Materiality at work/The work of materiality – Debating French perspectives on Politics, Ontologies, Ecologies.
POE 6th annual workshop.
Capitalism and nature
Chair: Ivano Scotti, University of Naples Federico II
Paul Guillibert , CNRS and Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University
Exploiting living beings
Discussants
Irina Aguiari, Scuola Normale Superiore
Viviana Asara, University of Ferrara
Emanuele Leonardi, University of Bologna
Session 3
More than human struggles
Chair: Dario Minervini, University of Naples Federico II
Sylvaine Bulle, University of Paris and EHESS/CNRS
Renewing naturalism. Pragmatism and neomaterialism in ecological struggles
Since its beginning POE has been committed to addressing the latest developments of these issues, as characterized by a marked shift towards ‘ontological politics’, focusing on why and how the very constitution of reality is today thrown at the centre of power struggles, governmental strategies, science and technology advancements, social mobilizations, and debates within and outside academy. Of particular relevance is the relationship between the dualist western tradition, still pretty much alive and visible in efforts to keep separate peoples and things, social relations and materialities, and the overcoming of ontological dualisms that new governmental styles and social mobilizations seem to pursue alike, albeit with opposite purposes. Topics such as value, care, limits, experimental practices and extractivism have been addressed from this vantage point in the past editions of the workshop (www.poeweb.eu).
The field of political ecology is complex not only for its substantive plurality but for the national trajectories that characterise its genealogy. The story, timing and salient features of political ecology have been affected by the different political, social and academic environments in which it has developed in different countries, with ensuing variety in salience of topics, reference literatures and so on. Though of course there have been and there are venues for reciprocal acquaintance and confrontation, these are still far from being frequent and thorough enough. This cannot but affect the maturation and advancement of the field. What better framework for starting to fill this gap than POE? This year’s workshop is dedicated to debating French perspectives on political ecology and ontologies. A first session will be devoted to outlining the evolution of political ecology in France, with a comparison with Italy prompted by the recent publication of the first Italian textbook in political ecology.
Speakers belong to the POE research group. Laura Centemeri, a sociologist from EHESS/CNRS, boast a research experience in both France and Italy which offers her an invaluable vantage point. Salvo Torre, a geographer from Catania University, brings a deep knowledge of the field which allows him to suitably contextualise the Italian debate in the international one. Luigi Pellizzoni, a sociologist from Scuola Normale Superiore, is coordinator of POE and editor of the new textbook, of which he will outline the rationale and contents.
The second and third sessions address two key areas of current French political ecology. Session two is focused on the issue of capitalism and nature. Paul Guillibert, researcher in environmental philosophy at CNRS and Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne university with a focus on Marxist political ecology, will elaborate on his recent writings, with special reference to the books Terre et capital. Pour un communisme du vivant (2021) and Exploiter les vivants. Une écologie politique du travail (2023). Session three is devoted to more than human struggles. Sylvaine Bulle, professor of sociology at the University of Paris and researcher at the Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Politique (LAP-EHESS-CNRS), will address the role of pragmatism and neomaterialism in ecological struggles, building on her studies on everyday practices of resistance and environmental mobilizations, such as the Notre-Dame-des-Landes one, addressed inter alia in the book Irréductibles. Enquête sur des milieux de vie (2022). A parterre of brilliant chairs and discussants, belonging to different generations of scholars and interested in political ecology from a variety of perspectives, will comment and introduce the discussion which, as per POE tradition, is meant to be fully open and with plenty of space available.
#snspoliticalandsocialsciences #politics #politicalecology
We can start good morning to everybody and this second this first session of this morning is on Capital in nature the title of the argument is particularly tricky in my opinion and we have to thanks of course uh Paul Gilbert for his speech in exploring living beings for a
New Theory on substantive of nature by Capital Paul is researcher in environmental philosophy at the central naalar scientific University his research focus on Marxist politic ecology his the author of two books if I’m not Wrong and so his speech today is based on his research basically and in this theme that’s show particularly interesting for E political Ecology of course and we also have three discussion here and SOI Norm Superior that is working on if I’m not wrong on grassroot process of food uh commoning and its transformation
Transort potential to designative food uh systems From Below and we also have Viana aara from the University of Ferrara who worked particularly on ecological and prefigurative movements like IND dados in Spain this is one of his of course interest and then last but not least we have Manuel Leonardi from the University
Of Bologna that particularly focused for example on the commodification of natural settings in Market contest uh the very probably the very well known is his works on the emission trade and so so we have lots of available speakers discussing and very interesting introduction and discussion with Paul so
I think that we can start so Paul the floor is yours hello everyone um I’m really happy to be here so I’m really grateful to all the organizers and Technical teams for for the organization of this uh of this seminar um I I just start with like a
Little story because two years ago I was with in Pisa for politics psychology ontologies annual Workshop summer school yeah uh and uh we had I was a discussions of stepania Barker and I I had the idea I have the idea that maybe there are some kind of exploitation of
Living beings nonhuman living beings and we had a like a a short but intense discussion with MAA benj and Luigi peloni and they both of them told me you know we don’t think we could speak about exploitation of animals uh such as you do uh because it’s not the same thing to
Exploit humans and animals um especially in a in Marxist way of thinking exploitation so since two years I I thought about it uh and I came back to two years later with more arguments I’m not sure that’s a good one but I have more arguments on
This uh on this topic so I would like to to start uh with a question that animates many debates in political ecology and animal studies it concerns the place of the animals and living beings in general in the economy so the issue is to understand uh the the capitalists
Ability to increase the productivity of nature uh and that’s really important thing in general when we think about the capitalism and relation to Nature we think about it in terms of Destruction domination appropriation and so on uh what interesting me here is the capacity of capitalism to exploit to exploit
Nature so it means to put nature to work uh and this expression uh putting nature to work uh the work of nature uh was uh first used by Jason Moore I think in in 2015 in capitalism in the Web of Life uh and it was after that used by
Alisa batistoni and now it’s like a a really important uh way of thinking in political ecology and animal studies but however this expression raises a number of definitional problem uh that will be the subject of the of the topic in the presentation today uh first the first
Problem uh is the fact that the question if we can we could say that animal are eventually working that speaking of putting to work implies that nonhuman entity actually work in a sense similar to uh that which can be used to describe human activities secondly the question is what are the theoretical implications
Of extending the category of work to nonhumans should we conclude that’s the main part I think should we conclude that animals are exploited or even alienated in the same way as human are and finally what does this tell us about capitalism and nature if capitalism was
To be redefined as a system who promote increase the productivity of Nature and not only to destruct nature um so very quickly from a methodological point of view uh this is a philosophical intervention and I think what is important in philosophy in Social philosophy and environment of environment uh especially is to clarify
Concepts I think the only the only good thing with philosophy is to clarify concept and elucidates the meaning of the words we use in ordinary language and science uh so I use viginan definition of philosophy here coming from The tractatus Logical philosophicus and based on the idea that maybe
Philosophy shouldn’t create New Concept all the time but Define clearly what are the meaning of the word we use uh so uh I I will go shortly in three in three moments uh first moment the work of non nonhuman animals do they work the animals second moment exploitation and alienation of non-human
Animals so uh they exploited and a third moment uh towards a theory of natural mod of subsumption by capital and uh in conclusion I will ask another question which seems important to me uh is there a multi spaces working class or to say it in in other terms are animals part of
The working class uh so I I begin with the uh the first the first part do the animals work do they work so let’s start with a general definition of Labor I use labor and work as synonym here uh philosophers Frank fishbach and Emanuel Reno uh propose defining work as an activity
That mobilizes techniques sequentially in a given order to generate new realities adapted to social needs so at first glance according to this definition there is nothing to prevent us from speaking of work to to describe the activities performed by some animals in human context and I specify specify
In human context it’s important but work also entails other dimensions uh which are important for instance human work presupposes a capacity of individuals to force themselves to work to get to work this allows for fbak and Reno a distinction between work and play different modes of activity for
Instance a Pianist uh does not exactly the same thing when playing their instrument and when practicing their instruments so you can have like different mode of activities uh in the in the constraint in the discipline you have to to make the own effort uh to to
To work so the dimension of effort of hardship refers to the discipline an individual uh is able to put to himself but also and that’s an important part in when thinking about uh animal work uh it’s refers to the psychic defenses all the psychological and psychic defenses
Uh put in place to combat suffering by individuals um so therefore for humans a a general definition of work would refer to at least s six Essentials elements it’s a technical activity carried out in stages in a certain order which produces new realities to satisfy social need needs during during certain
Moments uh with a certain effort a form of discipline whether autonomous or imposed and which engages cognitive psychological and bodily dispositions so does this definition of work apply to nonhuman animals uh first as you as you see this is really a Marxist philosophical definition of Labor uh the course the
The Marxist Dimension with the productive activity technical productive activity and also a philosophical definition because as you see it’s really abstract uh it don’t speak about uh employees salary social division of labor Etc it’s a general definition of Labor so it is also evidence that some animals walk in contact with humans with
This definition of Labor the most obvious example would be guide dogs hering dogs or police dogs uh so I I won’t speak about police dogs because I just speak about like friendship and camade animals today uh so the the the enemy in the in the capital struggles interspaces enemies in
Capital struggles I won’t speak about them uh so I won’t speak about police dogs and just about guide dogs uh and the guide dogs they perform a technical activity that involves the sequencing of certain steps in a predetermined order to so to satisfy social needs through a certain
Discipline so for example a guide dogs knows that its Works begins when it harest when it is harest and stops when the harest is removed uh Mobility training requires the development of physical and intellectual skills that require strong ability to concentrate on its task to Signal danger guide dogs
Stop and lie down they use a bodily position as a signal of danger for their to their human partner uh so in fact it is therefore a technique that can be performed in successive stages when it is necessary to descend from a sidewalk onto the road
To bypass an obstacle and then to go back up onto the the sidewalk so during their training this the dog these dogs are developing some really interesting abilities uh intellectual abilities for instance to General to generalize uh common objects which are presented in the in the
Formation of the of the dogs to gener to generalize it in in life in actual life so if they see an obstacle they have to identify this as an obstacle which is is not the same as the one they used to be in in the formation so uh this is uh another
Really interesting point they have to integrate in their body sha uh in their body shim the body of the human with them that are working they have to know for instance uh that the place where they can squeeze through uh it is not necessar a place through which the human
Can necessarily pass uh which is a really interesting fact so if we uh if we briefly resume of all of this we can see that guide dogs for instance meet all work criteria using a position to Signal a danger so technical activity with stages break down a trip into different stages
For instance uh they produce and and satisfy social needs with care work uh they use a certain discipline and they have cognitive psychological bodily disposition for instance generalization induction processes of obstruction uh but so these animals are really special animals uh it’s like really specific task in general the way
Capitalism use uh animals is not based on such activities but on Farm activities in farming so what about uh animals in in farming in farming the processes of putting animals to work demonstrate an ambivalence that is difficult to clarify and as Don puts it um working dogs are
Tools that are part of the Farm’s Capital stock and they are laborers who produce sulo value by giving more than they get in a market-driven economic system in a market oriented economic system there are workers who produce Su value by giving more than they receive so I I will leave aside for the
Moment the question of value in this in this definition uh whether or not they produce sulo value uh and I will concentrate of the hesitation as always with Donar between two different definition of animals animals as workers on one side and animals are as instruments in the other so so there are
Walking animal definition and the animal as an instrument as a tool even uh don we present uh dogs selected and improved for their working capacity as biotechnologies integrated into a market oriented a agricultural system it is true that these animals are selected and sometimes genetically modified to meet human needs therefore
It seems that we can clarify the terms of their relationship uh to the labor process based on Mark’s distinction between object means and activity of Labor uh what I I I could say really quickly is that um Don has like uh represent another way to make philosophy
As the one I was presenting at the beginning a lot of creation of Concepts like a capacity to invent a lot of concept but in this invention we we lose sometimes uh the clarity of the meaning of the words we are we are using so I’m
Doing exactly zers um so uh we can Define the place of animals work uh in in capitalism using this def this distinction between object means and activity of Labor so we could say that from the capital perspective walking dogs are pure means of Labor since a labor power is not EX
Change through a wage they belong to the category of instruments such as machinery for example however they do perform a number of specific tasks through the expense of vital energy with their own intentionality as I already shown with the with the with the guide dogs this is
Why they can be defined as workers for their human collaborators but in the case of animals selected through biotechnologies they are also the object of previous human labor they have been produced through genetic selection or modifications therefore they constitute that’s the definition I think really important they constitute a labor power
Taken within the biopolitical process of reproducing their existence they are not biotechnologies as Don puts it because they are living beings so they can be reduced to Technologies they are autonomous organisms with their own intentionality however they become object of preor human labor and due to their own agency non-human labor power
Reduced to the instruments by Capital so this distinction between objects means and activity is useful as it allows distinguishing distinct moments in the capitalist production cycle of life um however it becomes more and more complex uh when we address the issue of animals in industrial farming I was
There in a general definition of the animal work in farming but not in industrial farming and this is a specific uh a specific topic for instance uh a day Reco uh a day Reco produces more milk than is necessary for the reproduction of its scale which are taken away
Shortly after winning so one might be tempted uh to say that it possesses labor power and it’s not just an object of Labor however human labor assisted by increasingly sophisticated machines work on the cow itself to produce a supply of milk or meat in this regard one could
Think that the C is more like an object of Labor not a work for course not a worker but an object of Labor and the difficulty here arises from the fact that what is put to work is life activity itself uh it’s not the activity of the of the cow the activity
Of the animals doing a specific task but it’s life activity the self capacity of reproduction which are which are put to work uh capacity to make milk to make meat need to produce with the with their own uh organic uh forces of reproduction to speaker Stefania Barka so in the case
Of cows uh it is their bodily bodily reproductive capacity uh that is exploited by the agroindustrial machine however and that’s an important article I really I I really appreciate by Jin Porche and Tien Schmid uh do cows collaborat uh with labor um and they show Jin por and TI Schmid they
They show that the co the cows can work actually work in the in the in the farm uh in less mechanized livestock setting for instance in the pene where j p and Schmid make the the inquiry uh there are no procedures to reach the milking machine so the cows had to manage
Together how to um how to to get to the to the machine Porche and Schmid showed that this adjustment was not a matter of conditioning or hierarchy but consisted of a set of Arrangements among the cow themselves so the cows them self organized to go to the machine and to
Walk how can we see that for Porche and Schmid it’s because sometimes the cows doesn’t want to work they refuse to work they can block the machine and when the farmer is coming back uh they put the machine in work again but they can block the machine uh intentionally uh together
Some of them can can block the machine so there are some form of resistance animal resistance to work and it can can be seen of course in this uh in this Farm but it can also be seen everywhere in nature this capacity of some animals to resist to revolt against the uh
Capitalist uh way of putting nature to work so the the interesting thing here is that for Porsche and Schmid Technologies strive to prevent C from walking so the the machine development the technological development aim to reduce the activity of the cows because it’s indu a reduction of the resistance of the
Animals so the capitalist development of technology is based on this Farm on the idea that we need to reduce the capacity of activity of the animals in order to reduce the capacity of resistance and to do so we have to transform all the animals in just productive forces
Reproductive forces not as uh laborers workers uh and so on so we could say here that bio capitalism puts to work the generative forces of all living bodies living beings are dispossessed of their bodies and and their generative power and listed in the logic of valorization so let me continue with the
Second main question of of my presentation uh can we then speak about exploitation of animals and can we then speak about even alienation of some animals in industrial farming so uh that’s my second Point uh about the the exploitation of non-human animals we could say that putting nature
To work uh is not something specific to capitalism uh it is down uh since the beginning of the Neolithic era with the capture reproduction and killing of livestock on the one hand and the replication of seeds of seedlings and germs through crossbreeding and agriculture on the other hand so putting
Nature to work is not capitalist specific City uh and since the netic this working nature presupposes forms of control discipline aeronomy that are strictly speaking domination of Nature and and we could think here about the work of Andreu from from which Laura was speaking yesterday uh which really analyes
Studies this form of domination control all the regime of governmentality of the of the animals there is however a profound ecological break with capitalism uh is the way capitalists uh put nature to work is completely oriented with the exploitation and the accumulation of value this is the specific and the distinct uh the
Distinction between uh capitalist mode of production and and the other so by exploitation I mean here in a raer trivial sense the idea that there is such thing as animal surplu labor how can be identified uh this animal Su Labor uh it’s really simple it can be identified by distinguishing
Between the value expressed in the cost of the Commodities required to reproduce animal labor power and the quantity of Labor expanded during a working day by purchasing animal labor po the capitalist obtains the right to make his animal work for a longer period of time thereby appropriating a value
Additional to that which he will have to pay in kind to ensure the reproduction of animal labor power this implies that capitalist exploitation of animal labor is structurally different from the human exploitation of labor but maybe in a strictly economic term not so different from slavery uh in
Modern capitalism uh so in fact this way to put nature to work animals to work and produce value uh and Sh labor but maybe not so Sur value uh it is like a specificity of capitalism and also of from from slavery of slavery uh so both obviously presuppose the realization of
The value of Labor power through it scale through it sale sorry on the market so um the the next question I want to ask uh is really intern to Marxist critical animal studies so I don’t know if I have time to do that uh I have 15 minutes yet yeah
Okay I I will try uh is the question uh can we go so far as to to say that nature is alienated so I just show I think that uh some animals are exploited in a different way of of human but of yeah wage Labor uh but so can we can we
Say that nature is also alienated the contemporary literature in critical animal studies has attempted to apply Mark concept of alienation to the labor of animals and listed in capitalist production relationship so alienated Labor uh we could say in marks theory is uh respond to to four different criteria there is a multiple dimensions
Of dispensation so first criteria according to Marx in the manuscript of at44 uh the first criteria refers to the workers dispensation uh concerning the products of the labor So based on the private ownership of the means of production uh wage labor don’t have access to the products of
Labor and what does it produce for Marks it produce a foreign and hostile world and what is interesting of course in this theory of alienation uh by comparison to the theory of exploitation is that in the theory of exploitation in the capital there is no description of
Experience it’s not a description of the experience sometimes it is like in the in the chapter on the Machinery or in the chapter in the in the length day uh of work but most of the time it’s not a description of experience and in the manuscript in the philosophical
Manuscript you have a description of alienation as the experience of exploitation for the workers we could say as a a phenomenology of suffering for the for the workers sorry um so secondly the second criteria is that the labor process itself appears as a tment for the worker who feels
Miserable and unhappy unhappy because their labor is not voluntary but cessed and forced thirdly the worker is separated from other human beings with whom they only maintain relationship of servitude competition or pure instrumentalization there is therefore a mutual alienation of humanity in the capitalist labor process and lastly the
Worker is dispossessed of their species being their capacity and Powers as spes this is the main important point of discussion of course in critical animal studies uh the fact to know if we could say that animal workers are dispossessed of their species being uh because for Marx species being
Refers to the spiritual nature human Essence un body and external nature uh the relation of human with the logos with uh uh the question of how it can represent itself the world so one of the first attempts to apply this criteria uh to animal work uh came from Barbara no
Uh in in a book called humans and other animals and what she said is that of course animal in industrial farming are alienated because they are alienated from their bodies and Offspring they are alienated from their bodily function they are alienated from the Society of members of their species and they are
Also alienated from their life activity I am losing my voice um so from the perspective of the production process the life of the co is entirely devoted to the production of milk and Cales to promote continuous lactation any other activity including socialization with other members of her spaces movement for ring culation is
Reduced to a minimum a minimum or even eliminated however as uh Omar bashu um ask uh in an article called alienation and human animal Labor uh in the in the theory of alienation by marks there is like a really anthropocentric perspective presuppose that uh just human have a species being other animals
Have life activities but not a species being so the the the concept of alienation is based on the anthropological difference between human and non-human on the human Essence uh so the question is can we apply this concept of species being to all the animals even to the animals who doesn’t
Have such access to the logos and such a comprehension of of themselves uh a conscious comprehension of themselves so uh here I think we could have an argument that it is not necessary to be thank you a sophisticated interpreter to identify signs of the deprivation of autonomy for certain
Animals we could say that the animal resistance uh in the work process show that some animals make the experience of the loss of autonomy and that could be a sign a symptom of uh the the species being of the of the animals and Marx himself spoke of it in capital
Concerning the drought horse which was considered the worst labor force by capitalists because I quote Marx a horse has a mind of its own so even Marx itself has already the idea that some resistance of the animals could show that there have some exper experience of disposition of
Alienation so what we could say is that alienation only presupposes an experience of dispensation it means a form of Consciousness even minimal of the loss of autonomy and one of the sign of this Consciousness is the resistance provoked by being put to work so the literature on animal revolts
Provides numerous examples where animals have refused uh to varying degrees to comply with the demands of economic rationality from the sheep dog that abandons its mistress because she kept bothering him to horses that refuse to perform the work assigned to them so there are a lot of example of this kind
Of of resistance who show that animals can have experience of disposition and of loss of autonomy May surely not all animals we could say that the concept of alienation the extension of the concept of alienation is uh based on this capacity to have the experience of a
Loss of autonomy uh it is certain that some cow uh can have this experience May maybe some dogs can have this experience but maybe not all the living beings certainly not the mushrooms or virus or so or so on um I just uh yeah I take time I I always take time
For a quote of the German ideology uh in fact uh it’s it’s not again something really really strange for marks and angle themselves in the in the German ideology they wrote the essence of the freshw fish is the water of the river but this sees to be the essence of the
Fish and is no longer a suitable medium for its existence as soon as the river is made to serve industry as soon as it is polluted by dyes and other waste products and navigated by steam boats when it’s water it’s is diverted into canals and this fish is deprived of its
Medium of existence by simple drainage So In this passage of course marks ridicules uh materialists like ludic fbar uh but one could on the contrary see the foundation of a non-anthropocentric theory of capitalist domination of nature if the essence of a fish can be defined by its environment so by all the
Relation he has with other uh living beings and its specific difference from other animals it can certainly be dispossessed of the conditions of its own life as the spaces so this in fact uh is a common experience of both human and non human beings in capitalism being deprived of the
Condition of their subsistence as individuals spaces and communities so I think the difference U should should not be between human and nonhuman but between living beings who has uh capacity of experience of disposition and loss of autonomy and other living beings in order to make a new theory of alienation of animal work
Uh so this brings me to my third point and final uh the the question here is what do we learn about capitalism uh if we Define it through its ecological history of nature relation what can we learn about capitalism if we just not Define it with his relation to labor but
Also with it with human labor sorry but also with his relation to Nature in general I think it was like really the the the the main point of the world ecology uh of of of Jason MO to ask this question not only a reflection on the effect of capitalism on nature but also
A reflection of the effect of the ecological history of capitalism on the definition of capitalism itself so I think yeah it was like just a a quote of some really interesting book about animal resistance uh the an amazing title of Fame amiright politic and one of the of the best book
I think about about French political Ecology of the of the last year nunome pel from Lalo and on Sho uh who really reflect about the the resistance animal resistance to capitalism okay uh so I think with this definition of uh of animal work we can rethink the relation of capitalism to
Nature uh with different categories first we can classify productive uses of nature into two distinct categories the appropriation of nature on one on one hand and the putting to work of living beings and ecologies on the other and that are really two different way for capitalism to be in relation with nature why
Because appropriation sizes what already exists it does not take a product of human labor or natureal labor but the result of a preer natural process so the forces appropriated are found at the moment when beliefs Sciences or techniques constitute certain Natural Forces as appropriable entities sorry in this regard we could say that
Deforestation deforestation in the Amazon or the extra the extraction of fossil resources are considered as paradigmatic examples of the capitalist mod of appr of appropriating nature which is extractivism so extractivism uh we could say refers to the typical capitalist mode of appropriating nature founded on the rent generated by the
Exploitation of a surface or soil it is characterized by an extraction rate of Natural Resources exceeding the ecological renewal rate so the free appropriation of natural forces accumulated in the biosphere through the activities of non-human entities or through history of a coevolution uh this this is the the main
The main uh the main thing of the of the appropriation of nature uh but human appropriation marks the end of non-human activities of co-production of naturalness however not all nature appropriation is necessarily extractivist uh so I think that uh we have to to keep in
Mind uh that we can put nature in non extractivist way such are the under gather societies developed uh many appropriation practices through collection or predation which are not extractivist so anthropological literature shows that these appropriation practices are rarely free they often involve material or symbolic reciprocity what is taken must give must
Be given back the metabolism of society and their environment is guaranted by social relationship that ensure the reproduction of the condition of a continuous exchange of matter energy and Spirits so social appropriation of nature is distinct and that is the other point is distinct uh from putting nature to work uh
Making putting nature to work uh it means Enlisted the natural activities other than human in Social relation of production it’s not taking things it’s putting things to work uh seeds animals Etc and this is a dimension of Bio capitalism which is really different from the extractivist logic of capital uh so we
Could okay um this enlistment of of nature in human production uh is the prevailing AR Ms of the hosin since the netic Revolution as I already said uh so what is specific with capitalism is the fact that this way of putting nature uh is oriented with the value accumulation oriented with uh
Towards the market uh by comparison I I took an example of Philip desola because we were really critics of Philip desola yesterday but he did some good good anthropology uh sometimes uh so we can we can use it no it’s a it’s a joke uh in The Gardens of the ashua
Communities uh studied by Philip descola uh woman’s maintenance of a world that is both material and spiritual guarantees the reproduction of the condition of the grow of the growth of the plants so these plants and their Spirits are thus put to walk uh in the in the
Garden of the ash and listed in the service of human interest inserted into social relationship that they contribute to shaping at the same time so just as social appropriation of nature can be predatory or not depending on whether it respects the conditions of ecosocial reproduction of Life putting to to work
Can be sustainable or alienated exra activist or not so I really like uh tables and Shams so we could I tried to to make uh this big table of the productive uses of nature uh so on one side we have like the appropriation of natural forces and
On the other side the fact that we can put nature to work and on both side uh it can be done while respecting ecosocial reproduction or without respecting ecosocial reproduction so on one side it’s extractivism and on the other side it’s exportation and alienation so also I think we could
Based on this theory of exploitation of nature uh we can distinguish between three mode of subsumption of nature by by capital a formal one a real one and a total subsumption of life uh since I’m running out of time I just okay no since I have a lot of times
Uh okay great uh we can uh I can I can describe a little bit uh this uh this definition of subsumption of nature by Capital so as you know uh in capital uh in the one chapter of capital uh marks distinguish three forms of subsumption of Labor by Capital the formal one is
The fact that capitalist can use the work uh of uh of ancient mode of production of ancient process of production without transforming it it’s a poting out system uh in the cotton industry in the 19th century England so it doesn’t change Capital doesn’t change the process of production it’s formal Subs
Uh the ibrid subsumption I won’t won’t speak about it right now it’s about Colonial Colonial sphere and the real subsumption of Labor by capital for Marks is the fact that the capital reorganize the way to produce the process of Labor itself so for instance reorganizing the division of labor uh
Putting many workers together in a factory this is real subsumption of Labor by capital and this is for marks the specific way to think about uh the the transformation of Labor by capitalism the specific mode of exploitation of Labor uh in in the 19th century so I I tried to think about it
Uh not in the subsumption of Labor by Capital but in the subsumption of nature by Capital what does it mean to think that maybe uh in the exploitation of nature Capital use uses uh nature in different ways uh so here in fact I follow uh uh an intuition of environmental historian
Andreas malm uh who distinguishes uh subsumption of Nature and destruction of nature but subsumption may not be the appropriate category here dominica’s land was not really subsumed by Capital it was not integrated into the process of accumulation as the plantation was its resources were not diverted and reorganized for profits it was not
Domesticated it was simply destroyed so it can be it seems weird to to quote this this passage of of malm because he’s saying it’s not subsumption but what is interesting in this quotation is the fact that he say okay uh with capitalism you can have destruction of
Nature but in fact with all political system in history you can have destruction of nature uh you can destroy a field in order to to destroy the society uh near from you it’s not new with capitalism it was always the case uh so Colonial capitalism did that destroying ecologies for instance in
Dominas but also in other places capitalism Colonial capitalism reorganizes the ecosystem the ecologies completely reorganizing if we think about the island of maderas for instance uh it was like small island the first place with uh Colonial Plantation and slavery uh the the the colonial capitalism came there uh destroy all the
Forests uh make new Plantation of sugar cane uh and just Plantation of sugar can bring some slave from Africa and this is the beginning of Colonial capitalist relation to exploitation of nature so it’s it is maybe one of the first time where we used only one culture sugar
Cane uh just one culture no rotation of any culture it’s the beginning of the monoculture industrial intensive uh activities of capitalism so we have there not a way to destroy nature of course at the end nature is destroyed completely completely destroyed but it’s a destruction not by extractivism
Appropriation or pure destruction is a destruction uh which results from a way to put nature to work uh in order to increase the productivity of nature until uh it lost all its reproductive capacities so the the ecosystem lost the reproductive capacities by the intensification of productive process in bioc capital
So this is uh the the way we could speak about a distinction between formal subsumption and real subsumption of nature uh to take an example of formal subsumption of nature by Capital uh from Balo shopo in inun pel when a company discharges n nits to into a river it
Does not externalize uh negativities uh as e economists would say uh but in fact uh so it’s it’s not an externalization of waste not only it’s also an internalization as subcontractors as they said uh transforming an entire ecosystem uh into recycling plant uh we we the capitalist waits for the
Ecosystem to have the ability and the capacity to recycle all the waste and then the society to pay the cost uh but so it’s an integration of the ecosystem capacity into the production the capitalist production process uh for the real sub subsumption of nature by Capital refer to the
Transformation of the process of generating naturalness themselves uh the colonial Plantation are the would would fall into this category it’s like the main example of that but in fact uh I don’t know the the Italian landscape so much but when you when you travel in France uh what you can see it’s like
Nature everywhere is putting to work it’s like an industrial farming everywhere there is no almost no places with naturalness wild wildness Etc it’s like all the French nature is putting to work in an industrial way uh so this is the real subsumption of Nature and uh in
The terms of of anat Singh the Anthropologist anat Singh this kind of real subsumption of nature is producing a proliferation of anthropocenic of anthropocenic disaster the fact that new plants new virus are coming uh uh developing uh with this subsumption of of Nature and I propose finally I propose finally a total
Subsumption of nature of Life uh not formal not real but a total subsumption of life to think about biotechnologies patterns and genetics as a way to transform nature as another scale uh in the scale of the genetics itself for instance when you put a patent like MTO
On some seeds because you just transform the genetical uh genetical Shema uh you are introducing in the structure of life itself the property relation uh with patent with genetic modification and so on so I think this is a new uh really new uh uh way of
Capitalism uh a new yeah a new moment of the capitalism of the bio bio Capital to transform nature to put nature to work in a complete uh new way uh for instance uh the development of plants and animal biotechnology is uh only economically viable uh if it yields a profit to the
Companies that invented them so it is largely because there are intellectual property rights that you can transform genetically nature so there is a profound link uh in in total subsumption of Life between patents uh property rights and biot Technologies so just uh to to conclude
Uh so I think with this uh uh we could say a postum materiality uh decentered materiality nature is a materiality conceived as both human and non-human so of course there is a like ontological presupposition here that the difference between human and nonhuman uh is not the best difference uh to understand work
Relation it could uh play a role but it’s not the the basis of it should not be the basis of all the the the reflection on labor so to conclude are animals part of the working class uh if we say that they work they working they are exploited and sometimes alienated
They are putting to work by bio capitalism could we say that uh the the animals are part of the working class or as Jason Mo put it uh could we speak about biotar I would say a multipac is working class uh we could find a really interesting proposition from Len Balo in
An article called alliances to recompose the politics uh within and against the Ecology of capital uh and the fact uh which is really interesting I think with Len Balo is to propose to use the oper distinction between technical composition of the working class and political composition of the working
Class uh to redefine neological composition of the working class uh what does it means uh it means that of course uh we have like many way in which human and nonhumans are exploited in some places workplaces for instance uh in a farm in a farm you could find like a
Farmer who can be a capitalist uh even completely dependent on the market and and cows alienated and exploited and also illegal workers uh which is the case in France for instance where a lot of farm industrial Farm are using the work of of illegal workers uh so you
Have here a technical composition of the of the working class uh which seems to have some experience together in the same uh in the same working place but the political composition of the working class of course uh is based on the fact that we could not speak with them so organize
With them so uh wait for them to organize in in party or uh in Revolutionary organization and so on so Len Balo uh proposes to forge the concept of alliances uh to think about human and nonhuman relation in the working class I think maybe alliances is not the good concept uh especially
Because we don’t share this uh uh logos faculty uh the capacity to speak with them to organize with them uh but I think maybe we could use the Delian concept of assembly to say that you have in the working class uh different position uh of course human position in the working class is
The specificity to lead and to organize uh the class struggle uh the resistance but organizing the resistance based also on the resistance that animals living beings can develop uh in the place where there are uh exploited and dominated thank [Applause] you so thank you Paul for this inspiring and
Complicated actually uh speech that surely will have now interesting discussion with this bable discussion here so I put immediately the floor to inen aui for his reply thank you vano um welcome everyone and let me start on a personal note uh I would really like to thank uh Luigi
Piten for inviting me to serve as a discussant and um especially because the PO summer school was the first summer school that I have ever attended in my PhD program it was in the summer of 2020 online and um you know now almost at the
End of of my PhD to be here as a discussant is quite a romantic um trajectory for me so I was very happy about it and thank you Paul for the chapter you shared it was indeed very dense um and I hope I can share some uh uh insightful suggestions and and
Comments for everybody to discuss um I also I think it’s a a very good occasion to discuss something that was not mentioned yesterday and that I wanted to um confront with a comment but then I thought this morning was the a good occasion to do that and that was
That among the absences in in in the book and in the discussion that we shared yesterday was animals um species and anti-isis um so starting from that uh weirdly I think I share some of your conclusions uh but there are um points along the way where um I cannot find uh that same
Agreement and I take your invite in discussing definitions and concept first uh by starting not from work but from animals and that is can we speak of animals as a coherent whole as a category that does not change in place and time um especially when we discuss animals in capitalism
Um the risk of using animals this way uh I think is that of concealing the specificity of how animals are exploited in capitalism so I agree with you that they are indeed exploited but when we simply take human Concepts uh in this case Marxist concepts of exploitation of subsumption
Of alienation and we simply move them shift them to uh describe animal conditions in capitalism then I think we’re doing very much what Dara does in you know therefore the animal that therefore I am so basically moving our mental and human conception on animals and uh assuming that um they do not have
Uh again a specificity a particularity as animals Um and I think this is um you know especially when we also want to discuss nature uh at large again here I think the discussion is more um you know there are more references in the literature as well about how Natures are different and how they change and stuff
Um but again I really think animals have um you know should have a A peculiar a reserve discussion in that analysis and um should not be treated as soil as plants as atmospheric agents um because their exploitation um Works along different lines and those are the lines of uh necessist
Oppression um so for example um what I think um though is that um to analyze their exploitation in capitalism also in Marxist terms um should not happen through human Concepts but can help uh you know develop boths so while we study animals and um we uncover and
Discuss what are the peculiar ways they are exploited we can also so better understand how oppressions work in human exploitation so for example in the uh in the case of cows um what I was thinking is that it is evident for me how we can look at that exploitation and see the
Ways um it resembles it mimes um gender oppressions and racial oppressions um because Capital basic reproduces those kind of hierarchies and ways of exploitation on animals so cows are not only forced to produce more meals than they would naturally do but they are basically raped to do that and that
Often happens at the ends of men rationalized men and on the other side BS which are separated from cows are violently killed and that that kind of violence I think really follows the same patterns that we see in human exploitations the ways in which bodies are differently used to um produce
Different results and to establish different hierarchies um and I think this is especially important when we discuss these exploitations within the capital and just by chance last Tuesday we discussed this book uh animal Capital by Nicole shukin uh with the third mission of the the
Normal um that this book is now in our library it has been recently uh translated by in Italian and edited by TAMU and what Nico shukin says in that book is that uh animal capital is basically the autology because to say capital and to say animals is the same
Thing because animals have been an intrinsic part part of uh Capital productivity since ever um the fact that uh so it it kind she pushes that theory of exploitation of substan of alienation even further to say that they are basically the same thing um so for example she qus a lot of
Examples of the fact that uh I don’t know the assembly line the for this assembly line was actually inspired by uh slauter houses and the ways that worked um or the fact that the old film industry and photography developed uh thanks to the use of animal materials
And that the very technique that made film uh sensible to light depended on the kind of plants that cow ate before being killed and used in in that process so that the intricacies are so deep and so rooted and grounded in capital history that the exploitation of animals
It’s not something that we can um really separate empirically uh from capitalist development um and that uh takes me to the last uh comment that uh I wanted to share um today that is uh related to thanks to um where I started to the fact that we
Cannot use animals as a you know always the same concept is to his to Reise how animal exploitation has changed through capitalism um because I I think that as well makes uh you know implies a lot of differences with respect to the discussion you proposed on exploitation and and alienation
Um and and again that to look at that not through only human Concepts help understand better capitalist development itself uh so the fact that for example I don’t know in in first in the very first ler houses meat was just an externality and no one would use meet the ways we do
Today so how that exploitation changed how that contributes to um to to the theories you were advancing and in general I think you know I was wondering how does um all the theoretical framework that you proposed work for example with Sloter hous and animals that are killed because you know
One thing is that we talk about uh police dogs or guide dogs one thing is that still if we talk about cows but what about pigs or you know beef um because I think they uh kind of the the contradiction of uh of extending human Concepts to animals really uh produces a
Clash thank you so now now is the turn for the comment by Vivian so please okay thanks a lot tyina for the for the comments actually one point one of my comments overlaps with yours one of your points um and thanks a lot um Paul for your insightful
Presentation and for the opportunity to read your work uh which I found uh helpful I I find it help us to critically reflect on some emerging Trends in political ecology there is the role of work exploitation for uh the ecological crisis and whether and how such a work includes death of nonhuman
Beings first of all I would like to make a disclaimer similar to La’s ex exus yesterday I have not been working up to now on work and labor so far uh although with some colleagues we have just started a project on just transition in the factory so this is a
Good opportunity to start engaging with this literature uh so please excuse me if the comments are a bit uh confusing okay uh two phenomena on the one hand the ontological turn with its questioning and rejection of traditional binaries of modern thinking such as the cartisian dualism and ontological split
Between mind and body thought and matter and on the other hand uh the neoliberal ter with its intensification of nature exploitation through Market Le valorization have gradually led to a new conception the idea uh that is becoming quite widespread the idea that non-human entities perform work which is exploited in the current capitalist
Setting uh that is the possibility of non-human labor J Mo’s work who uh which you acknowledge at the very beginning of your reflection uh of the chapter which is a chapter of of your book now um in this World ecology framework in a way took for granted the very fact that
Nonhumans perform work without however explaining such an ontological shift Vis A the Marxist Orthodox understandings um more partly built his framework on the insights um of U coming from E feminist um Eco feminist literature uh for example Maria M van PLU darel s uh the social reproduction is work that
Capitalism develops some work in order for other work to be valued and that social reproduction encompasses both care work and natural processes however even in the relatively recent um and more developed conception of meta industrial label by AR Ariel Sal uh this label does not Encompass the work of
Nature and of non-human beings but only of workers nominally outside of capitalism such as peasants gatherers or parents whose labor catalyzes So-Cal metabolic transformation that is it creates metabolic values that is it enhances enhances and supports ecological integrity and the social metabolism indeed for Sal metabolic value is created spontaneously by
Ecosystems although ecosystems are not performing work or Labor uh work while met industrial labor does perform labor building on feminist Insight more understands Val as a way of organizing nature through a law of cheapening the both econom Ally cheapens and devalues in an ethical political sense some work
Uh that of women nature and colonies in order for other work to be valued in the expanded reproduction process all in the service of surplus value production more equals dis appropriation that is all those extra economic processes that secure and paid work the for chips of Labor power food energy and raw
Materials outside of the commodity system into the circuits of capital work is all life activity that works with within capitalistic value relations and it includes both unet work and energy including ecosystem functions and human and extra human nature and formal human labor appropriation for Mor is hands Ain
To a meaning of primitive accumulation to my understanding uh as an ontological condition for capitalism and it encompasses also the cultural emies and scientific technical repertoar that allow for uned work and energy to be mobilized and this is a citation from more that is GE geop power the labor theory
Of values of value is expanded and value is created not only through exploitation of Labor in the expanded reproduction of surplus value that is abstract social labor but needs to be necessarily sustained by the broader appropriation of the four chips uh through the use of the techniques of geop power I found
Some problems in M’s conception of abstract social nature which involves lumping together very different things the four chips uh which include labor power raw material uh food and energy which are united only by their being appropriated and non-commodified or outside the formal capitally circuit in the fields offices and factories uh that
Is um not in the expans reproduction your conception goes a step forward in the conceptualization because not only your framework attempts to explain what im more is only given for granted uh that is the ontological step of considering the functions performed by non- living beings as labor which is
Exploited and valorized by capitalism but also because you distinguish between appropriation of natural forces and and exploitation of Labor including that of non-human living beings further more uh more considers non-human work in a strictly biophysical sense and more specifically as overlapping or even conflicted with energy with the risk of
Reducing biological and ecosystem functions to energy while not accounting for what differentiates living beings from non-living things such as raw materials that is life as Luigi biton explained in his chapter on postwork and ecology in the handbook of critical environmental politics there is and I’m sting now there is a close
Connection between the emergence of the thermodynamic notion of energy in the 19th century and the development of industry and the associated notion of Labor as an abstract measurable entity uh work ending up described as the application of energy uh and simultaneously energy has the capacity
Of a physical system to do work but I wonder so and I close the citation but I wonder is this conception of Labor sound as Luigi peliton highlighted in his chapter in the postwork literature there has been a lack of consideration for the way work is related to meaningfulness of
Life to the idea of worthiness of work the mother sense making of life as productive life which remains unchallenged and the relationship with the biophysical realm uh this presupposes one way he solved this theoretical Gap is by leaning towards the conception of non-human work he writes another citation it
Looks it looks as though the blurring of Labor power and energy of human and nonhuman work began at the dawn of industrialization has left the factory to Encompass the whole reality the the idea of a word entirely commodified M equivalent hence fible that is disposable and put to work turns from um
Dreamy or nightmarish fantasy to Accurate description uh I close the citation and um how do you say quote and end it uh this is uh this very reality is what convince convinces both you and Luigi to get rid of what you call the anthropological difference that is you
Both put into question they claim that a purposeful self-conscious transformation of materiality is what distinguishes humans from other living beings in this understanding there is an ambivalent connection with Marxist thought on the one hand this understanding of work can only occur by meaning me of a Marxist assumption that
Considers value as something only resulting from a process involving work on the other hand this is done by means of expanding the Marxist framework which originally considers as labor only the uh the work of humans in the expanded reproduction indeed according to Orthodox Marxist understandings what you
Call put into work and as exploited labor of nonhumans would be intended as rent like for example thinking of the debate between swing adone and Callis no uh in capitalism nature socialism while I was not completely convinced by M’s analysis uh which did not explain the logical steps leading to
The expanded conception of work I have much appreciated your analysis and logical steps to support the thesis of non-human labor so I’m now a bit hesitant I have to say on the issue of the desirability of a conception of non-human work well I certainly espoused the political implication of this that
Is a critique of the intensification of non-human exploitation by means of Bio capitalism I have some doubts and concerns on whether this would create some challenges and further problems one is the um Point already raised for example by Arena not the uh so you um rais
The the possibility well the idea um of getting rid of anthropological difference but the risk that I see is the anthropomorphization of non-humans if we use and apply the category of work to non-humans aren we resolv in the Divide between nature and Society by superimposing and applying human categories and activities to the
Nonhuman world then another point is the distinction between coercive labor of non-humans what you call the violent enlistment of animals in human production and which is then uh labor and on the other hand sub subsistence activities which are not labeled as work when nonhuman living are not being co co
Coer so you made this distinction between what is is coercion so humans putting non living beings to work and the subsistence activities that are not coed by living beings which is not labor then is not work I find this a somewhat weak ontological distinction however although you don’t include the social division of
Labor in the definition of work which you give at the beginning you later use this criteria the social division of labor to rule out the possibility of work for subsistence activities what about however the lack of social division for coers labor why is Quist labor of non-humans considered to be
Labor despite the lack of social division of labor don’t know whether this is a bit confusing um another point is the distinction between um formal real and total subsumption the distinction between formal and real subsumption of Nature has already been applied but you also conceive a third categories not
Total subsumption of life you know uh that includes things that normally are included within the subsumption of of nature so I was wondering why you decide to have this three-fold distinction and finally uh you refer to the concept of extractivism um and I was wondering um whether uh the concept of extraction by
Sandro Med zadra which is a sort of more expanded uh concept of extractivism um grasping the functioning of contemporary capitalism might also be useful for your framework thanks a lot thanks thanks Viana now last but not least Manuel please third time you say last but not least I start to suspect
That actually it is the least and I would be right to be honest H thanks a lot Paul I enjoyed your talk your book um very much and I’m happy paul6 is going this way and I’m going to ruin it right now h no just joking but uh I mean
If you want I do consider you that you have argued for we should use the Expression exploitation of living beings and animals in particular after the discussion with Luigi and Ma so I I would like to add arguments to why I disagree so I will just expand uh that
Although I want to be um clear in saying that a I am sympathetic with both with both the starting point of your work and I totally agree about the conclusion of your work so like you know in the end which is we can choose Alliance assemblage no it’s in French or
Convergence for example that would be my preference H so the idea is politically speaking we are all okay I suppose I am okay with the idea of let’s end bad human mistreatment of animals does calling what animal do animals do exploitation help in doing this and my answer is no okay so like
You know it’s um a category issue and just to specify further I agree with Irena the point the point is if you assume the point of view of animals you are no longer within Marxism okay like I I totally buy your stuff H but I don’t think Marxism can do that and being
Marxist like you H knowing that there is a limitation to what we can do I would say like you know let’s do well what Marxism can do and then discuss and find alliances convergences or AG with what is outside uh of Marxism and of course I
May be wrong this is just um to to discuss uh like um I suppose in the end I mean what I want to in Marxism we have two problems basically we want to describe capitalism properly under the assumption that this proper description is helpful in overthrow it okay so you always have a
Tension between the descriptive fun function of concepts of categories and the political use you can uh take out of it which is a very specific problems like other approaches don’t H have and it seems to me that in the end even in your presentation like you know when you
Said well animals exploitation is very similar to slavery and I agree it definitely is but to SL it is not exploitation on Facebook with our friend jaro valon we were discussing the the book by yam H you know from few years ago and the title is
Uh from wage labor to um From Slavery to wage labor a very long book full of interesting insights but in the end the political point was we are wrong in assuming such a sharp distinction between slavery and wage labor from a historical perspective and I would concede the point but from a logical
Perspective if you erase the difference from wage labor and slave labor you cannot build a Marxist analysis of the capitalist um system and I just want to explain that this is not a terminological problem like the reason why you do that is that in the wage form
And in the wage relations relation there is an element of Freedom which is formal like you know you are for free to to go to to avoid going on the labor market like you are free to start if you don’t do that H but that formal freedom is
Also the condition for bargaining at first at the individual level and then hopefully at the collective level so like the point in in discussing eological syndicalism comes from uh there and I don’t think that anyal or nature at large can actually bargain in the way the wage form requires and just
To um specify a little bit when we talk about the sphere of reproduction being violently posed as separated and subal regard to the sphere of production when we are talking about slave labor and domestic work we are still conceptually in Theory uh talking about some subjects who could receive a
Wage there’s no way you can just say to an animal uh I will pay you I will feed you more or I will pay you more and you work more like you know there is a natural limit today like you know capability of bearing and stuff like
That but other than that it’s just like either you decide not to mistreat or once you mistreat you have a a deges of of mistreatment which which are politically decided but I would say among uh humans um and I mean resistance I consider that okay but resistance is not bargaining
It’s I would say at the very least and um question then would be why have you used frame your argument in this chapter uh uh fishbach and Renault definition of work which you claim is philosophical and Marxist I would consider philosophical Marxist I don’t know like you know if you don’t separate between
Work and labor which in my opinion is a very Marxist Point H it’s difficult to understand the theory of work Labor uh in Marx because I mean work is a logical category which in marks I you know and we can discuss again I’m ready to consider that we can look at the the
Same problem in better ways from a different perspective than Marxism which is no problem to me but if we stay within Marxism the definition of work is the metabolic exchange between men and nature in matter is what let’s call it humanity and nature and nature so either
We claim that this distinction which you said it’s not the best way to look at the thing and I agree with you but is it legitimate to maintain that and to me it is then by definition animals don’t work because they are not humans so and again relevant the point because I’ve
Read shukin and they have appreciated the book but if you say animal capital is a tooy then my question is is there any social formation any any mode of production known after domestication which is not theological is feudalism not animal is ancient mode of production not animal after domestication
Everything is Animal by your definition which is true and then my question is analytically useful how politically useful especially because I mean the book by shukin is full of incredibly insightful remarks especially the historical level and one of those Irena discussed but then when I go to
Assemblies or to my union meeting this truth I have with me gives me what which kind of Leverage do I get my position Advanced or it’s just like uh well you’re not doing your uh your job properly because you are just a worker and you want your salary
So let’s move move on so if the point is to to Foster convergence I don’t see why we need um that I say oh no and the last thing you will you will enjoy this uh I I have actually I was happy to see a discussion of the unpublished chapter six in Italian
Liberal in edito h by Marx but again the the notion of sub subsumption in that chapter is really based on the notion of wage so if we are and so you have formal which means like all the ways in which we can work needs to be reduced to the way W form okay
That’s very violent but you you have that once the wage for form is the norm then you have a proper capitalist system and that is real subsumption so since I agree with you that we need to conceptualize the Contemporary conjunction which sees nature and animals as well H internalized within capitalist circuits
My question is what prevents us to think exploitation Beyond wage labor and so think about this internalization with a concept which is not subsumption because subsumption is linked for so you can have formal subsumption and real one and we know they are not historical historically separated categories so like you know there
Is and then when you have a new form at a certain point which in my opinion is with NE liberalism h of primitive accumulation you raise new problems so you have formal subsumption and real subsumption now they don’t relate that much nature but we we have the problem
Of conceptualizing our Nature’s Place H within Capital circuit so let’s experiment with some other um Concepts okay because I I do think that’s the that the problem you raise is super legitimate and the first like for example Sandra madra and Brett nson try to do that through the notion
Of extraction but if you look at the genealogical origin of that concept is the the attempt made by Antonio Neer in Fabrica deetto in 1981 when he starts to talk about the real subsumption not of Labor under Capital but of society under capital okay and basically what Sandra
And Brett points out is well I mean that’s not subsumption if it’s society and not labor then talk about something else and I propose extraction I am ambivalent about that but it doesn’t matter like you know the point is I do think we need New Concept politically [Applause]
Also so Paul now you can of course replay we have time to do that they post this discussion post very relevant ontological if I can say question to your work so please you can reply after and you wish okay um I I don’t say I don’t say
Thank you but no thank you very much for for this like amazing comments and like really really hard and precise so it will be really difficult to answer everything and also to answer at all maybe uh because I think you all pointed some difficulties in the in the chapter
And in the reflection so um I will I will try um on the on the category of of animals um I have always this uh discussion with like um people coming from an anti spaceist perspective or people always like a tradition a formation in onti spaces reflection um but in fact what
Seems to me weird is that precisely I don’t want to mobilize the category of animal as a central category and in fact uh I almost in the chapter I think maybe not in English but uh in French never Mobil mobilize the concept of animals as such but always some specific animals
And living beings or nature but I don’t I don’t use like animals as such um why I do that because precisely I think the anthropological difference is what should be uh overcome and and so I don’t I don’t mobilize mobilize this category of anthropological difference and animal
In general as a category for all the living beings who are not human which are not humans which I think is a really bad category in fact as it’s like philosophy say that for like long time but um so I think we have to think about Rel relational sorry relational uh
Interspaces differences and so it’s always the the way I mobilize the concept of differences is to say you can’t you can’t see General difference between spaces like that even the the biological category of spaces is like really criticized right now so but what you can see in beginning with some
Activities you can see that uh it mobilize different kind of capacity from different spaces and that’s all the point and I think it’s an argument of Kendra culture uh the the the philosoph Kendra cter I use in the book which is uh between a horse a wild horse and
Horse uh completely dominated dressed for for for I don’t know running uh it’s not the same animal and I think even it’s a good argument even in the same spaces biological spaces you can say that the relation uh constructed different individual different animals inside a species uh this is why also I
Think that marks could be useful in this like really interactionist definition of the self uh this is why in the German ideology Mark said uh the essence of the riverfish is the entire relations he had which is of course uh the the forar thesis application to Nature uh there is
No human Essence that is just the social historical relation which Define human sometimes so I think we can we could extend this argument to to the living beings the nonhuman living beings um I I don’t know if it’s if it’s a good answer to your to your question uh on the on
The gender oppression racial oppression and the history of form of domination I I completely agree uh for example I I’m I’m I I don’t know if you know the the the work of beneda pesi uh and that’s a really important work uh but I think what she’s doing is like uh historic
Historicizing the mod of governmentality of animals and that’s that’s not my my topic my field and I so I think as a philosopher I it’s another question we should we should ask uh and but I compl completely agree with the different mode of of animal governmentality
Um and to the end uh about the the the capitalist development and the pigs and the beef um I I’m not sure it changes anything because when you have a theory of exploitation I I don’t know but when you have a ter of exploitation of animal
Work uh it it works for all the forms of exploitation and I think here uh an important Point uh is the as M bhon makes the point also in the book on labor wage labor and slavery is that there is in capitalism in one mode of production different forms of
Exploitation and that’s the point so yes slavery is exploitation but it’s non Capital specific wage capitalist exploitation but it’s a for form of exploitation and in the history of capitalism you have many forms of exploitation with a complex history and if we if we don’t say that how can you
Understand the fact that uh there are like more value on on one side and also all the experience uh of the of the workers slave workers uh woman workers in in subsistance activity and you have to to I think to pluralize the concept of exploitation and to think about it
Like there are various form of of exploitation in uh social rep or production social relation of production and it’s also the the point of Jus banagi for for instance in history and I I completely agree with that uh with this definition and also the the point
Of Emanuel Ru uh the fact that like social relation of production capitalist can bring together in fact this is capitalism to bring together like many forms of exploitation I think animals is one of them uh thank you so much Arena I don’t I don’t I don’t know I don’t I I I
Think I can’t answer all your question because it’s not question but uh um also different uh methodology and also political uh uh issue uh at stake so Um on the should I try to answer everything I don’t know um uh so on theorization of of nature uh so because I think it’s a it’s a it’s a link uh yes maybe there are some anop morphiziz of nature but uh it’s a problem it can be a problem for two reasons
If the anthropomorphization is false it means if the capacity you gave to nonhuman nature on there but if this capacity of intentionality of of of working with vital capacity of reproductive forces are in the animals it’s not a problem to anthropomorphize and I think it’s like a really important
Uh point of the of the ethology uh feminist ethology since the 7 is uh the fact that anthropomorphization is only a problem if the capacity to the capacity you gave to nonhuman are not there but if they are there it’s just a way a methodological way to think about
Capacity we don’t see in other way uh so I I yeah uh and in fact why talking about work for Animals it’s it’s anthropomorphization of animals who are anthrop anthropomorphized I don’t know how to say because they are integrated in human social relations it’s not like a theoretical discourse you say like
Philosophers uh can see animals as human well in fact like when you put some animal to work uh some living beings to work in fact there are in human social relation uh so it’s not like a theoretical anthropomorphization I I don’t know if I’m I’m clear but it’s a
Real one uh it’s a yeah it’s not like wild animals like domestic animals are in a way more human than wild animals because they are in interaction with the with humans um and so that’s why I wouldn’t speak about work for wild animals uh because I I think it’s like a
Specificity of social division of labor uh you can’t speak about about work if there if there there is not a social division of labor and so I think there’s not social division of labor in in in the in the wild um on the on the concept of
Operation of of operation of capital by syndrome zadra and extractivism yeah it’s it’s really complicated uh for for me I I I agree on the fact that maybe the concept of subsumption presupposes not maybe it presupposes in marks uh wage okay uh and so maybe it’s
Not a good concept but if you use extraction such as medz you can distinguish uh the the way you make animals working in industrial Farm which is specific and deforestation which is extraction another way of extraction so it’s always complicated but uh I I think we need to to have like yeah to
Pluralize the way we think capitalism acts with with nature um uh so on the but again thank you so much for your for your question remarks I I don’t think I I answer very much to to to all your your question uh and so to to Emanuel yeah I think uh
And I I will conclude with that but um um the definition of of of marks with metabolism uh the the way in which humans control their relation to Nature labor yeah you could completely say that about a lot of activities of animals the way in which they are they
Are in fact no in this in this short passage of marks he says exactly that there is work and production of animals but Instinct form so the difference is not work and not work it’s not production and not production the difference for Marks is different kind of production work and I think
It’s I think no no but but it’s I mean it’s an interpretation but uh in fact uh it’s the discussion since I don’t know the work of Ted Benton and so on on such things but I think it’s really a mistake because Marx say animal are working in
The manuscript of at44 and also in the capital but he says it’s an instinct instinctive natural form of Labor so it doesn’t say you human work and nonhuman doesn’t don’t work he says human work in a specific way and that’s that’s the point and I think so I completely agree
With with your point about the difference between wage labor and slavery uh but again I think it’s important to have like different a conception of different forms of exploitation inside uh capitalism and animal exploitation is many forms of of of this one uh thank you thank you so
Much for all your question comments and really hard comments and question we are not finished so we have many questions for the audience of course now so we have one two three four question from the audience and some question in teams you can read here let’s see how many where is the sorry
Okay just two so after okay after the comment the the question from the audience we will see what in teams happen if someone from teams want to post question can hands behind hand and so Lu okay MAA and then Luigi then you you and then please
Okay uh thank you Paul for your very unight full very useful uh presentation and also I will read the the paper because I haven’t yet had the occasion and also thank to the discussion because most of the question or the point that they would have raised
They already did so I I just try to uh I just want to make a comment just asking you because I’m I agree somehow with the remarks that L made especially the import of wage labor for me the accent maybe could also be put on the
Idea of free and nonfree labor and so I’m wondering uh as you said that your work is to clarify concept I’m try I I’m wondering um on uh on three concept let’s say uh the first one is why what do you think about the distinction that for example Nancy Fraser made to solve
Let’s say the problem you P so they say Okay Free Labor is exploited nonfree labor which is women reproduction slavery and so on is ex is uh sort of expropriated so there is a differences between exploitation and expropriation and I think maybe I don’t know that this distinction could also politically works
Because as Le said exploitation means is connected with free labor wage labor bargaining power exploitation needs a different form of uh um of demanding to be knowledge reconnaissance I don’t know what to say and I think this is interesting if you want to for example enlarge uh the right of animals in
Capitalist uh relationship because animals now are considered I I’m not an expert of um laws and right and so on but I think they are more similar to object so the possession is kind of rent no the value relationship is more that of rent and you are texed on the number
Of animals and you have also you did the same with your field or your houses and so on you are obliged to have some care based on their um attributes which in case of animals are also the sensibility they have but I think that if you thinks about explo expropriation and the the
Objectification maybe there is um an issue about how you can Empower and also I think is interesting for on a Marxist point of view because I think that the focus on expropriation H enable from a feminist point of view for example to enlarge um
To shed in light on the role of um this kind of non-free Labor in the process of Val of valorization and accumulation so I just wondering uh why you don’t go on that way but you already answered it’s just some points the other point is with the concept of subsumptions because you
Really uh it was interesting when you say there is a kind of subsumption when a plantation how a plantation is a kind of consumption natural and I’m thinking on another concept which is that of uh um terraforming by amitav Goos which also I think is very productive in the
Way to say there is a kind of no transform because also when you destroy or don’t destroy you are change the ecosystem somehow and finally I’m sorry I really found interesting and I really fun of your work is just try to put some other concept aside to see what because
Another thing is when you say alliances I maybe I don’t agree I think assemblage assemblage are more and again I was thinking about the concept by Donar about companion species and also I think this could be an interesting concept because it may make us able to talk about non-com species which exist and
Which we exterminate because for example with Luigi we were working on um kind of dystopian B Technologies which is supposed to kill all mosquitoes it’s hard to disagree with the fact that we need to combat mosquitoes they are not companion species they could be but it depends on
How we change our social metabolism so I think that this idea of making non-companion species companions also and finally the the real question we uh and sorry I I’m too long I’m interesting in the final you say that something which is really true know biotechnologies uh change are deepening
The modification of Life they are changing the scale of the problem and since you me mentioned the um uh Jore I’m asking are these interiorization or I don’t know how to call it of nature also changing capitalism somehow so is bio capitalism something that we can address with Marxist industrial capitalist
Categories somehow I I I would like to answer yes because I think that in Mark there are a lot of um insight for for reading this but I don’t know the my question is yes thank you very much really great discussion thank you very much it’s very
Happy that we had this opportunity to continue the discussion that started some years ago and um also for the comments they are all interesting there will be really many things to say but I try to condense in two main points uh one is about it is already around the question H if and
What is gained or or lost in enlarging or in broadening or going over the standard Marxist understanding of uh of work and labor so for example concerning ecosystem Services there is a big concern uh from Mar Marxist scholar whether the notion of rent should be kept strictly or
Rather looking at the enlarging the notional profit and the main concern is that in this way you lose something that can be beneficial for the the cause of workers so if you enlarge too much the notion of Labor then this something that detracts from the possibility of of
Labor struggles put putting it in the very basic I tent to believe that indeed we have to enlarge it so I take side with you rather than leel as leel knows but simply because we have also to historicize Marx and Marx was developing his wonderful categories while looking at a
Certain historical situation about capitalism which was also the notion of Labor work and labor there are very interesting writings that show that the notion of work and labor labor is uh connected to a certain notion of energy and and a certain view of how uh the the the forces natural forces are uh
Conveyed into into production so it’s very historical view so the question is is now Capital so different that we need to enlarge I think so I and as you said you also think so basically so in that sense I I agree ER and but um so also the idea of
The freedom of of um I mean possibly this is not now exactly the main point rather then the process of drawing all reality into a certain form something more aching to ador’s Identity thinking and just the point so I don’t know freedom of Labor relation is any
Longer to to interpret so this is this is a what I agree with uh but um possibly you don’t take your argument far enough in a sense because what I’m not convinced is about the the not that so much a problem with the notion of subsumption because
You can either use it or not use it but the notion of total subsumption because the distinction you make is between let’s say traditional biotechnologies and genetic biotechnologies um which in a sense uh they just intensify the traditional biotechs uh but uh what you suggest is that it
Is monological modification of that but then the big Corporation would tell you no it is just the opposite because you are just doing what nature always does so is the other way around is not a problem at all uh so my my question is um because also in
The end you uh use the notion of assumption concerning GMOs but then this does not apply strict strictly to animals so there is a kind of contradiction or tiny contradiction in making an argument about the GMOs but then the developing your argument only concerning animals C categories animals
Because GMOs includes also plants so this is something on which I would like to know more but the real the real problem for me is that this big intensification goes both in the direction of assumption and in the direction of foral assumption like ecosystem Services payment for ecosyst
Services where you don’t touch anything you just reinterpret something as a as a commodity so in the end for me the new the new point of capitalism is the total indifference to the source of value whether formal assumption real assumption whether from the living whether from the non- living the total
Blurring of this distinction into a kind of in in distinctive from which labor value is extracted so possibly the step we should do I don’t know how to make it but looking ahead is to elaborate this uh blurring on all the ontological categories that we use that
We still use to show that the real source of value is the claim that anything is a commodity from the outset you just recognize it as a commodity so I would like to know what you think about this if pushing a little bit further in a sense the argument about
Subsumption thank you very much thank you Paul for your thought provoking U uh contribution um my comments and question regards the the very issue of leing we experience something like a proliferation of livingness everything out there is leing everything is life in including apparently be the more and more dominant
Role algorithm in life that lives forever and thinking of uploading human life into machine that lives forever so the human makes itself into the know human and vice versa and we Experience Unlimited undetermined open-ended Loops between the human transum and nonhuman and this idea of open-ended life has deep implication
Also on the conceptualization of natural life or livingness of the Nations all this uh renew questioning on the uncomfortable issue of mortality and infity exploitation of living beings as mortal beings and in my opinion uh this does not take the shape of a mere refusal of mortality but of something like
Ontological stretching of both livingness and mortal and the letter concerns like processual understanding of that and mortality that has to do with the proliferation of simulations of mortality uh natural landscapes are filled with this process of simulating that finitude fness ending and the same vein the expert on artificial intelligence try to provide
Machine with something as mortality we build mortal machine providing them with the simulation of mortality all this may have some Leal implication on some categories of political ecology urgency and the NEX between urgency and itude for example but what I I was wondering what does it mean uh for your
Approach your critical approach to political ecology concerning exploitation does all this risk to hide processes of exploitation and somehow immunize critique let me be a little brutal and provocative there are in some more or less prospective backgrounds of some very questionable way of thinking they the the following question does it makes
Sense to talk about exploitation of the living when the point is that everything is lives forever and dies forever meaning that mortality becomes just an IND definite transition from one simulation of mortality to another this again this scenario what doesn’t mean exploitation of the living so my question if this all this
Uh stretching or livingness and Mortal as implication of thinking on PA of living oh thank you very much Paul it’s been a very thought provocative evidently presentation um so first of all just a clarification because this is probably my my own limit in understanding what you said but uh I
Just wanted to understand the passage because I wasn’t sure so you started from um an analysis of specific forms of animal activities that you defined as labor or or yeah forms of of existence that you defined as labor but then you said that so um after having said that
Yes okay so nonhuman animals work can work we can understand them as working beings then you said okay on the basis of this uh uh of this reasoning I can uh I put forth an my own specific understanding of capital nature relations in general and so I I wasn’t
Really clear about this passage and probably there’s something that uh I didn’t understand so I just would a clarification about this um the second point I wanted to make um is again around the the theme of work um I I’m not yet sure what what I’m
What I do think about um animals whether we can understand them as working or not working but something that I was um trying to reason about is whether the using the category of value instead of work might help help us to better understand the ways in which non-human
Lives are um subsumed or anyway that enter circuits of capital um and and accumulation um and um and of course also rethinking value in that sense because of course we can’t um use Marxist categories of value in order to understand this of course and and in
This I recall Luigi’s playar for for uh the historicizing of marks as well um and maybe related to this and to what Luigi was saying the concept of total subsumption um I mean it’s quite interesting and thought provocative so I’m I’m working on the theme of cultured
Meat in this moment and and I think it’s very interesting because it’s really you know the creation of something that you don’t really know whether it is something that is leaving or not leaving um but but out of a living being um but um so in some sense this would look to
Me like a good example of a total subsumption but at the same time there is you know a cows um body from which the raw material for doing that is is taken so um I’m wondering how far uh the the concept of totos subsumption really describes these new processes and
Whether it tends to um some somehow abstract or um push into the background the the living beings which also have a kind of power of resistance by existing themselves and so how also this impacts on how we can understand resistances and anyway even if it’s not um um resistance
Uh it’s irreducibility so how uh life can be and is always irreducible to Capital to Capital um the the last point that I wanted to make is about the theme of anthropo anthropomorphization uh which has already been touched about and I don’t want to to to go um again into that I
Have my own perplexities especially around the for example the issue of alienation like using the concept of alienation uh because yes analytically you can say that it can apply I do see your point but at the same time um how far a category that emerges within our own experience can um reflect the
Experience of the animal um this is this is something I wonder about but but my point um about was more about the the concept that you put forth of assemblage or or Ain and um uh and it’s a bit of a provocation but uh the concept of
In in the is is very related closely related to the concept of becoming and becoming is a mutual apprting so uh really putting ourselves in the condition of becoming with an animal would probably be mean also apprting ourselves as anthropos um and therefore I would say that it would put much into
Question the thing the the uh the process of anthropomorphizing and non Human animals okay I think that Paul can reply for this four intense question then we have a second round for other four question and another two question in teams and so Paul please can you repl now this four
Then thank you um so thank you so much for all the the questions and and in comments um no no but it’s it’s really useful I think um it’s really useful to have a lot of comments and critical comments uh to to go forward so
Um could you invite me again like two or three years maybe I uh no uh about exploitation and expropriation yes yes maybe I should I should think about it uh it could be uh useful um as I I as I told to to l i I think we could have a
Concept of exploitation with differences so it’s a it’s a it’s a political and theoretical Choice uh should we use one concept of exploitation with many definition of it we many experiences of it slavery subsistance work uh wage labor Etc or should we have many Concepts um expropriation exploitation slavery etc
Etc um I don’t know I I need to to think um but expropriation seems really interesting yeah um on terraforming yes uh I I am pretty much a big fan of sci-fi so so it’s a good yeah uh it’s a it could be a good choice
Um but maybe there is in this concept some of of the of the myth of the of the modernity uh the capacity to to transform completely uh so maybe it can be difficult to use a concept we want yes we have all the power on nature so
Uh yeah always difficult to use a concept which is critical but also have a lot of implication um again I will speak think about it and companion species yeah I completely agree with that uh in fact it’s why I speak about uh multi SP is working class uh it’s it’s based on D’s
Work uh but with the idea that har Mobil mobilizes this concept always with the the concept of Justice it’s interspaces Justice uh or and I think this the concept of justice is really too too abstruct too too vague to uh yeah to so I use like the idea of companion spaces
Work but not with the ideas of of uh of Justice I think um maybe on the question because the question of of Bio capitalism uh came many time and the question of total subsumption of Life uh I don’t know why I I choose total this uh this way but I
Think there is like a complete reorganization of of life at all scales of the the organization of matter uh which is different I mean it’s an intensification of trend who were already there which were already there but it’s also completely different for two reason uh it’s a scale of the matter
Uh transforming the matter at this scale it’s invisible it’s beyond all experience and this changes I think everything you can’t distinguish between something which is biotechnologically genetically transformed and something which is not genetically transformed so you can’t have for many things for seeds for example uh so you can’t have an
Experience of this transformation so something is is taken up in the experience itself um and the are two differences between biotechnologies and the the old transformation of nature by Capital uh is the ration of the general intellect of the of Science by the biotechnologies I mean you need like
Amount of capital huge amount of capital and in fact there are like four big companies in the world who can afford it so it’s like a huge recomposition in fact of of capitalism itself and the last one is the fact that there is a difference between material prop property and intellectual property and
All the biotechnologies are buil on intellectual property there is no uh genetic modification uh if there is no patent and so you have this this Dimension really recent in fact in in capitalism the end of the 90s and the the the mar maresh uh the maresh convention uh so
This this the fact that yeah uh property rights I in intellectual property rights are at the base of this uh transformation biotechnological transformation of nature which is really different from the the way you can uh use a field for example uh on uh on machine life and and life
And death um I think I may be too tired to have like a reflection of on finitude uh so I just want to to quote uh like sci-fi again um in the cycle of robots from azimov there is a moment where a machine was built a huge machine uh and
We don’t know why it begins to to function and the the human asking the machine but what what is going on and the Machine is saying I just want I just want to die I don’t want to be a machine anymore I just want to die but I don’t
Know how to do it uh so I it’s not a an answer at all just an evocation of of azimov uh and on the on the last uh question um yeah uh about the link between work and capitalism uh I don’t know maybe something
Uh no uh it’s like just uh I think what I meant is that uh when you you need to think that there is like animal labor or animal work if you want to after uh think about capitalism in his relation in a new way uh the capitalism interact
With nature it was just like a a beginning it’s like no no deductive relation uh uh and and about a uh and also it can answer the question of of L earlier uh a and if yes it’s true by do it’s always linked to a
Beginning uh uh and and a a way to transform Itself by the relation to other minor people minor elements and so on but it’s exactly the way in which in France in particular the political movements are mobilizing the living beings uh to say we have to compose other relation with living beings uh
Which maybe anthropomorphize little bits animals and living beings but also reveal some part of animality uh in in humanity and we have to to build on this kind of Desire animality other relation to our bodies to ourself to our environment so I think you you can’t you can’t think about theorization of nature
Without thinking about the animalization of humanity so that’s I think the utility of the concept of a so uh thanks Paul and thanks to the discussions um because the the discussion was very interesting many questions were anticipated uh mine I’m talking about mine questions uh I want to ask now um
According to Marxist theory capitalism subjects nature because it has to improve not the productivity of nature but the productivity of the labor force so the subjection of nature is an instrument to fight the class struggle against labor first firstly um and Mark says this because the exploitation of
Nature uh Works to reduce the salaries uh because the value of the salaries decrease uh increasing the productivity of Labor through the subjection of Nature and this is why um at the same time capitalism is interested in in mobilizing the activity of nature
I say this and I want to ask uh this is my the background of my question because from this Marx understands that there is a contradiction between useful value and value According to which capitalism can increase the production of useful value without being able to valoriz all this production and this is
The contradiction of capitalism which is an inner contradiction come coming from the inside of capitalism itself I think that maybe if you don’t make this distinction clear you lose the inner contradiction which is the dialectical contradiction of capitalism if in maxian theory and losing this maybe you go outside the
Maxium frame which is a d iCal frame of course this is not um a question of I don’t know Marx is true now is false no um it mean it works to understand the actual actual crisis and the way you understand the current crisis today uh which in my
Opinion is precisely this contradiction between the capability of capitalism to to mobilize to production of useful value everything but it is not able to valorize it because it doesn’t pass through the wage labor which is the only way capitalism can valorize in marxian terms the production and this is the way you can
Also according to Marx think from the inside of capitalism a new production emerging from it within it and not outside it so this comes to my second question you have talked about the um exploitation of animals you didn’t talk about the exploitation of humans as animal because human is the first animal
Which has to be exploited and U here I’m thinking about the critical theory coming from the Frankfurt School school which is which makes this point very clear human is a Unity of dual things nature and human this is the matter this is the issue which humans has with its
Own self it is a dual unity and so you cannot ever overcome that Unity you have produced in history while I think that all these also this ontological turn toward the identity as also Luigi wrote in his last book does not mean emancipation from itself actually I think that it didn’t it doesn’t
Recognize the dualism and the current different forms of dualisms which is the interest of Marx determining the current dualism which is which can be overcome as such finally thanks to this dualism and the distinction between the current the different historical forms of dualisms inside the unity some PE some criticis like the
Frankfort criticis try to another path not the um the analysis of the production but the Aesthetics which is another way to understand the dualism in a new way not an exploitative one so my third question is about the role of other things respect to work like Aesthetics art to understand the
Activity of nature as subject which is not a human subject but a different one okay there um for the next question please try to be shorter just just because we don’t have time for you know everyone have the chance to post question sorry I try my best so start
For saying that thank you for everybody because I think it’s really impressive discussion I think it’s one of the crucial topic that we have to discuss my first question is why didn’t you look to Natural Science for this discussing this topic because I think it’s it was one of
The main concern of philosophy and also Mo did the same referring to Capra’s work and also Mark was so um concerned about the development of Natural Science and I think about work physics in particular now have really lot of insightful for explaining their the role of Labor in
The development of system dynamic in physical terms in fact works is a uh just a demonstration the monstration of energy and if we take this definition uh in Social terms we can say that we are already in a full uh Employment Society because just leaving is a demonstration
Of working and so I think that it’s crucial the the the recogniz of the the work in physical term is also made by Marx when he say that the Ed value is made by uh the the natural resource and also the the human the human labor but I think it’s really important for
Understanding the reproduction scheme of not only marks but also the ecosystem that uh D Dynamic I think that the the problem the main problem of this this course and this there is some Critics on this is to attach them uh the the prices and and so on because for the example
That you bring us uh today uh it’s quite similar it’s so close to the discourse of ecosystem services and payment for echosistant services because it refers to the economics like just the mechanism of exchange no and also for the parallelism that was made before from slaver and wage the uh the capitalistic
Answer to the slavery was also to give them the wage because was more profitable more convenient because if you are the slave if you have slave you have to guarantee them the reproduction but if you give them the W it’s their duty to reproduction and now we have in
We are in the same uh uh I think the same in the same problem uh I think that also the the ecologism can bring us some insight because for the example that you bring us know the the dog the bees we are more concerned to the direct
Effect that these uh animals do in in our social system but ecology teach us that the reproduction scheme is more complex and the complex animals are in the uh highest position but is the final consumer of the photosynthesis for for example so it’s the final consumer of mode of production that begins really
Early another another meaning I think also our reproduction of our body early than the women work it’s made by the work of abiotic of from um mro microbiotic level so we we have to took this perspective I think in in understanding the role of ecological of ecological work so I think
It’s uh it’s it’s so interesting to understand uh I think this for the political implication to understand this as a space of struggle to understand the work the energy avable in in our planet um to combine the biological work and the social the social work because I
Think the contradiction now is this is the social work goes against the biological reproduction the concept also made by Matan Varela in the autop poesis because if we understand this contradiction if capitalism is capable of uh reproduction without guarantee the reproduction of the individuals we are cons considering a an ending system but
If you are considering that the reproduction of each individual in each living form it means that we can build some Alliance some assemblage I think so I don’t know if I’m clear super short first of all I’m very very happy that we spoke today here of animal work animal suffering animal
Exploitation let’s call anti-pc ISM because it was not obvious a few years ago and I think it’s important so thank you very much to everybody also to the organizer uh I am quite familiar with all the debate that you had uh and let me say that Marxist can complicate things that
Uh they more simply but no they make more interesting and complex um however just a clarification uh and a political question the clarification is uh a question so for you Paul uh if I understood correctly at a certain point you said that um the the correct distinction is not
Human non human but the awareness of the dispossession and you claim that for example viruses and mushroom are not aware of this dispossession can you try to convince me of this assumption because I’m not uh the political question so we we spoke a lot about ontology ecology but I want to
Bring back the discussion to politics I agree with Le and this surpris me somehow it’s not always the I mean I I get the point about slavery I I agree with uh with your uh with your with your point at the same time so the the fact of uh saying what
This the peculiarity is the wage exploitation it was also used as an argument to for some social movements to uh consider animal Liberation and anti-isis a uh Sera B struggle no uh second class struggle so the point is okay let’s call Alliance assembly I don’t know but in very practical
Terms what should social movements both the animal Liberation movements and the antagonist movement and the capitalist movement do in terms of the animal of the animal issue for example just very very brief uh these are the same argument that you raised and that I I mean I I agree was used to
Um postpone animal issues for example in one case that I remind quite well uh related to the Sardinian Shepherd a few years ago if you remember so the argument was okay there is an exploitation let’s call it to simplify also of the animals but now the most important thing is the exploitation of
The Shepherds and then maybe we can also think about of these uh other issues so in very very practical political term what is your strategy okay for your presentation and also for this debate only really few question and really really fast first uh because I have so much question I think more
Related to the understanding of your theoretical framework not your affirmation the first is that I think that your definition of capitalism is more the medon one than the Marx one so a process system a social system based of the idea of the unlimited accumulation and more them also
Har quite different from the marks definition the second is that when you talk about technical political ecological composition okay H I’m not I think that I’m not going talk about the Orthodox way but when you in the time in when you are have the superimposition of Technical and political composition there is the
Revolution and when so in this framework where is the place of the eological composition uh the third is the term nature because har for har according to harway Nature is a political project according to Mo nature is a class project why you use the term and the fourth last one uh I really
Avoid the problem subsumption autonomy and autonomy why the difference said why we don’t talk about human and nonhuman animals and maintaining the because I think that is more a problem of narrative of capital in this sense for example the process you described the selection selection and extermination for example a
The problems rely in the narrative because they act in the same way on human and on human uh during all the process of capitalist modernity okay just to read the question posed by Elizabeth tutso in in teams it said uh that the category of nature is not the Constructor or at least question
It understand is not the focus of your task since you set off to provide a terminological distinction from a Marx six perspective which is very needed it was part of the discussion of yesterday that binary thinking including the nature culture dichotomy needs to be challenged in how far can Marxist anti
Capitalist thinking benefit from keeping that dichotomy uh the dichotomy in how far could it be on the contrary detrimental it seems to me that a true ecological reading and thinking with Marx today should not only recognize the agency of not human beings but make room for a non mechanistic understanding of
Coexistence co-production and gendering without losing the critical perspective critical of power okay the floor it’s completely yours okay uh thanks again I I try to to be to be short but I begin with the the definition of of nature because it was a a question
Um I first I don’t think Marx never was dualist in onology uh I think Marx was a naturalist which is really different such as Hegel and he’s not cartisian on this position what does it means it means that uh there is a totality and this is why in the manuscript of at 44
Is always defining nature as in the G Al always defining nature as uh organic nature and nonorganic nature so there is no dualism here is a monism and this is why we we can use nature I think and we it’s uh it’s we I will say it’s legi at to to speak about
Nature uh for many reason the first one is that it’s used and comprehensive uh for many people to show some uh that exists without uh human intervention and that’s reality like there are many things who which exist without human intervention uh you can call it in
Another ways in nature if you want uh but that’s things which exist without human intervention uh which doesn’t mean which we can also uh think about a Hol this concept of Nature and so human are part of this nature and so it’s a slogan of the
Laz who was we are not defending nature we are nature defending itself so we could completely be uh using the term the concept of nature without being dualistic or and without formulating a separation between nature and culture as like two ontologies I think this uh this
Way of thinking built by Jason Mo and all no a lot of other people like Donar and so on and L also is completely false we can speak about nature without to be jistic um not as as separating big on so I I speak about it in the in the last
Book called ter capital and we defend with with the friend the concept of historical naturalism uh the fact that nature exists by itself but also in ecological in Social history uh so that’s that’s for the the question of of nature um lot of question I try
To uh maybe I I conclude on the question of of strategy and uh and Aesthetics um on the question of of strategy I think this is the reason why we should speak about exploitation of non-human beings uh because it’s it’s indicates uh the way we can fight
Uh and the strategy uh different goals that’s that’s that’s why I think for instance we need to to to strike back uh against Capital exploitation of human and nonhuman before uh the domination of nature for instance uh in general um so it’s a it’s also what a lot of movements in in
France are trying to to do right now for instance let’s have ml uh they are putting all this question of living beings and of articulation between human and non-humans uh in in struggles uh but in struggles against Capital against like some projects uh defended by by
Capital so I think this is the the the really vague and Abstract strategy and uh maybe on the last point about Aesthetics um about the utility of Aesthetics uh yeah of of course to to understand the subjectivity of nature uh yeah of course it’s it’s like a a Central
Central issue and I think we don’t the the artists already begin to do that uh to understand the the kind of of agentivity of subjectivity that are that are in in in natural relations and in in nature and in ecosystems um yeah so I will stop there thank you
Thank you so much for all your comments and remarks and critiques and so on okay so thank you to you of course thank you for this and uh just leel would you like to say something I mean one second we have met I think at po first with Nicolo I
Never saw him nodding while I was talking to I want to celebrate a second this by being frank in replying to uh what I we do like know first uh when it comes to human slavery in my opinion the only political position possible is abolitionism okay I
Don’t think that’s the same with um animals like even vegetarian or vegan my grand-grandfather was a peasant he brought me with him how we used to do agriculture it was you know subsistence farming not money or stuff like that and I can tell you that in agricultural
Farming there is killing of beings okay so I my strategy would be like you so in general would be reduction not uh I mean abolition of the slave relation but the fact that animals can be uh killed in the practice it doesn’t seem to me completely like you know I’m still I
Agree with MAA that we can try to make mosquitoes a companion species I don’t think we succeed uh but I’m happy to be proven wrong so let’s go to very practical things um as an individual I try to stick with networks of uh political farming jestin and stuff
Like that which for sure and they eat less meat and less di diary something like that and it’s something that individually speaking I try to do in the optic of reduction and politically speaking my main point is given what I said before uh trying to create within the struggles
I participate in Union struggles or social movement struggles the conditions politically building the conditions for what I suppose is animal’s interest with our class interest right it’s in my opinion it’s difficult to think about a perfect alignment but an approximate one and that’s in my opinion what gives these struggles the
Possibility of converge H but I I am happy to go on with this discussion about strategy I just wanted to be frank because I mean you know I owed you thanks a lot here we are good afternoon we are going to start this second session of
This second day of the PO Workshop I’m very happy to be here and to to chare this session um we have the you know we are so happy also to host Silvan buul my French is not but is inexistent so all the the the accent will be wrong but I hope it’s
Not uh yeah and Silvan is a professor of Sociology at the University of of parie and researched at Labor okay she she study at politic anthropology atrs and her theoretical research interest include ecological struggles theory of conflict social theory critical theory and pragmatism her last book concerned the political
Autonomy relation with ecology and the title is irreducible or something like that but I’m s sorry for for this bad pronunciation uh we have the opportunity to discuss the this presentation of svan that is named renewing naturalism pragmatism and Ne materialism in ecological struggles this is that I’m very close to
So I’m very very happy to be unfortunately I I’m shairing so I I suppose not to be able to you know to discuss a lot but I Tred to to to be not so consistent with my role and and then we have three great discussant I would say um
Alicia dalobo uh from the University of torento she studies uh she’s part of the POA Network and so U she’s within this field of study about politics and the body and uh actually in the last period she’s going in depth about food consumption but also in this case from this very political ecology
Perspective then we have josepe kaga right uh from this uh same institution uh is uh in the social movement and um I have seen that you study basically the the relationship between individuals practice and relationship between you know the collectivities that are uh claiming for um and then with social movement at the
End and finally Loreno zamponi again from the same institution um is also in social movement studies addressing both memory and type of mobilization in particular also the non mobilization strategies if I’m wrong right so um I I think that we can start with the presentation of Silvan and um we
Agree for one hour speech but you know you can manage uh as is more comfortable with you so let’s start ah okay okay thanks for everybody thanks for Lui LA and so on to having invit us because it’s a wonderful conference and opportunity to
Have this talk and uh I tell you I will not talk three hours as a poll this morning I’m not able to so and uh my presentation is transversal to to some points we discussed from uh yesterday uh so I I will start with a cartography it’s this uh page of the
Environment and thinking in France and the problem posed to the sociologist uh by the ontological shift I’m not a philosopher I’m a sociologist I’m not an Ecom Marxist I’m a postmaterialist and pragati that’s it uh um so it’s the first po the first point the second point I will to uh have some
Uh comment about a sociological program which could be adapted to taking into account the agentivity demanded by environmental philosophy and I will dwell on the case of my impation of the formula s its nature defining itself in the case of z z notam Zone to be defended which is a
Very very famous struggle uh in France in Britany where I conduct an inquiry and Survey during three hour three three years not three hours uh first point the first and most important one concerns the deconstructivist approach is in academic literat which are picking the interest of ordinary actors so activist artistic
This approach I mean ontological term which is a global term include currents of thoughts belonging to the ontological term which redefined the natural cultural divide we we talk about that yesterday and in today these fields of force may be endorsed by key offers and give rise to Paradigm to re revisit
Constructivism constructivism this is the case with generalized person perspectivism theola L wa sing critical zones lat hybrid beings are away involving nonhumans and artifact this is also the case and I very surprising nobody mentioned this author uh this is the case of Vios de Castro with his cannibalistic metaphysics overturning
Ontologies and also star Hog’s imaginating Powers based on connection system connectionist thinkings as a Remer and to put it simply this currence a knowledge the fry of a Great Divide between humans and nonhumans like that between natur and culture the pioneer of the field of anthropology is as you know Philip The
Scholar who starting with Amazonian people has demonstrated the Western Construction of a notion of nature in par nature he developed a typology based on four ontologies naturalism animism totemism and logicism in his recomposition theola humanizes nonhumans in a way by authorizing authorizing an extension of a state for culture to
Nonhumans with all the attributes this implies from inter subjectivity to Mastery of technique behavior and so on in contract to multiculturalism as in the West this is also the multin naturalism it’s the T thesis of ver veros decastro for him in Western culture the form of the over is
The thing and in the nonwestern culture the form of the over is the person and it’s a very important Point complimenting descola’s work Bruno latur has introduce another form of critic of the opposition between the social and nature especially in VAR works such as the famous previous works of l l
Argues that in political anthropology like in sociology the social could pass for the politic whereas the overs that is to say nature is external to power to public discourse to institutions to Humanities to politics L sociology of Network actor and his symmetrical anthropology is supposed to solve this problem lat demonstrates following the
Scholar that nonwestern cultures have ignored the distinction between the social order and the natural order latou attentive to science studies and pragmaticism also criticizes the distinction between human and nonhuman a distinction based on that between subject and object which it challenges according to lat objects and subjects can never associate but human and
Nonhuman can and it’s really a problem he thus comes up with a notion of Acton to definite an enti an entity emplo to act in a given situation he didn’t choose the term actor actor because he found it’s too anthropomorphic these stances L desol Vios de Castro but we could also mention
Ha have one thing in common they all Advocate new alliances with nonhumans it’s a question of recognizing the braing of boundaries between the natural and the social the BR the bluring carried out by actors of all Kings from Human Parliament to artifacts or object there is of course a perception and
Vision that the anthropological foundations of conditions of existence have moved besides the climatic crisis may be stopped to the benefit of a relational dynamic in which the living becomes a structural compartment this concerned a number of M in frence especially mod you see in this picture U the parliaments of the rivers the
Paraments of animals we have a lot of parliaments of animals in wer in Fr a lot a lot a lot and uh the word is given to the bage for the wooded countrysides and animals who are spontaneous credited with an interiority similar to that of humans plants and animals are recognized
As having political qualities and values of the resistance in this context humans are attria never specificity and nor superiority in conclusion his studies as consequences not only for repr production of knowledge but also for ecological practices which claim to be part of this variant yet supplementing them with all the features such as
Raciality and intersectionality the challenge is to continue building politically power collectives but not turning a blind eye to nonhumans poers this is the case for several collectives Extinction Rebellion XR and so on Su model is one of the most powerful movements fighting extractionist extraction and capitalist exploitation they also make it possible
To recute Acton in AR graphism design literacy uh moving directors and so on and varize new forms of sociability brought abroad by plants waterways artifacts and nonhumans they make ecology Inseparable from its cognitive environment as sociologist some important question arised first and I think it’s very very very important it’s
A crucial Point who is the we the we of nonhumans and what is the place of humans in these aliances where is the non human is Central second Point how are soci social relationships sorry taken into account perhaps this implies a ring relationship between society and ecology this relationship as you know
Has been maintained by Marxism social critique and political ecology for the purpose of prompting Collective action and socialization and making visible the responsibility of humans to sum up the success of the ontological turn in my view reflects a transformation that affect the representation on what a
Society is and I think it’s a crucial point of all this new epistemology what is the representation of a society now at the age of the crisis in our time of Crisis normative principles such as solidarity and legitimacy of social institution are now being are now being challenging by representation then that
Can be found concrete practices such as commit commitment to care Shamanism direct ecologies and so on but are they actually politics and how do they take into account emancipation emancipation equality and the future of our Societies in ecologic point in ecological uh I don’t know how to move to the next Okay yes thank you where oh okay briefly um um in E ecological philosophy we have another poll it’s the Neo Marxist poll where we find such a prent auor auor as Andreas smm I don’t know if it’s known in h in Italy in in fren in France is
Very famous as you know it’s a geographer and the thinker of disarm disarmament in his view El eliminating the opposition between natur and culture appears to be a form of depolitization given that the dominant capitalist amican CH class is responsible for for global warning according to malm
Therefore the enemy is not a vision of the world I mean the natural Society theism of the modern but an adverse policy uh the enemy is not the actant it’s the capitalism this ties in with a notion of capitaline or the notion of eom Marxism developed by Paul gilber and his
Communism of living which integrates all relations of domination in their diversity while articulating them around the capitalist exploitation of label and in all its form but for critics of the Marxist current it’s a monom materialist Vision where there is only one reality one word one way of relating to all
Others to sum up we can see that word and I think it’s very important that word and the political and conceptual use of language change their meaning depend depending on whatever we are dealing with a Marxist Society or with a living Society in a Marxist Society emancipation Remains the political
Objective and emancipation precisely negative emancipation is achieved on a collective basis in a society based on the living attachments count they must be discovered and cultivated in the eom Marxism one is concerned by dependencies in a living Society one is concerned by interdependencies with relational approaches that retain the form of
Dualism and I think there is some intermediate paths between this two polarities the first example is L notion of class ecology ecological class his latest book MOS class CL ecology I don’t know if it’s translated in Italian uh proposed a notion of an ecological class which do not follow
Follow in the footsteps of traditional social classes explicitly opposed the no the production based Marxist current that dominate the academic and militant left but L did did not dismiss Marxism focus on material condition indeed for l it’s not the same mat reality than in Marxism which is at stake since what
Since what is at stake at stake is to profoundly transform politics not by turning to emancipation as in the case of Marxism but by turning to attachment and relational thinking it did indeed latu promotes association between humans and think that can only be definite in relation to others therefore possess
Political and social qualities the class ecologic the Earth class do not does not imply a radical project but rather the reconciliation of the word we live in with the word we live of the class ecology the Earth class changed this by considering society as a role and making
The effort to analyze his internal and external intern dependencies this contribute to World habitability finally the characteristic of the ecological class of latur is to pie together henties which oscillate from The Peasant to the gardeners to economic Collective I mean Industries and so on to being hyper sensitive in the cause of climatic
Change briefly another alternative is to articulate the theory of living being or network actor with a Marxist vision for instance it’s the case of shopo and Bano and Balo uh also maybe pyoo coo shopo and Balo propos to ship from maxent agent to Gant agent so it’s interm and rejects social categories
Passive obsolet I will not develop here but now we must come to the role of the sociology the role that sociology ought to play and it seems that sociology is deliberately overlooked by the ontological turn and perspective hybrid and postnatural currents sociology in fact in France and also I think in the
Rest of the world is not so present in ecological issues for instance the dominant thees of social movement mobilization repertories traj Tories are insufficient to account for the ways in which this envir the environment can be a source of unrest which is not expressed in the public Aras Arenas
Sorry and it’s very important the lot of the movement do not have any issues in the public scene the fact that sociology is silent or ill adapted to ecology iCal issues is due to the fact that there is regarding to me pathology of social critic and to put it very quickly the
Dissonance between theory and practice or even between philosophy and empiricism I think we discussed this this yesterday I think it’s the point of post operis also uh another thing sociology and especially B sociology has been negative theory of emancipation as uh the theory of Frankfurt School uh also another observation the
Last 20 years have shown that the critic has shift from its objects and have new objects such as feminism Russian studies and so on uh sociology also has moved from Material forms from the Spheres of s and it’s also the case of philosophy and I think it’s very important Point uh
Philosophy philosophy have has moved from the aesthetical object uh no sociology said lat so it’s really famous uh sentence of lat no sociology extending the social to science to ecology and to the terrestrial the rest but what is the sociology to be from now on and I think
The twofold question of ecology and criticism presuppose to have a pragmatic program that anales the critic and moral sense of the ordinary actor and recognize the human subjectivity in other words to rearm social social sciences and social critic this one must be understood not term of social relations and production alone but has
Extended to all all material condition of existence in a more existential meaning and phenomenological meaning and uh given that it’s okay it’s okay given that we notice that for instance the social reality is profoundly modified by by psychologic psychological structures mod in of action in presence
Emotion and so on I would like to give five examples of program that brings together social critique and ordinary critique which reestablish the connection between F the social modal and the physical and biological World in other words the associated environments in a capitalist context and which make it possible to read emancipation of
Certain beings or group in critical context first examp and I love this sociologist is akuta I think it is famous here also in Italy with his notion of dissonance and resonance as you know dissonance is was symptom of capitalism acceleration and it’s also the loss of encourage andage dissonance
Is the negative face pH of capitalism buta developed also uh opposite to the dissonance the notion of resonance resonance resonance me is meaning that people ReDiscover the meaning of our existence through spheres of resonance that give importance to the relationship with living things or to reconnective with fam spiritual intimidate on natural
Words second example the forms of lives a program loia wrote about that which allows us to move beyond the commodity forms and I think it’s very very important I think we will discuss this point in the in the discussion third the latur ecological class even if it’s
Incomplete but it has the advantage of taking into account the reproduction of material conditions favorable to humans the condition of habitability fourth the echo of materialism and an En llarge materialism reference could be provided by David schosberg Karen bad Jen Bennet also in this case values are not longer
Seen as a sphere added to material facts from the outside on the contrary they are increasingly understood as imminent to the relationships and orientation share by beings in movement with practice practices dynamical new materialis takes account of responsibility in pragmatic term we will say taking account of capacities for
Actions five the pragmaticism is the possibility given to the actors to describe their assemblage all this program do not and I will really insist on this aspect to escape from naturalism as advocated by philosophers of a living and ontologic T when they exacer when they exacer nonhumans and in
The same time downplaying relations of production on the contrary it’s we could interrogate the social from the point of view of naturalism in science sociology because the question is not to chip over into several ontologies as if it’s enabled to contain domination then we need to incorporate
External elements that are more less or more or less visible in the relations of domination uh until unlikes lur hybridism which is only an arrangement between Acton to sum of this part the notion of positive emancipation needs to be recalled only humans can change the institution of power and institution of
Work if it is necessary to reintegrate the living the beliefs the emotions and so on it is necessary un condition why we that we do not erase the social the sources and what founds relation uh um nor eras the necessary conflictuality as designed it by the
Term prais which is very important it is very important because actors alternative radicals autonomous collaps survivalist Etc Express very different and highly critical relationship and viewpoint on transition on ecology on institution and on the common good that’s why I now I will move to the case of notredam deand 15
Minutes um so uh as you see on these pictures uh it’s the case of notredam DeLand which is a Zone ad defend Zone to be defended in France in Britany uh I set out to image a sociological model model that could be in dialogue but also in productive tension
With emerging approaches of the non-human manions above I will give some facts and some description and some methodological approach the Zone def the zone to be defended the is located in the western France at it was a Zone supposed to host uh an airport airport imagined by the
Government the States from 2012 the project of the airport encounted growing opposition from Eco activist local residents local forers and the Zone was occupied by all these groups included anti aoran and an anarchist revolutionary collectives and so on with this active resistance forms were occupied and the land started being cultivated in
201 18 after Cy of violence cycles of police repression as you see in the p on the pictures after support mobilization extensive media coverage the government abandoned the airport projects since then since then with the consent of the authorities part of the area has remained occupied and still today a
Precarious example of self organization is on the way the fact is this one RAR has a place produced so many stories about the role of natur in Social struggle Scholars such as desola latur staro Shiva movie directors artist uh poets and so on all have contributed with text to celebrate the
Zad the zist which is the occupant of the zad have become Central figures of the new epistemology with emphasis on the plural relationship of the world to the world in the stories about the Z you have some example on the left ethnology theography de
P and so on we have a lot a lot a lot a lot it’s a big mess uh in the stories about the zad multiple beings are sanded n is a def we have natur defending itself be the territory ter so the forest of a the population of nudes the nudes are the
Tron I don’t know what is the term in Italian it’s this one you know the nudes uh the nudes are recognized as characters invest with specific inist and values for instance shamans speak with the occupants Shaman speak with with the NES during dreams and hallucinate hallucinatory transes all
These creatures features in the drawing the stories and the sound in the zad also mask of nudes and in Old L are used to express animism as lifestyle animism a way of being in the world where everything is integer and common soil to peacefully manage coexistence of in the same territory the
Zist evoke the metaphor of diplomacy in the zist story The N Tron become creators who clash with the police and force alliances with other beings in this context humans are never Superior and special re-enchantment is key to produce artistic effect but also to talk to anthropologists the that is presented as an Suite
Experiment and uh also as a marketing case we would certainly describe such tenet theol and so on as a form of epistemological populism that pushes for the rehabilitation of nons scholary and nonacademic and for the native ways of thinking where scholarships are excluded in this respect the ontologic term
Neglect the fact that the relations between humans and between humans and nonhumans are not the same at the opposite a sociologist sociology is attentive even more than to objectification is attemped to the conflict realities that shapes the zad and the society there is no chance that nonhuman spokesperson can take a human
Point of view since they have no logos for join politics better the point this assimilation of non-human and human forget one point the ideology of the activist in the zad is grounded first by the critic of capitalism and the capitalistic State second by the critic of the transformation from natur into
Commodity it’s true that the zist aim to be less on entric than over traditional struggle but we cannot avoid issues of governments and their main concern is with the political autonomy and the self institution of a society their ideology remains deeply political as a project of social transformation the zad is an articulated
Critic of a social order and institution challenging hemony and domination with a set of of grammar of autonomy and self-government for instance the zist are concerned with the inequalities produced by market capitalises and do not cease to relate themselves to elements such as the law eviction nodes
Company profits and so on the squarters also employ various methods to counter the legal and institutional order as commissioning the report advocacy if they have a lot of 100 lawyers in the Z and economic consultant also a lot of conflicts and I will develop this point between groups emerge some are more
Interested in sociology others in Revolutionary project or autonomy and so on to sum up we cannot reduce them to a biotic community and the ontological turn runs the risk of neglecting this aspect there are political characteristics that make them distinctive and the final question follows the previous one is the
Ontological turn compatible with political responsibility political ecology has raised this issue and the same question is interesting also to be found at the heart of a z Collective as they reclaim for theel NE Marxist revolutionary Woods Anarchist Etc the importance of this nuances within the Z must be appreciated
For instance in the level of practical activities in the zad speech emotions and bodily practices and gesture self-defense and so on must be seen as critical and in the same time also being the support of ordinary activities such agriculture repair maintenance Work Care Bakery and so on that’s the reason why
We use the term of critical pragmaticism to raise two issues in the representation of social realities by the activist pragmatism combine a First Dimension which is a Metacritic of Institutions such as the state the force of the state as we have seen is present in the ground through the legal
Framework the eviction the expropriation and so on through the police repression also and the second dimension is an ordinary critic by the Z’s commitment the territorial defense we perform is grounded as we have noticed in common attachment and join action activities including agriculture Mutual Aid are proposed as G as critical gesture and
Gesture for the resistance against institutional domination indeed a struggle M such as that is characterized by critical Gest to disengage them from the states it’s the second it’s the first point and second point to emphasis local commodity communalities communism uh let us consider two example first the territory bage land
Facilitates the gaffing of actors with the same sensitivity attached to the land and its biodiversity we call occupation occupation form form occupation the way to build new forms of life inside a contested land in fact the occupation form the appropriation mobilized two faces the first phase is um the uh the way to
Defend building to defend the land against the police and the state and the second phase is is the the way to build a living world to build a mil this double faes defensive and offensive are indivisible and it’s a kind of new materialism here a similar demonstration
Could be done uh for the wall of objects as you see in the center of the picture uh manual or artifact devaluated object here receive renewed appreciation the zist stay clear of new objects commercial objects as much as possible and accordingly learn new bily skills with Rec crafting stuff
For instance a ble can be used to mix the ingredients for a cake or a cocktail an empty gas tank can be made into a wood fuel a cooker or dummy bomb to be displayed in the event of an eviction cardboard can be used on a food tray an
Whole engine for a barricade a garbage can lead a shield against the police and so on gardening tools as you saw in the pictures can turn into weapons for a barricade defense tractors uh AB are used for Road blockade and so on all these objects becomes part of a strategy
Of invisibility a reused object is put in speculation and opens up to new stories new practices new experiences in a sense objects also function as mediating devices and um however emphasis here is on human intervention not a physical G but a value enables a change for of fuse by breaking away from from
Industrial society contrary to an sacralization of natures politicization here passes through a precise human handling of objects the more objects that are brought out of a custom orbit the better are we see here that human reappropriations become reflexive about their relationship to the industrial commercial and institutional world not
Because of some accent aspect squatters themselves elves are not univocal about this and uh they they they have a lot of difference uh between their relation to the mil uh I will give some last example uh briefly uh we can uh see that uh we must
We must take care to identify the actors and the term of our commitment in the Z to the cause they have you have reformist who aim to slow capitalism down you have radicals who want to who want to break free from the at it at on they are also primitivist utopian and so
On all the different this these groups where Shari Anarchist utopian Etc have dist disant ways to be connected with the mil moreover the different relationships to an environment become source of internal conflict in the zad some other occupants the most the most antio authoritarian and ecological Fring are not productive never Farmers nor
Artisans and they avoid all Technical and economical mediation mediation that is to say a French avoid taking part in Collective work meetings Productions Collective activities their authenticity is testified only by their own intimidate experience with vital elements on the environment their lifestyle is based on the appreciative valuation of
Scarcity scarcity do not depend on strategic interest nor open functions in a struggle but on an overall preservation effort for instance prist refuse to see neighborhoods and visitor they refuse to see anism in the Z they reject the use of re recy recycl materals they reject to traditional farmers who cultivate the
Land with standard modern techniques depending on Industrial system to sum up behind the ban Def and Baner weaving alliances with the Living World we find diverging inter on one hand we find activist who pay attention to the strategy and have no completely broken with the industrial
And commodity World they travel by C and carry on with new generating the activities to F Financial struggle you see see the backy on the left in fact they are capitalistic efficiency and we realism of this group are present as a political weapons in fact capitalism becomes a
Political weapons by some of the activist describ at post situationist Revolutionary and so on but they are de facto merant with nude mask mask since 2018 the cleavage and I will stop here between different collectives in the has become a parent with the debate and I think it’s very very important for all
The struggle endorsement or rejection of the productivity to be productive or not to be productive in this struggle and uh we see that the same figure of fighting nature can convey different strategies alliances the gra of authenticity and it’s a very important issue for the positive emancipation it’s
Also the same for the building and the dwelling you know as you see in these pictures you have two kinds of dwelling one is in movable Huts TP and something like that and the other one is bourjois buildings and uh it’s particular particularly the case of the actual zad
And the the activists now are living in the jied building and uh so uh um there are also frictions between heteronomy and autonomy market and subsistence also the question of subsistence is very critical point which need to be Consolidated in relation to substainability
And and so on to sum up two two two uh two point or three point one the stimulated experience of thead has shown the obstacles for imaginating self Institution of a society two and I think it’s a really really important question I think Lui has also come a some some
Point on this uh how to create some communality especially when you have to discuss the status of the land the critical point at the that now is the collective use of a land what is the property what is the institution of the land what is the social institution of a land etc etc
Um third Point uh the construction of common words beyond the human being is not indifferent to economic determinations and societal Arrangements which inter muggle with belief and Imagination for point it’s not enough to Simply to Simply Overlook the boundaries between body and mind north and south to push forward for the territory on
Environmental environmental agenda uh social sciences cannot content itself with a simple Gia onology uh and uh one thing is very important we have to go back to the intersections between the collective emanci emancipation and intimidate always as well as collective Visions expressed locally are within a given
Environment for instance we have to ask about political legacies rules of Life the notion of vulnerability uh the denunciation of the internal tyranny in the Z the sources of oppressions uh the alternative institution the notion of no domination the notion of absence of property and so
On and I think it’s very important to have to to reach this uh goal of new emancipation and also to uh uh seek the uh new materialism and we have to uh to to to have in the mind that the Mari reality is always en worlded in a social
Critique that’s we call for that’s why we call for a critical pragmatism added to materialism or post materialism with the recognition that matter is not the passive reception of human agency and briefly one second two point of summary ecology is political not when it IT influences policies but because it
Guarantees the coexistence of life forms between humans and between humans and non-humans secondly ecology is not political because it is governmental and addresses decision making skilles third it’s political when it enables interaction to be woven at different scales scales and not just when introduce a change in device of
Visibility as in the case of green capitalis and and as in the case in ontological term and four point uh how can we describe the social properties that enable as to describe subjects and distinguish them in term of social belonging disposition and over reasons for Action uh it seems to me that the
Ecological question cannot replace the social question we must rulate by it in order to understand the social independencies interdependencies and finally the new critical theory recognize must recognize also Al the impurity of political forms but also anales that there is no AR no Origins that is perhaps the most
Important contribution of the studies recognizing that practices are already emancipated emancipate emancipated into the present and we don’t need to be in don’t need to be inscribed in a historical trajectory past present and future that is to say ecology makes the notion of utopian irrelevant and another point is also the
Question of emotional capitalis that is facing this that’s facing the case of of the that’s it thank you very much thank you very much silv I hope it was clear absolutely and uh a lot of things to discuss so let’s start uh immediately with the the reaction of alicha
Yeah can you hear me now yes L um yes so first of all thank you thank you very much svan of course thank you also to Bo for letting for having this space of discussion which um as Dario was saying is also something that is is a space of
Discussion that is very dear to us so so thanks for being here and for sharing this with us um and also because I think that this presentation really touches upon the three points of our Nexus on politics andies and ecologies so um it’s very very important to to be discussed
Okay um okay um first of all um a disclaimer um I the the the the work by syvan really kind of touched upon some many of my Reflections um I don’t have a specific position so I will actually raise some questions and some productive hopefully productive uh points and um
And also of course I will only concentrate on some because of course the spars of discussion that this uh that this presentation opens up are um are many uh from the ontological point to also methodological Point around what it actually means to do ethnography Fe in irreducible fields um and and and
Also how this really changes the very idea of sociology and of doing social sciences so um and also another point that I think um you mentioned and it’s uh probably very interesting to think upon is H is a theme of autonomy in in relation to uh ecological crisis but
Just to make a step um uh behind um I think that really this this presentation your work overall um seems to push us as social scientists to confront crisis uh not merely as a topic of Investigation uh but rather as something that uproots established ways of doing not only
Research um but also the very matter of our own investigations so so social movements and practices um and and this is because the present crisis of capitalism invests so many spheres and yet it is kind of made unique somehow by its ecological facet and how this really
Upsets the neat distinction and neat and dominative distinction between man um and nature which is arguably one of the pillars of of modern capitalist organization and um and so it seems to imply a necessary uprooting and rearticulation of political practice itself um contextualizing and enacting a wider transformation of the material
Conditions of existence and contextually of course epistemological questioning of of established uh modes of doing research and um in this context to quote you svan um to it’s it’s crucial to Envision a more than human sociality that especially in looking at socioecological movements might be capable of rebuilding alliances between
The human and the non-human and um also in a context in which like that of ecological crisis in which all what all that is natural or that that has been defined as such um that to me also means the embodied aspects of existence um really kind of forces or claims our political attention
And um but at the same time the forms of the stablish socio eological organizations incapable of of supporting necessary Transformations so the point on which this work I think uh really kind of asks us to reflect is first of all the kind of more ontological question what role
Material and non non um non-human reality has in the transformation of sociological regimes second which is a more kind of epistemological methodological question what is what is the social scientific stance that best allows us to interpret these processes and the the last political and also ecological question is where is agency
Located and how shall we interpret it um uh in your work you um also mentioned the work that territori has um has done towards kind of bringing together in a complex way and dynamic way the history of the human histories and um and territories as and Natures also in
Territories without reducing them to to each other uh but yes definitely the emergence of new materialisms has been especially disruptive in in bringing back the question of of Nature and of materiality in social and political organization um and definitely it has produced a tale and about what the word is and one that
Is um allegedly able to give back recognition value and agency to a nonhuman word that uh modernity has objectified in order to appropriate it and exploit it and of course bringing such a what we might say or might call a strong ontology uh into the study of the
Of the sociological field would in this case not only enable an epistemological but also political shift that is able to develop practical Arts of living in a on a damaged Planet uh or in the ruins of capitalism to to quote how way and see um and so your contribution according to to my
Understanding of it really locates within this within a vast field of more or less sympathetic critiques to this move um and um and and I think that it really helps us to put it into perspective questioning the idea of a straightforward pacification between the human and the non-human um and uh again
I think your critique really uh can be articulated on on three levels which which are again ontological epistemological and political and it’s not only yours but you know it’s a more um a more a vaster way of um of questioning new materialisms because of course ontologically they have been criticized
For actually and this is something that also Luigi has done uh in in time for actually not cutting with the modern uh type of identity thinking that is at the heart of the modern project of the domination of the Earth Earth um because of course by positing humans and
Nonhumans thought and matter on the same plane this would support the idea of a kind of infinite malleability um that is possible to put in place um as a kind of project of domination of Nature and also again ontologically um they the new materialisms would imply a kind of
Metaphysics would would bring back metaphysic uh metaphysics to the world um as much as fluid and incoming as it might be and in any case so it would reduce the the word to one Universalist ontology which is also a point that Timothy Morton for example brings uh against um new materialist
Understandings um epistemologically there is uh a risk of course of reducing this the word to one world view that is imposed even colonially possibly uh on it and as you also highlight this tends to undermine our possibility to recognize and see different ontologies and epistemologies as inacted by different actors and finally politically
The overall critique revolves around the incapacity of new materialisms to see and conceptualize and highlight power and conflict so especially as they refer to wider systems of value and social relations and so the risk somehow is to develop a naive attention to contextual and emergent assemblages and frictions
Rather than on structural issues um of power as well as concrete practices of struggles that subjects in inact um and this point has also to do with with a point that uh we also touched upon this morning around the the issue of historicism or dehistoricization so
The point is that uh one of the problems with with the new materialism is that they tend to dehistoricization that uh um um and um and therefore not to see how um this imminent plane of of existence is shaped by social forces and this is a point
That also Eco feminism has made uh highlighting how the ontological and epistemological move of deconstructing the nature culture dualism is indeed a common Endeavor of both Traditions so both of the new materialisms and of e feminism and yet um there is this incapability of new materialisms to see
The historical uh point there and also of course finally there is the issue of agency and responsibility and whether this maintaining or keeping the distinction between human the the human and the social on the one hand and nature on the other ones might be actually emancipatory but you have
Already mentioned this um so overall I think the perspective of pragmatism might be uh prod active in highlighting how the specifically human aspects of cognition interpretation judgment energetic struggle and tension towards transformation interact with their um concrete material M and objects showing how subjects put in practice processually um different ontologies and
Also as laary shows the regimes of Framing and justification that accompany action how they might be more or less capable of promoting relations of dwelling that profoundly um um that that might enable humans to profoundly inhabit M as a lively uh territory but here I would like to pose
Just in closing a few stimuli for discussion so the first is to what extent is it possible to enter um any field of study without some kind of metaphysics or is it necessary that we just acknowledge our own uh and as we are engaging in to quote again hard way
Noninnocent conversations um about uh about it with the word um the second thing is is it necessarily the case that destabilizing the human nature dualism leads us to a dehistoricization of relations and here I think of Jason Moore’s uh perspective on capitalism that really builds upon new materialisms
But still uh kind of trying to historicize it there are other issues there about political agency but I won’t go into this um but also as I was saying Eco feminist perspective so for example of embodied materialism try to go beyond uh you know to to go beyond the
Dichotomy but still historicizing it or again the idea of the coloniality and the Matrix of power that defines modernity and coloniality and um and finally talking about movement um I think maybe the reason need there of not throwing away the baby with a bath water um um trying
Also to understand how social movements that definitely have this you know properly social and political sphere um can still be understood on a more kind of um um horizontal plane with the nonhuman and trying also to understand what is the potency of the non-human in the uh in in shape being common Pathways
Of action with uh humans and here probably the work on more than social movements by Andre gy and papadopulos brings in this direction so anyway thank you very much for for this discussion it’s been very nice to be here so we continue with the we did discussant in order to collect all the
The comments and the question and then SV reply to all of them so josepe now it’s your first of all thank you very much San for your contribution and thank you also to Luigi and to PO for for organizing this session um so um well my
Comments will be more on the on the chapter that was circulating but which is more or less also uh reflecting on what you presented um so basically you the the the hypothesis that you try to show in your chapter in your presentation is that the theorists of the ontological turn uh
Tend to overestimate the the harmony or the the pacification as said in the relations between humans and humans and to hide the the political conflict that exist um in U when let’s say there are political conflictual medors this is for what I understood the the the hypothesis
That you tried to show and I think that the the chapter um empirically proves very well this um hypothesis um I would say that um so the result what what you uh show is that um even in a prefigurative space that aims at re appropriating an area
Both for the humans and the non-humans the political conflict so the the conflict relations between humans still exist and still plays a fundamental role um and I think so that this is a very interesting contribution and uh uh I would say also that there are two main
Things that I really appreciated in the in the chapter um first of all um the in the chapter you do not banalize the nonhuman of course but at the same time there is not a kind of um s ization of theum so for instance in the in your
Analysis of the how the objects are reappropriated and used in in the zat for several things also for resistance uh I found this very very interesting and very useful also as a kind of of analysis and second thing I found it very interesting your use of pragmatic
Sociology I’m I’m not at all an expert on that I start reading some work by Bosa some only some month months ago um but for me for instance on justification the work by Bolten is very interesting but it seems always so artificial when they try to put it empirically to explain how
Justification emerges for instance in uh in uh in Practical terms while in your chapter I found this so the way in which legitimacy justification and so on are are all those tensions emerges and in in a pragmatic situ very very convincing let’s say so this was um another thing which was very very
Useful for me I have only some questions um concerning concerning your work so so as I said you you use this pragmatic uh sociological approach uh which is perfectly fit in the case however I would like to ask you um what about let’s say uh using also I mean what is
The I I know that those two uh theories are not so compatible but anyway I would like to ask you what are the what is the social composition of the Z this is something that does not emerges so much in the and how this social composition influences also the tensions and the
Fact that between the Western and the Eastern sectors forance there were struggles and so on and so forth you quote some of these elements in some passages for instance you say that um as a footnote there was market like that the interview was um 30 years old with a
Precarious job or whatever but I would like to ask you more about how this can affect also the kind of um political struggle that emerge uh in the in the Z uh and now this possibly uh I mean and if it is compatible with the pragmatic sociological approach that that you use
Secondly um concerning the um the use of in the chapter you want to also to um let’s say to to emphasize this new uh sociological approach which is the sociology of contentious mil as something new as something which is let’s say I um as a tool for understanding the specific Mur like the
Zad in which even everyday practices even domestic practice or agricultural practice or whatever become critical and uh um have a critical role I would like to ask you how the sociology of the contentious mil relates with the I would say sedimented and the large um apparatus theoretical apparatus of
Social movement studies um I think that you mentioned social movements in your presentation uh in a quite critical sense and and I would like to ask you is the sociology of contentious milia is something external to social movement studies challenging them or is it something inside I I I don’t know if it
Is I mean a useful question at the end but it is Al also to situate this concept in the in the theory and uh and then the the the other question that I would like to ask you um so in in I quote from from from the chapter that I
That you circulated page 15 when when you say that the uh you talk about tensions among the the different groups that Western and Eastern sector and you say that this proves that the composition of a common world is far from being a harmonious process um and this is interesting because referring to
The zad I remember a book a small book that I have read some months ago by Philip subha um on the geopolitics of the zad let’s say and the conclusion of this book was that I don’t remember the title of the book by the way but it was
From um 2017 and the conclusion of the book was that um the the zad represented the end of the period of concertation in political e French political ecology the beginning of the violence let’s say but in your conclusion in the chapter um there is this project of this
Agroecological project in the zad with the institutions so I mean your conclusion are quite different from the ones by by sub it is more like a the end of of the uh concertation and the beginning of violence oh sorry it is the end end of violence at the beginning of
Concertation on the other end so I would like to ask you what which is the place of violence uh still in um um in this process and then the last question sorry uh if I I take too too much time um it is on um a question for for you but also
For all the the speakers let’s say for Paul also um I was quite surprised because um uh when uh looking up on the title of the of the seminar anyway the the topic on French political ecology I was more expecting I I was expecting more um references to collapsi collaps
And this is was quite interesting to not found them I I’m I don’t don’t have um read so many uh things about collapsi but it was just something which was interesting for me to not found this in in your reference and yes so thank you very much anyway
Okay now it’s time for Lorenzo to have this reaction yes well thanks a lot uh I think I’ll bit quicker than expected because so much more to to say after what um al ande already already said I will echo in particular some of the things that has pointed out because we
From a from a shared background in the in the study of collective action and had to say that both reading your chapter and and listening to the presentation I think I I generally understand your double argument okay on the relationship between neological turn and and political conflict which is if I understood
Correctly at the same time welcoming okay um the attempt to overcome the boundaries between the natural and the soci and the social while at the same time pointing out the weakness of a gayan ontological view Visa political conflict especially regarding political conflict and I I I generally share these this point of view
And I will share some of the things that came into my mind while while reflecting uh on it uh because definitely the fact that um um his weakness in uh portraying not only difference diversity but also conflict okay so the um emergence of of contention is something
That can I think be put in dialogue with the study of social movements because obviously it puts us facing the borders of the political things uh and share your argument on the fact that it’s very difficult to imagine political conflict in a purely ontological context and also that is very difficult to imagine
Political conflict um that has human as one of the humans as one of the actors um together in a set of actors that do not share I know what in the very I think in a very efficient way in the chapter you simply call Logos which is a very clear way of
Of putting it obviously this puts us in what are the boundaries of the political what are the boundaries of political uh conflict um something that in the study of social movements is very well known but many people often choose to forget is the existence not only ONN State oriented uh Collective action
And you were pointing out forms of life sustainable materialism and and so on I don’t need to to explain this uh here okay but also of non strategically oriented uh Collective uh Collective action uh which is something that I think goes together with your point while at the same time problematizing it
And it shows I think why I agree with you on the weakness of this view Vis A political conflict but at the same time I think it is a view that sheds some light on the limits of political conflict um we know because we we see we
Witness it we study and so on the emergence of collective action as an expressional relations between actors and as a practice that is structured by such relation and in turn structures them not only as the not only as the proposal some claims Vis some Authority or some or some power holder okay
And are we able to see and that’s the question I would like to to pose you are we able to think about agency without strategy okay and I we able to think about uh action without agency okay this is really I think pushing uh the limits um because we know obviously that you
Know this almost a banal thing to say in a sociological context that actors are shaped by the environment okay including non human subject but then to whom does agency belong okay and from my point of view I think that criticizing the weakness of this gayan on ontological point of view H in
The ability of portraying political conflict doesn’t mean to discard its possibility to Enlighten us on the relations that shape political conflict that are not political conflict but that are a significant part of what makes it possible and meaningful okay and I’ll stop here because I don’t want to repeat
What Ali and J already said so thank you very much uh for to the three discussion I’m going to abuse of my power just saying that it seems that um the issue is about what is politics it seems to me sorry if I’m going too simple but it seems that and
With relation with this maybe it could be an help to just recall ontological politics from an Mar m that could help in order to say just another simple things that when we speak about posthuman politics of course it can be the ordinary politics that means that that something else is happening and
This means that if we are trying to explore this kind of new political Arrangements we can’t expect that we have a party that is able to to play a role in a in an ordinary Parliament so you know maybe we we have to um to take
Uh this in account in order you know to not ask to latur something that latur can’t address uh this say uh I want just to um to stress the the relevance of this connection between let’s say the Anglo-Saxon tradition of um of pragmatism and the French one uh I’m I’m
Also trying to to connect these two sides of the story and of course the institutional met the meta institutional critique developed among the others by boltansky could be a useful way to re Reed the critique within this kind of L onology semi neutral and vague discourse and this means that uh sometimes
Something happens between the the the the the experiences the practice and the general God the the commons the common God sorry uh and that institutions could be inconsistent could be sufferance the organization of the institution and something could happen so this this connection between these two kinds of
Sensitivities could be very useful and another thing and then I stop with this very bad behavior from me um how sociology could can Rel you know can have a role like this I’m struggling from my PhD with this issue sometimes with very very high risky you know relationship and I think that
Something happened in sociology for example with the experiments from Michelle khon um in that case as we said for the what is po politics maybe we have also to think about what is responsibility in a posum shape of the unit of analysis so maybe also in this
Case we have to try to you know to to shift a little bit from the the what we usually think about responsibility and and uh yeah responsibility yeah sorry for this and now the floor is yours thank you for all the comments but I can I think I cannot answer to all the
Because no it’s it’s it’s another seminar uh no ju just um I will say something I think now a sociologist uh we are not in advance with the ordinary actors we don’t know anything and we are learning from the actors that’s why we are so dis disorient disorientated you know in epistemology
In methodology and so on and uh personally it’s uh I try to reconciliate ordinary actors and the sociologist sociologist is is inefficient now to uh to to to describe a situation especially if you check the case of the zad we never saw that before you know this uh disorder this Anarchist
Struggle which is not Anarchist which is not revolutionary with Farmers with p with and so on and who invent forms of life we never saw that before so what can role we can play nothing nothing we can become zst that’s it it’s the first point we I think we we
We have to learn a lot from the ordinary actors as scientist the second point that I think it’s uh the most important point for the postmodernity it’s the question of the conflict dualities and the political issues and uh again we do not know how to deal with that uh I think the level
Of conflictuality is uh is very height everywhere and we do not have the the good tools to with them especially in the struggle and so on um but concerning the all the question I I summarize for the humans and nonhumans uh even if we turn to some postmodern
Ontological M we need to think politics from the naturalist point of view and from the human point of view if not we will have what some uh we will have uh some some uh some empty entity natural in cell vid um and uh there is a lot a lot of things
Um no all the question you you pose is uh regard this balance between the tools to analyze human non-human and so on and the differentiations the balance between different entities and we do not have any solutions I don’t think so we we we just can say that we are do dominated by this
Ontological term sociologists are excluded and we must reappropriate the Notions of materialities the m and so on the object and so on uh I think also as sociologist we have to find some alliances with artists and with the phenomenologist which are very very important and also we that’s why the the
Enological term it’s not useful I think also the great issues political issues is the most important confu but also the emotional capitalism which is a which cross for instance the Z as I saw the mask is capitalistic with mask how to deal with that because capitalis capitalism capitalism is uh is
Appropriated instrumentalize all the forms object design aesthetical and so emotions and how can you struggle against that if you are an activist if you have a militant if you have a if you are a sociologist and so on and it’s really the big issue we must concentrate on um uh regarding some factual
Questions uh about the composition of the zad yes it’s uh uh it’s full of pran peoples also some intellectuals students people coming from the streets a punk and so on uh and I don’t want to say that the classical sociology is not relevant again we have to combine all
The approaches for instance it’s very interesting to have some uh classical sociology of the trajectories of a people to understand why they are here and so on so it’s a again it’s a balancing vision and then balancing analysis we we we must had um um I don’t know it’s very very
U difficult to uh about the historical trajectory I think it’s also a crucial point I note that all these activists uh are very negation negation with the history they don’t want to learn with a question of historicity the history the history of the social movement and so on and uh as
The present is more important than that the utopian trajectory and so on even for Ecom feminism it’s very inscribed in the presence not in the question of institution and political I think also it’s a problem the notion of EO feminism and subsistence is deeply de depolitization there is no question about the social
Institution who it’s there is no articulation with actors there is no articulation with public space and so on I think it’s my opinion and it’s also a way mean meaning to doriz disor the the movement I think maybe we we can uh go forward and agency with strategy agency yes agency must contain
Some some strategy if not it’s again it’s a an anti entity there is no struggle without strategies it’s always a question of balance you you you you you you can take the anarchist for Anarchist for instance they are probably the most trage and uh because they have to to
Fight against themselves uh they have to fight against the reflexivity they have to question the reflexivity and so on and uh again the question of the political aspects are the most important what is ex again in these struggles it’s not a question of nonhumans it’s a a question of intentionalities of humans
Who is productive who is not productive it’s a central question in this kind of struggle I think and a n or camel cannot answer it’s not a question of exploitation of animals it’s really a question of the direction the political direction of a mil
Um uh uh I don’t know uh the weakness of uh yes of a political uh weakness of the social movement I think I it was a I don’t know because you know I cannot read myself my notes uh I’m tired now again you mean in the case of that if it is
Where you collocate this kind ah okay uh uh we can code it uh political experimentations it’s come from nowhere it’s not there is no Origins it’s uh Anarchist it’s autonomous close from post operis I don’t know uh and really it’s the first experience to experimented autonomy we don’t know what is autonomy
Never except the Z the first that because now you know it’s some classical alternative experience but for the first time in Europe since prudon and Le p and the anarchist movement they try to definite what is the a political autonomy because also there is a confusion between material autonomy and
Political autonomy here we have institution I didn’t develop this point you have uh schools you have care you have medicines you have self-defense groups you have a lot of things and with a lot of uh reflexivity uh at the intersection of all the group and it’s the definition of
Autonomy the imagination the power of imagination how to imagine some new society and again I’m not sure that the nonhumans can something can can do something with that um I don’t know it’s enough or I didn’t answer I’m sorry uh in the man while we can collect some other question
From yes from the room so I suppose that Andrea was asking for yeah the mic thank you very much was a fantastic presentation for me and I worked a lot in the last years with my colleague Dimitrius papadopulos on the notion of more than social movement and our work resonates strongly
With both your empirical and theoretical understanding of new way of thinking social material transformation and and how this is connected with a strategical understanding of transformation which is the ordinary the material Rec material Rec combination and so on so my question is not about this because I totally agree with this I
Think these are the the autonomy of the 21st century here we are the autonomy of now is this and this is also part of the it’s not the only but they are part of the Contemporary political composition of ecologism no so they are part of what we recognize as political Behavior
They’re not outside they’re not aate I also but they are political I mean so I totally agree with the reusing of the notion of politics and I totally agree that the strategies making forms of exist existence material articulation and so on and so forth and it’s it’s a bit
Funny for me but working a lot in the last year stressing this dimension of intensities through agriology and other examples because I think there are many other examples in Beyond the question of environmental the environmental questions anyway the question is that I was stressing a lot this everyday mundane transformative more than human
Reconfiguration and now I realized a bit that uh maybe these movements are not so Innovative inthinking tactics so you know I feel part of them and around me when it comes through this strategic dimension okay we are there and this is incredibly powerful for me no but when
It comes to the theme of Social Power you have a bit okay Power everywhere anarchies we not negotiate so very old last century idea of power relation because the question is how we defend the mil this is the question how we defend the mil and I think that nor
Traditional anarchism nor you know reformist idea that you delegate some claims of Representative part they are not working against anymore I mean they are not working anymore so I was wondering which kind of method methodology sociological methodologies we can develop in order to understand if new Tendencies about the question of
Social negotiation of power the link between these zone of exception and the broader political Network because we are within a broader political n and you can say whatever in ethical ter but you are affected by the broader political situation it’s it’s I mean the difference between just moral think and
The idea that there are power relations and you have to stay with them is so the problem of institution of the commons of counter Powers how we can develop a forms of research that enable us to understand if these new movements are creating also other way other tactics for answering to these questions
Because it seems to me that the last century understanding of what is power what is politics what is the classic stru they are a bit I mean there but are a bit more the heaviest of the last century than oh it’s normal each moment innovates something and not something
Else I mean it’s not but I feel a I mean a practical necessity that will become also maybe a a research and assessment but it’s a practical problem for me how do we defend the commons thank you thanks so much really great presentation very inspiring uh
There will be many many things and great also the comments so some many things already addressed I have just a couple of points um that really interest me to to know your opinion one is about yes the notion of former life cupation form I also draw inspiration from you actually developing
This these ideas and um one thing that is not very often taken consideration is the the analogy or partial overlapping between foral life and mil as such quite simply so M can be a way to express foral life but within that there is a a lot of unsaid or
Untold which in my view regards the type of subjects we are talking of what type of subjectivity because it is true theological turn has um also post structuralism has um talked about the the the centering of subject and these Des Center being equated to disempowerment so less dominant or
Whatever and so on but we saw that capitalism is able to build on uh the centering and and modifying the subjectivity in ways as we know so possibly we we the question about the the occupation formance and new forms of life is about exiting from the modern
Subjectivity once once and for all so this this is my fake question do you think that this is the move to which many of these mobilization more or less explicit Point by exiting Bond subjectivity I mean exiting the understanding of reality as a something that can be drawn to the subject itself
Very old critical theory fashion understanding of subjectivity Will To Power or something like this that can be present even in in the centering in empowering ways and so on so forth first question second question in the last part of your of your talk you went quite
Quickly on a point that to me would be very nice to elaborate a little bit on uh which is the idea that taking a pragmatic if I understood correctly taking a pragmatic um standpoint as these uh zad occupants do or can be look at in this way means that
You don’t need Utopia you can exit from Utopia this is very interesting because H very often when we talk about the per figurative mobilization we think Utopia in another way Utopia as practice as immanent as living now so anticipating by by leing it so it’s quite different to say that you don’t
Need Utopia uh H and this is very interesting to me also because it may rise I find it I have to reflect it this is why I want to know what what you mean by that because there can be the typical risk that one can see is that this is
The typical presentification of existence existence typical of capitalism capitalism is a yes it is a lot of investment in future or Finance or whatever but it is a fake future it is just a repetition of itself time and again time and again so it’s in Infiniti
Of of the present we know no way out so how to distinguish these two understandings of Farwell of to Utopia that would be very fascinating for me you very much okay and then we have another one okay thank you silven for the is uh intervention I I just wanted to rebound
On the on what Andre said about the issues of autonomy because uh um just try to uh uh try to understand if I understood well your point and if there are connection with some so because for me autonomy is not just an issue of self rances is also the idea that there are
Uh histories and that are autonomous from the history with the big age of capitalism no and those histories need to be uh let’s say be put on the on the front and somehow it seems to me that the way you propos to articulate the critique of political economy with political ecology
Is actually the idea to counteract materialism with materialities let’s say and somehow maybe the Z could be a way to to show to show off that uh what actually makes the possibility of life is not capitalism but our other kind of relationship and in that case demand to
Be recognized so the pon of occupying a territory is also to put this in the front so I just wanted to understand if this is a point and if it’s the case I’m very interested in it because also for me Ena the dialogue between Ecom Marxism somehow or more the critique of political
Ecological critique of political economy but also the uh the other research that go deeply in the terrain in the field look and so so this is what yes um now I’m very anxious when speaking in public so if I lose something along the way and my question
No longer makes sense I apologize in advance you’ll know why uh my question uh is about the the use of the term ontology the use of the terminology in this context because I’ve heard it quite a lot and I admit I didn’t know about the ontological term so I quickly looked it
Up and if I understand it correctly you can interrupt me if I’m wrong uh but basic basically it argues that the there are the multiple World Views which essentially postmodernism brought to the four amount to a different to an ontological difference so it’s a way to
Onize relativism in a sort of way uh but my question is first of all in this context would it not be more of a problem of I don’t know hermeneutics or epistemology rather than ontology now I admit I’m not trained in philosophy so I know just you know the basics but uh if
I understand it like ontology is the study of of the substance of being you know what is out there the nature of what is out there and uh yes being essentially so I don’t understand very much like I don’t I don’t think that deontological turn is a sound in a in a
You know in a has very Solid Ground and in this cont text um yes with regards to the ontology of of of nature anology of nature um I mean should we not as um I don’t think that it can be relativized in this sense like my question is why speaking of
Ontologist I think I don’t know I may be wrong but should we not as a social scientists discuss environment mental ontology and in particular the ontology of the climate crisis um beginning from the role of Natural Sciences in in in allowing us to to to to uncover what is
Out there U because incredible work has been done with regards to planetary boundaries and actually knowing there uh and then from there on begin discussing you know all the problems which scientific knowledge and tals the limits of scientific knowledge paradig shift and building from this ontological you
Know starting point which is rooted in science then build up on that and adding add in the social element which is once we know uh the critical state of ecosystems then we are we put in the social variable and uh discuss conflicts uh human non human alliances what to do
With this knowledge but um I I I don’t know I’m just a bit perplexed on the on on on the on the usage of the terminology in this case because from my from what I know of the term I think that the starting point should be science in the sense of you know
Scientific knowledge and then problematize it but then again I have a wrong understanding of the termy and if I do please uh like uh like uh correct because now I’m uh I do not think very well when I’m uh nervous so but anyway this is the last comment then exp thank you a
Lot well thanks a lot that was really excellent and thanks to the discussant because um yeah they were excellent too uh two questions or rather one question one two remarks uh the first one I enjoyed very much the way you set the opposition like you know the problem you
Posed a vision of society let let’s start from there a Marxist one and the living uh one and some of the criticisms you address to uh the Marxist views uh I accept as a Marxist and I will definitely think about that one though um doesn’t convince me and it’s the one
Like you know dependencies interdependencies I actually do think that within Ecom Marxism if there is a common starting point like you know everybody in the debate accepts is that in order to understand the social stratification like you know the differential in power and uh all inequalities and stuff like that H you
Have to start from the fact that capitalist development is today the only way social reproduction occurs but in so doing it is undermining ecological interdependencies so that the working class wins is the best shot inter dependencies have to keep existing H so like I do feel as an eom Marxist a
Scholar which engages with the interdependence is much more than traditionally so like you know this is a a shift in Marxism that ecology political ecology uh brings um but the rest was very valuable so I’ll I think about that the the other one is I uh agree very much and I am
Particularly um happy that you POS this issue starting from the zad when you said the ological question cannot replace the social uh question and that’s why then because I mean that seems to me the definitive critique of the way latur and shs pose the issue of the ecological class because they POS it
In a totally performative way the ecological class is the class of people who say well the habitability of the planet is a problem but this has many problems one for example is that so so do we assume that children up until they have opinion about the ability habitability of the planet don’t
Experience class because I mean that sounds absurd and in my opinion it is uh so somehow this idea that there is no possible replacement but there is articulation and will to think articulation like you know it gives us a problematic which is not at all the one
Of the ecological class but it is that of seeing and you know discussing how the ecological question interacts with class composition class Dynamics and stuff like that and I mean especially in our the discussion about the genealogy of political ecology h l the stake of seeing um workingclass struggle against
Noxiousness in the 60s and 70s as one of the roots is precisely to say like you know the issue of class is there it is not repl placed by the ecological issue but then we have a so sociological problem in like you know posing the how do they articulate each other how do
They interact and of course marxists have a a point to make but other Traditions have their point to make but at least let’s start that that cannot be replacement there is a transformation thank you so much thanks for a wonderful comment and I think I apologize because I didn’t answer correctly to to
You first round but uh you know it’s because I do not have any answers to your question I will start from U I think it’s very important yes I agree L to’s ecological class is not complete that’s the problem and he you know he disappears he passed away so so
It can we do and I think it’s our jobs now as a sociologist to continue and to complete the approaches I think lat do didn’t ignore the notion of social classes but uh and the Marxist approach but uh we we and I think it’s now the issues and the toast go popular
Ecology to relink rearticulate uh workers class with wots perrian Etc and I think it was also the idea of flatur but with the risk because he Deval he was devaluating the Notions of Marxism the risk to have some ter rural rural struggles with pass again pass gardeners Hunters pent industry we don’t
Know how to articulate that and I think it’s the job of a sociologist now to to to to find the point of articulation is it the contractu is it the social question is it the question of the preservation of natures is it the question of the wage of agricult
Salaries is it the question of cohabitation with non is it the question of cohabit struggle and the zad for L it’s a great Z in fact Terr Terrian class it’s a big zad with some peaceful cohabitations uh who are reconciliated with the their own Roots but it’s not
Enough because there is no critical tensions and I think in the news uh popular ecologies we have this tension you know with rality in functionality feminism vulnerabilities and the way they appropriate the Notions of ecology see for instance I don’t know in France for instance there is a big debate with a
Pesticide as mentioned yesterday but also with the you know these poor buildings uh which do not resist to The Climate crisis and now you have struggle to have new building and so on with empowerment with Community organizing and so on probably it’s the most important issues at the moment more than
The Terrian class of lat I don’t know if if I can if I uh answer correctly but I agree with you the class terest of flatu is performative because is always it Still Remains linked with actor actor reso you know everybody is cell level there is no graduation that’s a problem of flat
There is no differentiation I mean social differentiation between the actors an Hunter is a hunter a peasant is a peasant it’s not black Christian Muslim and so on it’s a peas that’s a problem and um I don’t know if I okay and also the notion of social justice which is a
Uh absente in lat reflection and in this new currence of EOP feminism uh popular ecology there is some uh aim there is some uh issues about that after I switch to laa the notion about the notion of autonomy I think and it was a perfect definition of the first zist not the the
The zist who are still implanted here uh they tried to abolish the social times you know something was very striking in the zad they destroy all the clocks you do not have any calendar you do not have any pH of Co you do not have any clock because the clock is the
Symbol of the social time the time of heteronomy and it’s the same for the work it’s a and it’s also the the destitution of the dominant imagination I think it would be the pure definition autonomy to abolish the imagination of the heteronomy but homy is nothing without heteronomy it’s the
Problem of the Z because they are always depending on the external things um and um I don’t know I I don’t know if I answer correctly or if there was something else uh regarding the autonomy I will come back uh later onology I cannot answer to
That because it just you know some uh paradig opimization uh we it contains uh deconstructivism prism and so on you know it’s only a a formula in a way I’m not a philosopher physician uh but uh also I want to come back to the remarks regarding the tactics and the
New brochure or procedure to aboard the notion of social movement one thing is very important in the zad now at this time there is some cultural hemony they are gumti they want to Conquest the internal power and it’s the drama for me it’s a drama because of course they want to erase or
To to to exclude uh whose person who are not in this hemical cultur cultural emony who not share the same orientations but uh I think it’s really again an issue what is a strategy when you have uh Anarchist I think now the Taboo in all this struggle live mod Z Extinction
Rebellion and so on it’s the and really again that’s what political question is so important it’s the question of nominations everybody dominates everybody but nobody wants to recognize that they dominate the overs you have you are always Domin by somebody even in the most pure forms and this question is a
Taboo what is the s that is the way uh what is the the resource the the mechanic to avoid the domination which is a form of heteronomy which belongs to heteronomy and I think it’s a crucial crucial issue for instance in the zad you have the the toxic
Commands uh who are excluded excluded who there is some uh Mal Mal uh you know bad treatment of a toxic man of and so on so it means that you have some powerful and you have the other ones as they have as they they are the unrest of the community they do not
Belong in the to the good autonomy you know it’s some uh I don’t know uh so this question of hemony uh this question of domination uh belongs to the question of strategy the strategy for whom for the the weak for the for the strong and so
On uh and now if I answer to Lui I think and also there there was a the question about which kind of sociology to practice I think the most important is the comprehensive sociology even to refer to Max vber but we have to understand the values and the normative
Approach of the group because one thing is very important I never saw uh all this group an a revolutionary post situationist ecologist and radicals are very very normative more than in a liberal context of capitalis they are very normative because they have grammar grammar of autonomy grammar of Hy and they have
Also values and constraints to obtain this kind of uh autonomy so I mean the the the the most valuable sociology to practice is a comprehensive sociology so I mean it’s uh very important to combine what I call in pragmatism ordinary critic how you deal how to fabric that
You how do you do you elaborate some things and metac critic and normative critic what is an institution what is the capitalism how is it translated in fact in material and so on but it’s very close to the comprehensive sociology and uh concerning the forms of life uh I
Agree with agamben definitions of forms of life uh the mind it’s not separated to the way to life but forms of life is not styles of life and in the that in the last period we are close to the styles of life and not forms of life and
Again I think it’s the main issue and it’s a Taboo it’s a question of emotional capitalism because you you can have a bourgeois house and uh you can reclaim to be an anarchist and so on you have a varable style of of life but you do not
Have some U uh some form of life which attempt to abolish all the styles of Life belonging to the capitalism and uh and the notion of subjectivity also it’s a taboo and it’s a main issue I’m not sure Anarchist and zist wants to uh refine something as a subject a social
Subject but they want to Conquest some original and authentic subjectivity and what is the subjectivity in authentic subjectivity I think rier has a good definition it’s a part of sensitive when you move an object when you become a g you were some graphist outside and now you are a
Galler and a pent in the Z you change the representation of the society and you change the pl the the the the positions the you you change the cartography of the places you move the places you move over the order of places it’s the exact definition of Lord you
Change some uh your own function and you change the order of and it’s the definition of the subjectivity because it’s passing through the object and through the materialities it’s not a question of parties it’s not a question ofum it’s not the question of melon it’s the question to have a new
Function in the goal of changing the order of a place I think it’s the definition of a subjectivity that’s why the social movement and the social the sociology of social movement it’s so complicated at to understand because we it’s it’s original we do not have parties we do
Not have ger democracy in this group we have a multitude as negri said we have some a lot of fragments we have a lot of sensibility and everybody is gathered by something which is Imagination how can you count how can you and can you analyze something which
Is linked with imagin and the power of imagination and conflictual imation that’s very difficult for sociologist and uh what yes Utopia yeah also it’s very very difficult Point uh you know uh in the uh philosophic tradition like Miguel abonour he opposed uh Utopia and the concret because utopian is link to the
Future through imagination you can uh also of course it’s a question of imminence but imminence is linking with a historical trajectory past present and futures or I think the Z probably post operis probably uh autonomous move movement is something weal about that with the Paul yesterday something which
Is closed what I call what something I call messianism secular that’s so we do not need to have some utopian and projections in some future we do not have to deliver with from the future than from the past we Dev ourself in the present so it’s not exactly the trajectory of uh utopian
Because even if it’s utopian is concrete it’s always linked to some Orizon as adoro said and so on I I think it’s my uh you cannot oppose imagination and the concrete that’s the the uh extraordinary powerful of the zad Everything is compassed Everything everything is accumulated past prison future concrete
And phenomenological things emotions and concrete political critic and concrete everything is a an object so it’s uh really amazing it’s it’s very difficult to reproduce and very difficult to understand and we need to have new tools for that and all tools are to be invented sorry can I just uh sorry if I
No it’s so great this opportunity to to reflect together no about formal life is subjectivity my my understanding the two are strictly connected in the sense that precisely the this shift towards lifestyle is an effect or part of the type of subjectivity that we take as subjectivity in general but indeed it is
Very historical declen of subjectivity and this is why the late fuk was trying to look at ancient Greece just to this is my own interpretation I can’t be totally wrong he was trying to escape in a sense from the modern notion of s subject and trying to find an inspiration from something totally
Different he got a lot of criticism by experts of course because he was not a specialist in ancient philosoph but this was the problem so how to escape from the mod subject that is the engine that transforms foral life experiences into lifestyle experiences this is my understanding this this is
The connection between the two right and about the Messianic the secularized Messianic I totally agree with you and also think that this is possible interpretation but again I see a problem with the Eternal present ification of the mechanisms that I studying also in this period like this for anticipation like a preemption or
Preparedness that we have been studying for a while that try to uh project the future as there but never to be realized yeah it’s a kind of tricky game so presenting a catastrophist or um es eschatological future like we will solve the world hunger we will let energy for
Everybody and we are almost close to that close to that but to arrive that we have to do this and that and that and this is of course a way of governing so it is also a presentification but totally anticipatory because it’s a way to capture people in Eternal promise regime
Of promise without never fulfilling This Promise so it’s anti it’s it’s a distorted or perverted utopianism that has how to disentangle this from this other way to escape the The Lure of Utopia it’s a very fascinating question to me at least but I think also nonhuman ter and
So on is eschatological in fact you know they want to de as of present and former humans you know it’s something so it’s very rightous in way no that’s it hi thank you um I’m floran I’m in the third year here I study resistance to the legacies of Western conques Conquest
In European environmental movements and I was wondering in what way you think uh based on your observations of the the zat and other movements in France um and the kind of thinking that you bring to the table could um this speak to like the riots in the
Bers uh I have just a brief comment on the distinction between two features of the nonhuman the biophysical nonhuman and the technical nonhuman uh it seems to me but I might be wrong that in some fields of contemporary social theory and I’m referring to some new materialist sociology uh this distinction does not
Deserve to be discussed much what counts are the relation of affection between human SL posthuman meaning human considered possibly in all the posum transum possibilities of evolution and on the other hand the natural SL postnatal meaning natural things or beings understood in all the technically transformation reinvention reconstruction or
Invention again this scene the distinction between the two features of the the non human is relevant and useful and I will say that the fact that this Extinction in this text is relevant or misleading uh plays the tune of the OBS I I think is said that uh this
Distinction at least deserve to be discussed explicitly and thematically for a number of Reason one of of those reason is that the actual capacity of emancipation of the blurring of the distinction uh is still to be be demonstrated another reason is the emergence of this higher problematic New Living beings like the leaving
Algorithms that I was referring to this morning that promise uh or will to live forever so the emergence of this new living nonhuman beings uh according to to my interpretation uh make proper interrogation of the distinction between biophysical non human and Technical non human useful still
Useful um thank you and thank you for um Sven for bringing forth something that Al picked up on earlier about this um the issue of sort of the problematization of human non-human relations uh in the context of the zad and more generally excuse me in the social ecological movements um that are
Sort of weaponizing the ontological turn that are turning into into a a practice um more than a discourse and and I agree with you that there’s there’s a problem in the enological turn considering the issue of power now you you name it politics and I’ve always thought of it as as power
And I’m sort of thinking in the in the societies which are in the societies described by Vos deast in this collap that include humans and non-humans which is what we are talking about um these societies are hardly egalitarian um both in terms of human relations and in relations between humans and non-humans
And between non-humans themselves right so um non-humans in these societies are not all on the same level you have Angry mountains that can kill kill you and then you have the manc that you take care of as if it were a child right so we are on very different levels and not
All the non-humans have a status of personhood so there are persons and non-persons amongst the the humans and I feel that that is something that in the reception in the sort of um the way in which social movements today are receiving the ontological turn those those are things those elements there
Are a little bit being lost somewhere um so I think there’s a sort of non-thought and Aon of the the issue of of hierarchy and power and politics and maybe it is the nature of these relations that are being built which is is interesting I think also ethnographically to look at sort of
Understand what are these relations made of and how are they being established um because going back to social relations amongst humans which we are more familiar with as you know sociologists anthropologists whatever um we we very well know that care and attachment and exploitation for example can perfectly well coexist for
Example within the family unit and capitalism thrives on this so I guess my sort of question comment here is um the fact that these relations are inequal for example within the family unit has not necessarily been an obstacle historically to Collective action and social change Collective action and social change which has not
Defied that hierarchy specifically right so when we are talking when you’re talking about the nudes the the theoni um and the the asymmetry between the zist and the nudes um is that necessarily contradictory to the social change that they are trying to promote and does that social change then my
Question is does that social change effectively challenge those asymmetries or does it does it really um is that really what we’re talking about is it really about the relationship to the nudes or is it about politics more on as you say a sort of human level and um are
We talking about a revolution in two times also famous thank you yes it’s amazing question uh who decide there is a symmetry between a nudes and zis it’s a ha it’s not us you know no I think it’s yes how I don’t know uh I think the question of uh diversity
Remains an important question there is no no symmetry between the N I don’t think so I don’t think so and the question of inequalities remain Central in the political alliances also um I don’t know very difficult you know no I I cannot answer to that I’m not sure to
It’s very very complicated I forget the the the feel uh no uh regarding the notion of BS I I if I understood uh I think popular ecology has something to do with a B is it was it the question because I I’m sure yeah I think it’s very very
Important topic now uh because the question of inequalities are Central and so on and um probably that is the the Aras and the graphy where we can touch and reach some uh political alliances with a sheap cell and some for instance in France in the suburbs we have a lot I just started
Some inquiries about that we have a lot of experience with liut the goats and the chep and with the Muslim and uh and how to uh to defin the the issues of Justice what is issues of religion with the goat and the chapel and uh how to create some Community some uh ecological
Community uh elements community and so on and I think it’s really uh subtile you know because it starts from the ground from the ground and not from the metaphysical point of view they have problem to deals with the climate with the the food with with salaries uh with absente of environment
And so on and they try to put together all these topics to create some uh popular ecology very some something appears and uh very interesting thing and I agree there is some some necessity to uh to dissociate Technical manum and uh animal and human and I think I don’t
Know Lura is not here but it’s the the One issues of the work of LA with a notion of reparation with the permaculture you know and how to have some complete and uh notion of reparation with a technical technical object involving a lot of things I don’t know if uh it’s
Enough thank you very much so thank you very much for this very intense discussion uh sometimes it’s very difficult to you know to manage this such a wide complexity but uh if we open this assembles we have to we have no alternative to to speak about the
Complexity in itself so many thanks also for for for for your very interesting comments and and all the discussion I’m sorry I didn’t answer to you realiz just just one word to close let me thank everybody also on my side also the technical staff that has be so kind and efficient also the
Organizers uh of all the communic ation and the events it’s wonderful thank everybody first of all the speakers of course wonderful discussion the discussant the participant also from remote I’m happy that we were able to make it Al in spite of some technical transport difficulties I person political inter intering the two aspects
I believe that we have to continue this kind of conversation between different Traditions partly overlapping partly not so I I’m pretty sure that this conversation does not finish here and we will find other opportunities maybe next year for sure some something else um I’m pretty happy I go home with many
Questions that I came from so that is very important a good result so enjoy the weekend