is, those ‘forced to leave their homes, lands and livelihoods because they have been destroyed by the effects of climate change’ (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Reliefweb 2015) are manufactured by society as a whole. The suffering of the displaced is induced by practices that are collectively sustained yet individually encountered by some more readily than others. Of critical importance is how we choose to respond to this condition of forced intimacy. Will the illusion of ‘distant suffering’ (Boltanski 1999) continue to be the primary strategy used by states to deny the immanent nature of ecological threat or will the reality of large-scale displacement sharpen global normative consciousness of suffering and generate a more cosmopolitan outlook on our common fate? With nearly 25 % of current global migratory movements triggered by extreme hydro-meteorological events, including violent storms, intense flooding, or heat waves (see The German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) 2007) and one in every 45 of the world’s populations expected to be displaced by climate change affects by the year 2050 (see Myers 2005; see also the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007), the era of climate ‘effect publics’ has well and truly arrived, producing in the process a more intense politicization of freedom of movement and human rights commitments. Communities that traditionally have tended to migrate temporarily as a form of adaptation to seasonal weather patterns are now being forced by necessity to flee lands rendered uninhabitable. Unable to meet basic subsistence needs within their own country of origin, such people, undeterred by restricted border access, migrate illegally, if necessary, to escape their destitution. Forced ‘involuntarily’ to leave home and frequently country due to declining resource conditions, the climate migrant is denied both the opportunity and the choice aspects of their freedom (Sen 2010: 371). Freedom from interference is denied when the climate displaced are deprived of the power of agency to prevent various ills from happening to them (e.g., excessive carbon pollution leading to further ecological devastation). Not only is the ability to secure one’s freedom from ecological persecution denied but also, one’s fate as a victim of ecological destruction is made contingent upon the circumstances in which one acts (if the individual is an inhabitant of a poorer, most climate vulnerable region in the world and flees his or her ecological victimization across state borders illegally, he or she relinquishes essential legal protections). The consequential links connecting the individual’s capacity to choose the circumstances in which he or she acts and the experience of being free is thereby severed.
TL;DR: In this paper, contemporary reflections on capitalism as a social-historical formation build on the legacy of classical theorists and comparative analysts, and clarify the main lines of this ongoing debate.
Abstract: Contemporary reflections on capitalism as a social-historical formation build on the legacy of classical theorists and comparative analysts. To clarify the main lines of this ongoing debate, it see...
TL;DR: In this paper, the planetary scale of the problem of climate change is discussed and a reference to responsibility is made in the context of the discussion of the global scale of this problem.
Abstract: Reference to responsibility is prominent in discussions of climate change of every kind. Certain dimensions of the issue call it forth. These include, above all, the planetary scale of the problem ...
TL;DR: This article argued that the ultimate justification of this position does not lie in any "materialistic" approach, but in the disembedding of markets that was the result of the historical "great transformation" analysed by Karl Polanyi.
Abstract: In the Marxist tradition, capitalism is understood as a commodified society based on markets. The article argues that the ultimate justification of this position does not lie in any ‘materialistic’ approach, but in the disembedding of markets that was the result of the historical ‘Great Transformation’ analysed by Karl Polanyi. Disembedded markets are not an economic subsystem within society but take the place of the most encompassing social system, which Durkheim had reserved for religion. The article distinguishes between spatial, social, material and temporal dimensions of disembedding, thereby elaborating and correcting the analysis of Karl Polanyi. As a genuine form of society, disembedded markets give rise to the epistemological dilemma, which, as Luhmann had shown, is fundamental to any encompassing social theory: Society as a whole cannot be viewed by any observer. According to this viewpoint, economic theories take on ‘theological’ functions, as they provide rationality and legitimacy to a realit...
TL;DR: This paper argued that cosmopolitan belonging is a form of performative identity, which enables individuals to participate in the solution of common problems creatively, and that it is this liberating prerogative that forces the state from a position of political monopoly and marks the cosmopolitan moment.
Abstract: Ulrich Beck asserts that global risks, such as climate change, generate a form of ‘compulsory cosmopolitanism’, which ‘glues’ various actors into collective action. Through an analysis of emerging ‘cosmopolitan risk communities’ in Chinese climate governance, this article points out a ‘blind spot’ in the theorization of cosmopolitan belonging and an associated inadequacy in explaining shifting power relations. The article addresses this problem by engaging with the intersectionality of the cosmopolitan space. It is argued that cosmopolitan belonging is a form of performative identity. Its key characteristic lies in a ‘liberating prerogative’, which enables individuals to participate in the solution of common problems creatively. It is this liberating prerogative that forces the state from a position of political monopoly and marks the cosmopolitan moment.
TL;DR: Habermas as discussed by the authors proposes an anasemic translation, which is an operation of de-signification of the truth contents of religious contributions and then a re-signifying.
Abstract: In his recent attempt to make democracy more politically hospitable to religion, Habermas calls for the potential contributions of religion to democratic politics not to be neglected. He simultaneously calls for translating religious meanings into neutral reasons as a way of including them at the level of formal politics and for maintaining the necessity of an institutional translational proviso to immunize the neutral character of the state. This article presents three arguments. First, what Habermas effectively calls for is not conventional translation in which meaning is transferred from one language (signification system) into another. Rather, his call is for an anasemic translation which is an operation of de-signification of the truth contents of religious contributions and then a re-signification. Second, because Habermas calls for translation, he necessarily runs into the aporia of translation in the sense that certain aspects of religion are untranslatable into his generally acceptable language. ...
TL;DR: This article argued that objectivity should not be seen as the opposite to subjectivity, but rather arising from particular intersubjectively held values (both methodological and societal) held in particular times and places.
Abstract: This article is a defence of objectivity in sociology, not as is usually conceived as ‘value freedom’ or ‘procedural objectivity’, but rather as a socially constructed value that can nevertheless assist us in accessing social reality. It is argued that objectivity should not be seen as the opposite to subjectivity, but rather arising from particular intersubjectively held values (both methodological and societal) held in particular times and places. The objectivity defended here is socially situated in the beliefs and values of communities. This on its own would imply an epistemological relativism, but in the final section of the article I make a plea for realism as a regulatory ideal underpinning objectivity and one which can lead us to novel truths about social reality.
TL;DR: In this paper, an approach to a critical cosmopolitan social theory derived from the thought of the Japanese philosopher, Watsuji Tetsurō, is presented, which is positioned against the works of the British sociologist, Gerard Delanty, and the Argentinian semiotician, Walter Mignolo.
Abstract: This article outlines an approach to a critical cosmopolitan social theory derived from the thought of the Japanese philosopher, Watsuji Tetsurō. In order to develop this, his thought is positioned against the works of the British sociologist, Gerard Delanty, and the Argentinian semiotician, Walter Mignolo. This will be done through the concepts of space, time and the imagination. From their respective intellectual positions these other two have attempted to develop an approach to social theory that cannot be reduced to the optic of conceptual Eurocentrism. However, while they have made significant and important contributions to the development of critical approaches to cosmopolitan social theory, of providing tools to re-imagine the world, they have done so through maintaining old ways of seeing the world. What emerges from Watsuji’s work is an account of a critical cosmopolitanism that moves beyond conceptual Eurocentrism through an approach to social theory grounded in a relational social ontology. His...
TL;DR: In this article, a comparison of the current situation of climate change to a similar situation some 10,000 years ago which conditioned the transition from hunting-gathering to farming is made.
Abstract: This article seeks to enrich the social-theoretical and sociological approach to climate change by arguing in favour of a weak naturalistic ontology beyond the usually presupposed methodological sociologism or culturalism. Accordingly, attention is drawn to the elementary social forms that mediate between nature and the sociocultural form of life and thus figure as the central object of a critical sociological explanation of impediments retarding or preventing a transition to a sustainable global society. The argument is illustrated by a comparison of the current situation of climate change to a similar situation some 10,000 years ago which conditioned the transition from hunting-gathering to farming. The crucial factor in the prehistoric transition had been the newly acquired cognitive fluidity, which not only became the defining feature of the modern human mind, but is also foundational of the corresponding social form of life. The cognitively fluid mind made possible new generative practices and the im...
TL;DR: A broad consensus prevails today among science communities that we have entered an era known as ‘the Anthropocene’ as discussed by the authors, which raises serious moral questions as to how ideas of justice should be redefined in response to rapidly changing ecological circumstances (e.g., grave loss of land and other essential resources on the part of many communities).
Abstract: A broad consensus prevails today among science communities that we have entered an era known as ‘the Anthropocene’. For the first time, the outer limit or tipping point in Nature’s capacities to adapt to the destruction of its essential resources is in sight (e.g., grave depletion of the Earth’s biodiversity and loss of a ‘safe’ nitrogen cycle) (see Rockström et al., 2009). Over the past two centuries in particular, humanity has dramatically altered the Earth’s atmosphere and natural landscape, becoming in the process a formidable geological force of change in its own right. The fact that humankind today is the most significant source of change in planetary terms requires a reflective moment. We are now in the rather daunting position of determining how this tectonic shift will shape the future of this planet and its populations. This position raises serious moral questions as to how ideas of justice should be redefined in response to rapidly changing ecological circumstances (e.g., grave loss of land and other essential resources on the part of many communities) as well as what kind of ‘Anthropocene futures’ (Berkhout, 2014: 1) we are shaping for generations to come. As Strydom notes in his article ‘Cognitive fluidity and climate change’, humanity is not only tasked with the challenge of mastering an objectivist knowledge of nature’s outer limits but also of complementing scientific understanding of the biological, chemical and physical substance of life with a more reflexive hermeneutic reconstruction of how humanity has arrived at this point of destruction in its historical development. If this moment of crisis is to be transformative, then such reflection must also be critical and disclosing of those underlining aspects of modern social life that contribute detrimentally to human ecological destruction. Just as the cognitive capacities of the human mind steadily acquired greater ‘fluidity’ during prehistoric times, allowing the substitution of largely mobile hunting–gathering for more sedentary farming forms of human existence and the large-scale acquisition
TL;DR: In this article, Latour presents an enquiry into modes of existence: an anthropology of the moderns, with a focus on the modern world and its relations with the past.
Abstract: Book review: 'Bruno Latour. An enquiry into modes of existence: an anthropology of the moderns’