Towards a more-than-human theory of resistance: reflections on intentionality, political collectives and opposition

With the proliferation of novel materials, biotechnological innovations and environmental interventions in people’s everyday lives, it has become more and more problematic to speak of Nature and Society as two separate and independent domains and to hold human life apart from its material world. Similarly, with the intensification of extreme weather events, “natural disasters” and virus outbreaks that are currently being witnessed (but not equally experienced) by everyone around the world, it is increasingly difficult to conceive of the Earth and of its numerous non-human forces and inhabitants as passive and inert entities, mere constraints, tools and resources for humanity’s development. Entrenched beliefs and ideas in Nature/Society are becoming more dissonant with everyday experiences where the ‘vitality of matter and the lively powers of material formations’ (Bennett 2010: 7) are felt the most. And yet, as our socio-material entanglements become ever more tangible, questions of power and justice seem to evade us even further, hiding behind biopolitical techniques and a ‘techno-managerial eco-consensus’ that leaves no space for political dispute (Swyngedouw 2011: 264). Since the so-called “material”, “relational” or “more-than-human” turn, Human Geographers have paid increased attention to the ways in which different non-humans shape and are shaped by particular spatio-temporal arrangements and how humans and non-humans come together to produce particular geographies (Braun 2008). However, while the “livingness” (Whatmore 2006) of a more-than-human world is being increasingly recognised, its relationship to understandings of power and politics is still somewhat elusive and little theorised in geography. But one has to step back first because modern political theory is itself built upon the very ontological division between Nature and Society (Braun and Whatmore 2010). After all, a political subject is traditionally conceived as that who has the capacity to “speak” and therefore to manifest will and intentionality, and politics is largely understood as a discursive affair between political communities made of rational human subjects (Driessen 2014). Likewise, conceptualisations of activism, resistance and collective action remain committed to ideas of a resistant human subject with intentionality and autonomy and to predetermined forms including linearity and opposition (Hughes 2019). Overcoming this ontological and theoretical dissonance is all the more significant given that the dynamics and workings of hegemonic power have now embraced “socio-natural hybridity” and are employing its vitality in the service of capital (Braun 2014). This chapter engages with early attempts at developing a posthumanist political theory to explore their significance and potential contribution to critical conceptualisations of resistance in more-than-human world(s). The chapter starts by briefly introducing the theoretical developments associated with the “more-than-human turn” in order to highlight some key theoretical shifts as well as some gaps and critiques with regards to questions of power and politics. It then engages with “more-than-human” critiques of modern political theory and reviews a range of theoretical works that is attempting to reconfigure traditional understandings of politics and what constitutes the political by taking the material and affective agency of non-human others seriously. The chapter concludes by considering what the material turn means for critical understandings of resistance and its geographies.