(Re-)configuring Forms of Life »after the End of the World«.

Encountering Rahel Jaeggi’s Nature/Culture Dualism in the Anthropocene

Abstract

Under the ruinous conditions of the Anthropocene, the relations of crisis diagnosis have shifted from human interaction to human-nature relations. Critical social theories, with their focus on social practice and discourse as the basis of reality, are often accused of being unable to grasp these crises adequately. Instead, I want to show that Rahel Jaeggi's concept of a critique of life forms offers the possibility of reconfiguring this position. Reread through Karen Barad's feminist new-materialist perspective on liveliness shifts the inquiry of the crises of life forms from how to the who. The issue of action-ability becomes the issue of who is capable of taking part (response-able) in collective life. Perceiving reality as interwoven has the emancipatory potential to (re-)configure care for a shared world.