The Rhizomatics of Domination: From Darwin to Biotechnology

In a time where global warming, pantoxicity, pesticide pollution, resource scarcity, and a whole host of environmental problems regularly appear in news headlines, the perennial question about what the relationship between humans and nature is and should be, is more pressing than ever. While it may seem trite to focus on questions of narrative, representation, agency, and subjectivity in the face of more “pressing” material concerns, the environmental crisis is more than a problem for scientists; it is a problem of narrative, ontology, and epistemology. It is as much a failure of imagination as it is a technological problem, arising from maladapted social and political ecologies that fail to establish healthy and sustainable networks of kinship imaginaries [1] that are capable of addressing the competing needs and desires of multiple actors within the biocultural networks humanity always inhabits. Kinship imaginaries are the foundation of how we relate to others, and thus are the ground upon which (bio)politics are based. They are the basis of how we imagine ourselves to be connected to the world around us, and the myriad organisms that populate this increasingly shrinking and sullied world.

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