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Beyond anthropocentrism in historical studies
Historein
Format: Journal Article
Publication Date: Nov 30, 2009
Pages: 118 - 130
Sources ID: 80471
Visibility: Public (group default)
Abstract: (Show)
As a theoretician of history interested inthe comparative theory of the human sciences, I am trying to reflect on certain changes, turns and approaches that are observable in contemporary human and social sciences. I see the growing interest in nonhuman beings (flourishing animal studies, plant studies and thing studies) within the context of an emerging paradigm of non-anthropocentric human sciences, and I would like to consider certain problems and questions that I see as fundamental for the kind of future-oriented knowledge about the past that these new tendencies portend. What I mean by anthropocentrism here is the attitude that presents the human species as the centre of the world, enjoying hegemony over other beings and functioning as masters of a nature which exists to serve its needs. This attitude leads to speciesism (assigning different values or rights to beings on the basis of their species membership) and is related to the kind of discrimination that is practiced by man against other species. Optimally, a non-anthropocentric paradigm seeks to de-centre human beings and focus on nonhumans as subjects of research (often quite apart from their relationships with humans).