Heterogeneous Collectivities and the Capacity to Act: Conceptualizing nonhumans in the political sphere
Abstract
This chapter develops the concept of heterogeneous political space as an
alternative to the exclusively human political sphere which dominates
Western political thinking about collective action and justice. The aim is
to make evident that capacities for action are constituted in heterogeneous
milieus and to argue that insofar as political thought does not register this it
is inadequate to thinking justice and flourishing in a world where ecological
change renders human and nonhuman modes of life increasingly precarious.
Heterogeneous political spaces are constituted by compositions of material,
affect and desire which are occluded by humanist and individualist theories of
action that theorise collective action at the register of a macro-political order
made up of unified rational subjects with clear intentions and commitments.
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s concepts of following and assembling
enable accounts of a molecular or micro-political register composed of het-
erogeneous collectivities in processes of composition. In their insistence that
human action cannot be separated from the productions of nature, we find that
heterogeneity, rather than human plurality, is given as a condition of action.
Conceiving of political action in terms of heterogeneity brings into view the
processes by which capacities for political action are constituted by non-
human forces, entities and elements. It focuses attention on that in virtue of
which political action occurs, rather than on the intentional aspect of actions
which aim to achieve an individualised interest (whether it be the interests
of a human individual or individuated group). Heterogeneous political space
complexifies our thinking about political action and diffuses the agency of
political subjects so as to render our thinking more adequate in several sig-
nificant regards. It provides a conceptual resource that brings the diverse
human-nonhuman entanglements to the fore and thus acknowledges the
differing ways that capacities for political action are constituted in different
assemblages that always cmprise nonhumans. This disrupts the liberal,
humanist view of politics where nonhumans are excluded from the domain
of action and appear only as passive resources to be exploited for human
plans and actions. Further, by challenging the view of the more-than-human
world as passively ‘standing-reserve’ for the purposes of human agents,
the concept of heterogeneous political space invites a critical questioning
whether the conception of political space as exclusively human is capable
of attending to issues of ecological justice where the well-being of humans
and ecosystems is inextricable. In short, when the more-than-human world is
excluded from conceptions of political space neither the needs of nonhumans
(plants, animals, ecosystems, waterways) nor the constitution of human cap-
acities in relation with nonhumans (co-habitation, dependence, care) register
as politically significant. This, in effect, obscures the ways that different
human-nonhuman assemblages increase and diminish capacities for action.