FCJ-121 Transversalising the Ecological Turn: Four Components of Felix Guattari’s Ecosophical Perspective

• Main Author: John Tinnell
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Open Humanities Press 2011-10-01
• Series: Fibreculture Journal
• Subjects: ecology and media; ecosophy; Guattari; eco-humanities; digital media
• Online Access: http://eighteen.fibreculturejournal.org/2011/10/09/fcj-121-transversalising-the-ecological-turn-four-components-of-felix-guattari%E2%80%99s-ecosophical-perspective/

Many humanities scholars are working to transform their disciplines in response to new conditions and problems emerging in the twenty-first century. Arguably, two of the most important forces affecting contemporary global culture are the growing awareness of the ecological crisis and the proliferation of digital media. This essay endeavors to develop Felix Guattari’s “unfinished” concept of ecosophy into a theoretical framework for constructing productive syntheses between the ecological and the digital. In general, the essay first articulates ecosophical models of individual and collective subjectivity, and then argues that the best way to sustain ecosophical identity experience is to invent “post-media” practices, which harness the networked infrastructure of digital media such that specific pedagogical engagements with the technology effectively maximise the user’s capacity to affect and be affected by immanent forces in the world. In addition, this Guattarian rethinking of the ecological turn concurrently challenges the philosophical basis of the pedagogy of Nature appreciation that has characterised the eco-humanities landscape since the 1970s. The essay’s conclusions gesture toward a transversal eco-humanities, which would be rhizomatically rooted in Guattari’s preference for autopoiesis and becoming-other (via new media), rather than a static allegiance to the ideals of “Self-realisation” postulated by the deep ecology movement.