Thinking Biodiversity “Otherwise:” What an “Ecology of Selves” Might Mean for Sustainable Environmental Governance

• In Event: Ontologies of Environmental Governance - II

Abstract

Covering genetic, organismal, and ecosystemic levels, biodiversity has been defined as either a resource to be governed or as a service essential for economic development. In both cases, it is defined as something separate and distinct from humanity. How can an eye to ontological anthropology help us think about biodiversity “otherwise”? What other forms of relationality would it enable us to see? Nonhuman species are seen throughout the world as agents possessing different forms and meanings, whether birds acting as auguries or honey bees as rights-holders needing to be wooed (Dove 1993; Tsing 2003). Viveiros de Castro’s theory of perspectivism (2004) and Eduardo Kohn’s “ecology of selves” (2013) articulate examples of ecological ontologies that “[reach] well beyond the human” (Kohn 2013: 23) and envision nonhuman beings “as soul-possessing, signifying, intentional selves” (93). Building off this work, I present research with an Eastern Borneo Dayak Punan group to show how attention to ontological pluralism can advance more sustainable and just human-nonhuman relations in an active resource concession zone. With talk of a new age of extinction and debates swirling around the Anthropocene, perhaps it makes sense – from an environmental governance standpoint – to think outside the box regarding biodiversity and instead ask what might be possible beyond dichotomies of wild/domestic, pristine/degraded, and even human/nature. Taking seriously nonhumans as actors, agents, and selves means asking not only what obligations do we have to such beings, but what can be learned from their perspectives and relations between and with them.

Author

• Walker DePuy, University of Georgia