Bruno Latour: “War and Peace in an Age of Ecological Conflict” | Fall 2013 Wall Exchange

While politics has always been linked to geography, the Earth itself has largely been seen as playing a backstage role, the mere window-dressing for human intention and interest. With the advent of the epoch known as the ‘Anthropocene’, the Earth is no longer in the background, but very much in the foreground, in constant rivalry with human intentionality. In the meantime, human action has taken on a dimension that matches that of nature itself, and consequently the definition of geo‐politics has been transformed. Appeals to nature, therefore, do not seem to have the same pacifying and unifying effect that they did in earlier ecological movements. By drawing on anthropological and philosophical literature, this lecture discussed this new geopolitical framework and showed how the extension of politics into nature must modify our views on war and peace in the future.

Dr. Bruno Latour was in Vancouver for the fall 2013 Wall Exchange entitled War and Peace in an Age of Ecological Conflict on September 23, 2013 at the Vogue Theatre. Dr. Latour is professor at Sciences Po Paris. Trained in philosophy, he has been instrumental in the development of an anthropology of science and technology. This field has had a direct impact on the philosophy of ecology and on an alternative definition of modernity.