Mapping posthumanism: an exchange
RIS ID
89004
Abstract
The serried ranks of post-prefixed isms marched their way through human geography during the 1990s. To open the door to yet another may seem the habitual act of a hopelessly trendy discipline, one derivatively preoccupied with what's de rigeur in the social sciences and humanities. Yet there might be something both apposite and productive about staging a confrontation between a subject whose very title announces its determined commitment to ontological purity and a discourse that questions this kind of delusive hygiene. In one sense, of course, that confrontation has been ongoing for several years now. Since the early 1990s many `human geographers' have steadfastly questioned the adequacy of the appellation used to describe themselves, their research, and their discipline. Drawing upon the thinking of Deleuze, Guattari, and Latour, among many others, they have revealed what Sarah Whatmore, in her commentary below, calls ``more than human geographies''. The gravitational force of their work has not yet exerted a tidal pull on human geography as a whole. But it has certainly raised some profound questions about the routinised ontological beliefs that underpin research in the discipline. The full explanatory and normative con- sequences of this questioning will only become apparent in the years ahead, as human geography's 'structure of feeling' altersoor does notoin response to its insistent demands.
Publication Details
Castree, N., Nash, C., Badmington, N., Braun, B., Murdoch, J. & Whatmore, S. (2004). Mapping posthumanism: an exchange. Environment and Planning A: international journal of urban and regional research, 36 (8), 1341-1363.