Mads Ejsing
Biographic Data
| ID | 1125218 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mads Ejsing |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mads |
| FAMILY NAME | Ejsing |
| SIGNATURE | EJSING M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Copenhagen |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6498-5318 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 6 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Rethinking Climate Assemblies Within Complex Democratic Systems: Coupling and Pathways of Influence Beyond Policy Uptake
This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.Climate citizens’ assemblies are often evaluated narrowly on whether their recommendations become implemented as policy. Though useful, such evaluations risk overshadowing the broader democratic and systemic potentials climate assemblies might have. This article argues for a shift in our thinking about climate assemblies. Instead of seeing them primarily as intervention…
Social tipping points revisited: The epistemic drift from complexity to control
Originating in ecology and Earth System Science, the concept of tipping points describes sudden, nonlinear shifts in complex systems that are inherently unpredictable. In early uses, the idea carried a sense of epistemic humility, recognizing that complex system dynamics exceed human capacities for control. However, when the concept migrated into the social realm some of that humility disappeared. Today, discussions of social tipping points often…
Degrowth and decolonisation in academia: Intersecting strategies towards transformation
Like other societal institutions, academia today faces an existential crisis.Rising inequality and authoritarianism, coupled with climate breakdown and collapsing ecosystems, are threatening the conditions under which academic knowledge is produced and shared.At the same time, academics are coming to terms with their institutions' role in contributing to these processes, particularly in the Global North.Many are recognising the historical and pre…
Re-Assembling Democracy: A Nascent Theory of Nonhuman Political Participation
This article explores the concepts of political participation through the lens of new materialism and critical democratic theory. It argues that the concept of political participation must be expanded beyond rational and reflective actions by human beings in order to better encompass the agency of nonhuman entities. Drawing on the work of Jane Bennett, Bonnie Honig, Noortje Marres, and others, the article offers a new theoretical vocabulary for t…
Toxic displacements: An environmental justice perspective on a chemical waste site in Denmark
In this article we examine the problem of toxic waste and its entanglements with environmental justice in the Anthropocene from the perspective of Harboøre Tange – the waste site of one of the greatest chemical pollution scandals in Danish environmental history. Drawing on qualitative interviews and ethnographic fieldwork, we show how environmental harms and inequalities are sustained over time through a series of ‘toxic displacements’ that make …
Do we have time for democracy? Climate action and the problem of time in the Anthropocene
The urgency of climate change has brought democracy to a critical juncture. Existing democratic systems struggle to address the pressing time frames required for effective climate action. This article explores a fundamental shift in temporal orientation caused by climate change. Democracy's linear and progressive image of time clashes with the expanding scales of temporality, encompassing both planetary and microscopic processes. More specificall…
Why the turn to matter matters: A response to post-Marxist critiques of new materialism
Theories of new materialism have gained increasing traction in the social and human sciences in recent decades, as thinkers like Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour and Jane Bennett have reinvigorated the philosophical interest in topics such as the agency of nonhuman matter, the relational nature of existence and the limitations of anthropocentric forms of inquiry. However, these theories have faced criticism from post-Marxist critical theorists, who ar…
Living with others: On multispecies resurgence in the altered forest landscapes of the Anthropocene
Through an encounter with a plantation forest in western Denmark called Klosterheden, this article explores the possibilities for what Anna Tsing calls multispecies resurgence - the ability of ecologies to survive and recover through interspecies cooperation. Highlighting endangered conditions for ongoing survival in a world of Anthropocene proliferations, the article tells three entangled stories of how the forest landscapes in Klosterheden have…
The arrival of the Anthropocene in social theory: From modernism and Marxism towards a new materialism
Since its origin in the natural sciences in the early 2000s, the concept of the Anthropocene has spread far and wide. Following the concept's journey away from the natural sciences, where it was invented to designate the advent of a new geological epoch, and into the social and human sciences, its meaning has opened up to many different interpretations. This article examines three competing theoretical narratives about the Anthropocene, which hav…
Democratic politics in virulent times: Three vital lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic
This article offers three lessons for a post-pandemic democratic politics. First, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the deep ontological entanglements of human and non-human systems: A submicroscopic agent jumping from an animal to a human host impacts human societies across the world. In the process, the virus has revealed a second lesson: Public responses to the pandemic have exacerbated already existing inequalities and fuelled anti-democr…
Antropocæne fortællinger: Mindre end én, flere end mange
Mindre end n, flere end mange MAds ejsing
Enriching discourse theory: The discursive-material knot as a non-hierarchical ontology: a reply to Nico Carpentier
In this reply, we question whether ‘the knot’ is the best way to describe the relationship between the discursive and the material. Our main objective is to show that the discursive and material are co-extensive and therefore emerge from within the same assemblage, prior to any ‘knot’ between them. To develop this idea, we draw on the new materialism of Karen Barad and Jane Bennett, especially their argument for how and why it makes sense to appr…
The arrival of the Anthropocene in social theory: From modernism and Marxism towards a new materialism
Since its origin in the natural sciences in the early 2000s, the concept of the Anthropocene has spread far and wide. Following the concept's journey away from the natural sciences, where it was invented to designate the advent of a new geological epoch, and into the social and human sciences, its meaning has opened up to many different interpretations. This article examines three competing theoretical narratives about the Anthropocene, which hav…
Why the turn to matter matters: A response to post-Marxist critiques of new materialism
Theories of new materialism have gained increasing traction in the social and human sciences in recent decades, as thinkers like Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour and Jane Bennett have reinvigorated the philosophical interest in topics such as the agency of nonhuman matter, the relational nature of existence and the limitations of anthropocentric forms of inquiry. However, these theories have faced criticism from post-Marxist critical theorists, who ar…
Enriching discourse theory: The discursive-material knot as a non-hierarchical ontology: a reply to Nico Carpentier
In this reply, we question whether ‘the knot’ is the best way to describe the relationship between the discursive and the material. Our main objective is to show that the discursive and material are co-extensive and therefore emerge from within the same assemblage, prior to any ‘knot’ between them. To develop this idea, we draw on the new materialism of Karen Barad and Jane Bennett, especially their argument for how and why it makes sense to appr…
Antropocæne fortællinger: Mindre end én, flere end mange
Mindre end n, flere end mange MAds ejsing
Democratic politics in virulent times: Three vital lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic
This article offers three lessons for a post-pandemic democratic politics. First, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the deep ontological entanglements of human and non-human systems: A submicroscopic agent jumping from an animal to a human host impacts human societies across the world. In the process, the virus has revealed a second lesson: Public responses to the pandemic have exacerbated already existing inequalities and fuelled anti-democr…
Living with others: On multispecies resurgence in the altered forest landscapes of the Anthropocene
Through an encounter with a plantation forest in western Denmark called Klosterheden, this article explores the possibilities for what Anna Tsing calls multispecies resurgence - the ability of ecologies to survive and recover through interspecies cooperation. Highlighting endangered conditions for ongoing survival in a world of Anthropocene proliferations, the article tells three entangled stories of how the forest landscapes in Klosterheden have…
The arrival of the Anthropocene in social theory: From modernism and Marxism towards a new materialism
Since its origin in the natural sciences in the early 2000s, the concept of the Anthropocene has spread far and wide. Following the concept's journey away from the natural sciences, where it was invented to designate the advent of a new geological epoch, and into the social and human sciences, its meaning has opened up to many different interpretations. This article examines three competing theoretical narratives about the Anthropocene, which hav…
Why the turn to matter matters: A response to post-Marxist critiques of new materialism
Theories of new materialism have gained increasing traction in the social and human sciences in recent decades, as thinkers like Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour and Jane Bennett have reinvigorated the philosophical interest in topics such as the agency of nonhuman matter, the relational nature of existence and the limitations of anthropocentric forms of inquiry. However, these theories have faced criticism from post-Marxist critical theorists, who ar…
Degrowth and decolonisation in academia: Intersecting strategies towards transformation
Like other societal institutions, academia today faces an existential crisis.Rising inequality and authoritarianism, coupled with climate breakdown and collapsing ecosystems, are threatening the conditions under which academic knowledge is produced and shared.At the same time, academics are coming to terms with their institutions' role in contributing to these processes, particularly in the Global North.Many are recognising the historical and pre…
Re-Assembling Democracy: A Nascent Theory of Nonhuman Political Participation
This article explores the concepts of political participation through the lens of new materialism and critical democratic theory. It argues that the concept of political participation must be expanded beyond rational and reflective actions by human beings in order to better encompass the agency of nonhuman entities. Drawing on the work of Jane Bennett, Bonnie Honig, Noortje Marres, and others, the article offers a new theoretical vocabulary for t…
Toxic displacements: An environmental justice perspective on a chemical waste site in Denmark
In this article we examine the problem of toxic waste and its entanglements with environmental justice in the Anthropocene from the perspective of Harboøre Tange – the waste site of one of the greatest chemical pollution scandals in Danish environmental history. Drawing on qualitative interviews and ethnographic fieldwork, we show how environmental harms and inequalities are sustained over time through a series of ‘toxic displacements’ that make …
Do we have time for democracy? Climate action and the problem of time in the Anthropocene
The urgency of climate change has brought democracy to a critical juncture. Existing democratic systems struggle to address the pressing time frames required for effective climate action. This article explores a fundamental shift in temporal orientation caused by climate change. Democracy's linear and progressive image of time clashes with the expanding scales of temporality, encompassing both planetary and microscopic processes. More specificall…
Rethinking Climate Assemblies Within Complex Democratic Systems: Coupling and Pathways of Influence Beyond Policy Uptake
This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.Climate citizens’ assemblies are often evaluated narrowly on whether their recommendations become implemented as policy. Though useful, such evaluations risk overshadowing the broader democratic and systemic potentials climate assemblies might have. This article argues for a shift in our thinking about climate assemblies. Instead of seeing them primarily as intervention…
Social tipping points revisited: The epistemic drift from complexity to control
Originating in ecology and Earth System Science, the concept of tipping points describes sudden, nonlinear shifts in complex systems that are inherently unpredictable. In early uses, the idea carried a sense of epistemic humility, recognizing that complex system dynamics exceed human capacities for control. However, when the concept migrated into the social realm some of that humility disappeared. Today, discussions of social tipping points often…
Law (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Environmental ethics (5 works) · Anthropocene (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Biology (3 works) · Climate Change and Geoengineering (3 works)