Caring with: More-than-Human worlds
Considerable attention has been afforded to the close alignments which exist between posthumanism and care ethics. Both are predicated upon relational ways of understanding the world, and thus offer novel paradigms to think about our positions as humans on this planet.
From a posthuman perspective, humans are not exceptional creatures in the world. Non-human animals, nature, physical material, technology etc. matter too. “Posthumanism builds on the epistemological and political foundations of anti-humanism, postcolonialism, post-anthropocentrism, anti-racism and material feminisms” (Bozalek, Zembylas and Tronto 2021: 3).
From a care ethics perspective, acknowledging the interdependence and fundamental relationality of all beings and things on Earth leads to seeing caring as a necessary practice for survival and collective thriving, “in which responsibility is ‘located not in the abstract universals of justice, but rather in the recognition of our intersubjective being’” (Popke, 2006: 507).
When talking about human-nature relationships, there are plenty of traditions worth exploring: indigenous knowledge, spiritual ecology and eco-theology, eco-feminism, deep ecology, environmental psychology, environmental ethics.“These are very heterogeneous fields of scholarship and practice that all have in common a call to change the way we understand ourselves and our interaction with the Earth.” (Moriggi, Soini, Franklin, Roep 2020: 281)
These traditions have raised many crucial questions and inspired many grassroots movements, including for the protection of nature rights. In February 2021, for instance, a river won legal rights for the first time in Canadian history, as explained in this article.
In the remainder of this lesson, we explore the intersection between post-humanism and care ethics from both theoretical and practical perspectives. We invite you to watch two extended presentations by inspiring scholars in the field, as well as to try out a creative method aimed at including the more-than-human in planning and decision-making.
