Édouard Glissant’s Relation and Chaos-Monde in the Era of Covid

Édouard Glissant’s death precedes the Covid crisis by about a decade. Nevertheless, his description of global communities as highly interconnected and chaotic is eerily prescient in its portrayal of a world highly susceptible to a pandemic, and the concepts that he develops are effective in elucidating the cultural impact of such a crisis. This essay seeks to utilize ideas from the philosophy of Glissant to examine the Covid crisis, focusing on the notions of Relation and chaos-monde that he articulates in Poétique de la relation (1990) and Traité du tout-monde (1997), including his appropriation of Chaos Theory. This analysis will ponder the following questions: What are the implications of the viral spread for Glissant’s notion of Relation? Given Glissant’s account of the Internet in Poétique de la relation and Traité du tout-monde, what does he suggest about the sudden shift towards cyberspace and its consequences for relations and the Relation? What are the implications of the pandemic for the distinction that Glissant makes in La Cohée du lamentin between mondialisation (hegemonic, hierarchical standardization) and mondialité (plural modes of exchange conducive to diversity)? Finally, to what extent do Glissant’s writings present a potential means of utilizing the Relation and chaos-monde to overcome crises such as Covid

Linguistics · Plural · Relation (database · Sociology · African Studies and Ethnography · Agriculture and Rural Development Research · French Urban and Social Studies · Philosophy