Siding with the world: Reciprocal expressions of human and nature in an impending era of loneliness

This paper argues that our embodied and emotional attachments to the non-human world must be carried forward in an effort to comprehend nature in interdependent and agential terms. Such an understanding may allow a new ethical configuration in which the interactions between humans and nature become an “an active collaborative process” (Plumwood, 2001: 16). In this respect, the agencies of both humanity and nature are placed within reciprocal relationships of consequence. The paper begins by reviewing the limitations of dominant conceptualizations of nature that emphatically exclude it from the human realm of agency and ethical consideration. It then considers alternate theorizations that forward relational aspects and proximities of nature, particularly in terms of expanded concepts of time, agency and affect (e.g.: Greenhouse, 1996; Plumwood, 2001). Collaborative relations between human and non-human worlds are also re-considered through phenomenological accounts (Merleau-Ponty, 2002 and Toadvine, 2009), which emphasize a productive dialectic of experience and recognition. In conclusion, the paper argues that the validation of emotional and agential relations between human and non-human life allow for more ethical and less destructive engagement. In recognizing such correspondences, we are also impelled to recognize the biophysical limits of all life that is threatened under climate change.