Dark Laboratories of the Soil

Bruno Latour and Aldo Leopold on Cosmopolitics and Crisis

in Nature and Culture
Author:
Michael Uhall Faculty Member, Indiana University East, USA uhall2@illinois.edu

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DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3167/nc.2023.180201
Keywords:
Aldo Leopold; Bruno Latour; cosmopolitics; ontology; political ecology; political theory
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Abstract

Faced with the ecological crisis, it is necessary to elaborate a cosmopolitical stance. Such a cosmopolitics indicates the degree to which traditionally political categories are in fact products of the ecological landscape. Bruno Latour helps us theorize just such a cosmopolitics. I argue that Latour allows us privileged access to the diverse agencies composing our ecological condition. Latour is primarily an ecological thinker. I explore Latour's own formulations of a cosmopolitics and points of contact between Latour and the broader tradition of political ecology as exemplified by the American environmental theorist Aldo Leopold. I claim that Latour's cosmopolitical program benefits from being placed into dialogue with classic ecological formulations such as Leopold's conception of the land community and its various normative implications—his so-called “land ethic.”

Contributor Notes

Michael Uhall is a faculty member at Indiana University East, a civil servant at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and an independent researcher. Email: uhall2@illinois.edu

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Cover Nature and Culture
Article Category:
Perspective
Page Count:
21
Keywords:
Aldo Leopold; Bruno Latour; cosmopolitics; ontology; political ecology; political theory
Print Publication Date:
01 Jun 2023
Online Publication Date:
01 Jun 2023
Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2023

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