Life and Death Decisions in our Posthuman(ist) Times

Abstract: Geography, like much of social science, is witnessing a resurgence of interest in Michel Foucault's formation of biopower—the power to make live and foster life. This paper seeks to engage with this interest by staging a dialogue between the work of Nikolas Rose and Paul Rabinow on the one hand and that of Giorgio Agamben on the other. I propose that, while Rose and Rabinow provide a diagnostic for our emerging geographies of “life itself” and outline allied forms of political citizenship known as “biosociality” or “biological citizenship”, it is Agamben who enables us to consider the limit figures to this form of political inclusion. To draw out these limit figures I focus on recent debates surrounding end‐of‐life decisions and provide examples from the Dignity in Dying campaign and the Not Dead Yet movement. Throughout, I situate this paper within recent debates on posthumanism and the posthuman in geography. In doing so I effectively ask: why, in our seemingly posthuman(ist) times, does much of Western politics seek to decide on the form, the right and, inevitably, the limit of human beings?     

Intergroup aggression: multi-individual organisms and the survival instinct

Abstract

Intergroup aggression, carried out at the level of the in-groups and out-groups of ethnocentric theory, has continued unabated throughout the twentieth century. The frequency of aggression together with its ferocity suggests a potent biological cause. Primates have evolved as social animals and it is postulated that evolution has proceeded to such an extent that the in-group is a multi-individual social organism, that is, an organised body consisting of mutually connected and dependent parts constituted to share a common life. The social organism results from the total integration of individuals into the social structure and culture of the in-group; individuals are inseparable from their society. The evidence for this integration comes from sociology (the roles individuals play within the group according to society's rules), from the psychology of culture (where culture is defined as knowledge and beliefs within the group), and from a consideration of the evolution of the mind (the development of the social intelligence module in the brain of primates). Cohesion is brought about by means of the Durkheimian collective consciousness and collective memory of the group. The evolution of multi-individual organisms is analogous to the evolution of multicellular organisms (the Metazoa) by the association of unicellular organisms. All biological organisms require living space; multi-individual organisms require access to territory for food and raw materials and are endowed with the behavioural characteristics that are necessary to maintain that access. This survival instinct ensuring access to territory is a potent biological cause of intergroup aggression. The prime factor in initiating intergroup conflict is the need for each social organism to maintain the integrity, stability, and survival of its own society, based on territory.     

Disturbing the data: looking into gender and family size matters with US Evangelical homeschoolers

This qualitative study draws on the theory of feminist physicist Karen Barad to examine how gender matters in Evangelical homeschooling families of various sizes, with an emphasis on large families. The two-phase data collection includes interviews with 18 participants and observations of several participants over one year. We use a Baradian analytic process called diffractive analysis to read the messy borders between the discursive and material for mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, and elements of homeschooling environments. We find that materiality intra-acted with gender in complex and sometimes surprising ways but that gendered possibilities in homeschooling are steeped in the terrains of politics, history, culture, economics, and environment. In addition, we see possibilities for using this method of analysis as a way to more carefully and complexly read data in the micro.     

Indigenous sovereignties: relational ontologies and environmental management

Indigenous nations have always and continue to assert their sovereignties to resist colonialism. This paper makes explicit the ways in which environmental management has been and continues to act as a tool of colonialism, particularly by privileging Western science, institutions, and administrative procedures. We argue that to decolonise environmental management, it is crucial to understand and challenge the power relations that underlie it—asking who makes decisions and on what worldview those decisions are based. Indigenous ways of being deeply challenge the foundations of environmental management and the colonising power structures that underlie it, and invite further thought about posthuman and relational ontologies. We provide a range of case studies that showcase the role of Indigenous nations in redefining and reimagining environmental management based on Indigenous sovereignties, knowledges, and ways of being. The case studies emphasise the crucial connection between Indigenous decision‐making authority and self‐governance for the enhanced protection and health of the environment. We argue that Indigenous agency, grounded in Indigenous governance and sovereignties, is driving innovation and decolonising environmental management by making space for new ways of thinking and being “in place”.