Beyond anthropocentrism in historical studies
Historein
Format:
Journal Article
Publication Date:
Nov 30, 2009
Pages:
118 - 130
Sources ID:
80471
Collection:
Anthropocene and the Environmental Future
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).