Catherine Malabou’s Eco-anarchism: Environnementalité and the Non-governable
Environnementalité and the Non-governable
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.20873-rpvn9v1-07Keywords:
Catherine Malabou, Michel Foucault, Non-governable, Environnementalité, Eco-governmentalityAbstract
This paper argues that Catherine Malabou’s notion of the non-governable poses an unresolvable difficulty for Michel Foucault’s concept of Environnementalité, or what has come to be termed eco-governmentality. I show that, while Foucault’s analysis remains indispensable for ecophilosophy today, he nevertheless failed to deconstruct the insidious forms of modern sovereignty that he so clearly illuminated. I approach the problem from two angles presenting Foucault’s analyses of both the living being and the environment. I show that a hegemonic order dominates the body and, by extension, its surroundings. I then turn to Malabou’s incapacitation of these hegemonic orders that continue to devastate the ecological world. Malabou shows that the Earth itself is a volatile site of non-governability that deconstructs the incessant attempts of power to dominate it.
References
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MALABOU, C. “One Life Only: Biological Resistance, Political Resistance.” Translated by Carolyn Shread, in Plasticity: The Promise of Explosion, edited by Tyler M. Williams, Edinburgh University Press, 2022, 227-235.
MALABOU, C. “Philosophy and Anarchism: Alternative or Dilemma?”. Translated by Carolyn Shread. In: Plasticity: The Promise of Explosion, edited by Tyler M. Williams, Edinburgh University Press, 2022, 215-225.
MALABOU, C. Stop Thief! Anarchism and Philosophy. Translated by Carolyn Shread. Polity Press, 2023.
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