A Fermented Myth of Democracy

Bibliographic Data

ID17826401
AuthorsJessica Croteau (Haverford College, corresponding author)
Year2026
Volume13
Issue1
Pages61-77
Publication date2026-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueDemocratic Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2332-8894 • E-ISSN: 2332-8908
PublisherBerghahn Books (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1017/s2332889426000126
OpenAlexW7155788314
LanguageEN
References cited20

Drawing on fermentation materially and metaphorically, this article argues an earthly democracy must be understood not only through inclusion and participation but through multispecies myths and transformations. Engaging Earthborn Democracy alongside the transdisciplinary art constellation Fermenting Feminism , the article develops three central contributions: it reconceives the demos as materially composed through multispecies processes; it advances exit and transformation as democratic values alongside inclusion; and it articulates a democratic necropolitics that treats death not as political failure but as a generative condition of democratic life. By foregrounding fermentation’s intertwining of liveliness and decay, the article expands democratic imaginaries beyond life-centered and anthropocentric frameworks, offering a political vocabulary attuned to multispecies flourishing and dying well together

Anthropocentrism · Deliberative democracy · Democracy · Flourishing · Foregrounding · Mythology · Politics · Ecocriticism and Environmental Literature · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism

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