Ecological Relations: Towards an Inclusive Politics of the Earth

Yet at the conclusion of their sermons, in which the inevitability of the End - of industrialization, of civilization, of man, of life on this planet - is convincingly described if not proved, another way forward is presented. The ecologists end up by appealing to the rationality of their readers; if everyone would grasp what is at stake, then - apparently - everything would not be lost. These sudden about-turns smack of conversion rhetoric. The horror of the predicted catastrophe contrasts sharply with the mildness of the admonition with which we are allowed to escape. This contrast is so obvious and so central that both sides of the argument undermine each other. At least one of them fails to convince. Either the final exhortation, which addresses us in mild terms, or the analysis which is intended to alarm us. ¹

It is hoped that the argument presented here avoids this fault. Throughout this book I have argued that IR, as currently theorised and practised, deliberately misses the full picture of relations upon earth. Such a restrictive epistemological and paradigmatic basis not only does injustice to the integrity of the lives of those omitted relations, namely women, nonhuman animals and indigenous peoples, but also further intensifies the socially constructed isolation of those who benefit. Politics conducted from such a powerfully constructed yet ecologically and socially precarious epistemological base does not logically have the ability to perceive the interdependent ontological relationships that we have with earth and with each other.

The cosmological insecurity of Western-educated people that manifests itself in ambitious attempts to conquer the depths and extremes of life, genetically and spatially, is a continuation of Baconian control and short-termist use and may only be appeased when nature and culture are recognised as mutually constitutive and interdependent spheres of life. To reside at ease on earth, in harmony with all biological and cultural diverse relations, humanity needs to begin with a perceived reverence for the fact that earth is the home of all and that no body can truly exist in isolation. The discipline of IR, in essence, was constructed upon this latter premise; that competition and/or co-operation with others is an inevitability. However, instead of conceptually fragmenting the world and generalising all within society as conforming to

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