Abstract
Agency and representation are viewed as preconditions for democratic action. The dominant understanding of agency and representation is defined in terms of certain capacities and abilities that are considered to constitute the basis of personhood. The article will put into question this understanding and the assumptions that underpin it and argue that it rests on a mistaken conception of human animality – one that reduces the self to an autonomous and disembodied rational mind. The article will also suggest that it is problematic because it marginalizes more than human forms of life – as well as those of us who are differently human – and excludes their points of view from the political processes of world making. In contrast, I will put forward an understanding of agency and representation that is attuned to the relational dimensions of all life on earth. By paying attention to the semiotic propensities that all forms of life share – which entails considering nonlinguistic forms of communication – this article responds to the need for more radically democratic ways of listening, giving voice, and caring for the earth’s beings and the relations that form the conditions for life to flourish.
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Acknowledgements
Earlier versions of this article were presented at the RGCS workshop at McGill, Millennium’s conference on ‘Entanglements and Detachments in Global Politics,’ WPSA’s annual meeting, and the Care Ethics Research Consortium conference. I am grateful to the participants in these events, and especially to Sophie Bourgault, Vivienne Bozalek, Tim Charlebois, Alvin Cheung, Erika Cudworth, Anna Daily, Maggie FitzGerald, Rubén Flores, Mark Franke, Kelly Gordon, Maurice Hamington, Stephen Hobden, Alvina Hoffman, Jacob T. Levy, Catherine Lu, Christa Scholtz, Hasana Sharp, Geoff Sigalet, Michael da Silva, Daniel Weinstock, and Greg Whitfield. I also wish to thank Anouck Alary, Avigail Eisenberg, Jemima Repo, Hasana Sharp, Jim Tully, and the journal’s anonymous referees for their constructive comments and suggestions. Funding for this project was provided by Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
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Zúñiga, D. Ecologizing democratic theory: Agency, representation, animacy. Contemp Polit Theory 21, 198–218 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41296-021-00514-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41296-021-00514-9