Deadly Dingoes

`Wild' or Simply Requiring `Due Process'

Bibliographic Data

ID8096586
AuthorsSally Healy (0000-0002-2394-3488, School of History of Philosophy of Science University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia, corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume37
Issue3
Pages443-471
Publication date2007-05-23
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Studies of Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0306-3127 • E-ISSN: 1460-3659
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0306312706070746
OpenAlexW2050022018
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited19

This paper elaborates a relational framework for `political ecology', based on an analysis of a controversy over the aggressive behaviour of the dingoes on Fraser Island and brought to prominence by the death of a 9-year-old tourist in 2001. In contrast to the authorities' treatment of Fraser's environment as an essentially enduring entity, readily compliant with instrumental interventions, the `partial perspectives' of their local critics emphasize co-constitutive relationships between people and non-humans, including dingoes. This latter view — that the form, character and content of human activities and the world are intimately interdependent — resonates with Latour's `experimental metaphysics', which is intended to achieve the `progressive composition' of people and their worlds. However, while Latour's framework relies on conventional notions of knowledge at odds with these local `situated knowledges', Haraway illuminates how their experiential and affective qualities ensure the ethical character of `progressive composition'. I call this consolidation of Latour and Haraway's ideas `affirmative cosmopolitics', and briefly discuss its broader implications and resonance with Australian Aboriginal cosmology

Aesthetics · Character (mathematics · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Metaphysics · Phenomenology (philosophy · Political science · Politics · Situated · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Computer Science · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law · Philosophy

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