Nature, Culture, and Society
Nature, Culture, and Society
NZD$188.95
inc GSTLife is currently one of the most active zones of politics and economic production, as biological material is increasingly the subject of engineering, banking, reproduction, and exchange. These developments represent some of the most challenging issues facing humanity in the twenty-first century and call for new forms of engagement - and new anthropologies of life. Reflecting upon the changing human condition, Palsson addresses various conflated zones of life at particular times and scales, from the genome to the human body and the global environment. Using a 'biosocial' perspective, he argues, will help us to capture the hybrid nature of life, enhancing our sensitivity to differences and similarities in hierarchies, the reproduction of bio-objects and the exchange between humans, other species, and the environment. Engaging with topical issues on the public agenda, from personal genomics to human-animal relations to the global environment, the book sets out a compelling case for meaningful change.
- Incorporates developments from the humanities, social sciences and life sciences
- Provides a broad coverage of a range of fundamental issues
- Presents a theory of 'biosocial relations', which helps readers engage with biopolitics and bioethics
Reviews & endorsements
'The fruit of more than twenty years' thought, this important collection of Gisli Palsson's essays offers a sustained and invigorating inquiry into the politics, practices, logics, and varied anthropologies of life itself. Written with Palsson's characteristic erudition and care, what emerges is not only a comprehensive accounting of where we've been but a timely and provocative proposal for the development of new concepts, new forms of academic labor, and a new environmental ethics.' Hugh Raffles, New School for Social Research, New York
'In this imaginative, thoroughly grounded book, Gisli Palsson argues that life is not an essence. Rather, life emanates from the biosocial relations in which bodies are embedded. Anthropologies of life, perpetually in the making, have transformed nature since the dawn of human existence. Today, biomes, ecosystems, and Earth itself exhibit the effects of human activity comparable to geologic transformations of the past. Insightful and thought-provoking reading.' Margaret Lock, McGill University, Montréal
Product details
December 2015Hardback
9781107085848
234 pages
236 × 160 × 20 mm
0.49kg
Available
Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction
- Part I. Selves:
- 2. Spitting image: decode me!
- 3. Labouring lives: genomic stuff
- 4. What's in a genome? Indigenous encounters
- 5. Name talk: technologies of belonging
- Part II. Bodies:
- 6. Human variation: shifting perspectives
- 7. Nim Chimpsky et al.: human-animal relations
- 8. Lucy in the sky: celestial bodies
- Part III. Biospheres:
- 9. Enskilment at sea: situated knowledge
- 10. Environmental relations: political economies
- 11. Modernity and beyond: the grand aquarium
- 12. Housekeeping: oikos and the anthropocene
- 13. Afterword.
