Description
The discipline of International Relations canonically so, deals with the issues of state. It is precisely the relations that occurred between the Westphalian states and the new worlds they were discovering that prompted its disciplinary origins, the continental world wars fought in Europe cemented its realist bend. It makes sense therefore that matters of security for the discipline have been seen in nation-state-centric framings.
Over the years the discipline has evolved as has the nature and organisation of world politics. The 21st century poses an interesting puzzle for International Relations in the form of increasingly planetary issues that transcend the scope and jurisdiction of national boundaries, logically therefore our proposed solutions should do the same. The Anthropocentric approach to international relations is one such attempt.
The Anthropocene is understood as a geological epoch – one that characterises the impact of human interventions on the Earth and its ecosystems. In the context of International Relations, the Anthropocene poses ontological challenges to our understanding of human and nature relationships. The Anthropocene is considered as the signpost from wherein Earth History and World History are seen to have been intertwined with one another (Chakrabarty 2009). In our canonical disciplinary understanding, Earth history delineates the evolution of the planet while World history decodes the evolution of civilisation(s). For indigenous and native cultures around the world, however, this distinction doesn’t stand. Their oral and socio-ethnic culture has always seen them as being part of their natural world. The metaphysical and spiritual have always been entangled with how they experience their socio-political relations and their natural environment. The scalar and the sacred have always work in tandem.
This paper aims to highlight how an anthropocentric approach to International relations can open the discipline’s scope to include variables that are otherwise deemed unimportant to the discipline but are crucial to better govern and conserve our endangered ecosystems. Since the Anthropocene opens up the world towards infinite human-nature interrelationships it forces us to reconsider our modernist political mechanisms and look for alternatives in theory and practice that can accommodate these subjectivities (Lakitsch 2021, p 4).
Although the Anthropocene impacts the Earth as a whole, the severity of these impacts change based on one’s geographical location, socio-political background or ethnic identity. By creating systems that facilitate collaborative policy negotiations between multiple stakeholders involved there is hope that better policy outcomes can be achieved. In order to do so however there needs to be a pivot towards a human and environment-centric approach to security and not a state-focused one – an Anthropocentric approach can bring those sensibilities to International Relations. The paper aims to bring forth these ontological tensions and the mechanisms through which they can be teased and tested both in decision and policy-making and also in disciplinary practice.
References
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2009. "The Climate of History: Four Theses." Critical Inquiry 35 (2):197-222
Lakitsch Maximillian, 2021, Hobbes in the Anthropocene: Reconsidering the State of Nature in Its Relevance for Governing, Alternatives Global, Local, Political, Vol 46(i) 3-16, Sage Publications
