Against Ecological Sovereignty

Ethics, Biopolitics, and Saving the Natural World

Bibliographic Data

ID19907232
AuthorsMick Smith (corresponding author)
Year2010
Pages193-218
Publication date2010-01-25
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueAgainst Ecological Sovereignty (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherUniversity of Minnesota Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.5749/9780816678549
OpenAlexW2250278125
Open LibraryOL38843196M
ISBN9780816678549
LanguageEN
Citations received40
References cited56

This book presents a passionate defense of radical ecology that speaks directly to current debates concerning the nature, and dangers, of sovereign power. Engaging the work of Bataille, Arendt, Levinas, Nancy, and Agamben, among others, the book reconnects the political critique of sovereign power with ecological considerations, arguing that ethical and political responsibilities for the consequences of our actions do not end with those defined as human. The book turns Agamben's analysis of sovereignty and biopolitics toward an investigation of ecological concerns. In doing so, it exposes limits to that thought, maintaining that the increasingly widespread biopolitical management of human populations has an unrecognized ecological analogue—reducing nature to a "resource" for human projects. The book contends that a radical ecological politics must resist both the depoliticizing exercise of sovereign power and the pervasive spread of biopolitics in order to reveal new possibilities for creating healthy human and nonhuman communities

Biology · Biopower · Environmental ethics · Political ecology · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Sociology · Sovereignty · Ecology · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism · Political Theology and Sovereignty

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