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- Andersson, Daniel, 1989-
(author)
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Artificial Earth : On the Genealogy of Planetary Technicity
- 2020
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- As technology transforms the conditions by which we come understand and interact with the world around us, it is relevant to ask questions about the historicalontological aspects of these patterns of change. The widespread adoption of the term “Anthropocene” during the last twenty years indicates the wide acceptance of the view that human activities have become such a powerful driving force for global environmental change that our destructive legacy will be recorded in geological history. Man, it is argued, has come to alter his terrestrial environment on such a global scale that the ontological difference between natural and technological patterns of change has lost its salience. Addressing our contemporary environmental problems, then, requires knowledge of how physical processes in the natural world operate. But it also necessitates a critical self-consciousness that pertains to the understanding of “the natural” vis-à-vis “the artificial” that underlies this kind of knowledge production. The latter forms the basis of this thesis, which treats the disclosure of technology as a “global” or “planetary” phenomenon – what, herein, is called “planetary technicity” – in earth system science and within the prevailing Anthropocene discourse, and argues that this disclosure gives rise to a research problem that necessitates the present study: insofar as natural and technological patterns of change are made ontologically equivalent, we are faced with a situation wherein technology is increasingly portrayed as beyond human control – just like the products of nature, artifice is depicted as self-organizing. Proceeding from an intellectual-historical point of departure, and within the framework of modern earth science, the methodological ambition of the thesis is to investigate the so-called “genealogical” provenance behind this particular disclosure of technology, with the intention of exposing its historical conditions. The thesis seeks to accomplish this by answering three main questions: how did the question of the nature of technology intersect with epistemological and methodological concerns in earth science; how were such concerns treated or resolved; and last but not least, what is the intellectualhistorical provenance of planetary technicity? In view of the genealogical examination, the thesis concludes that planetary technicity is a product of a certain intellectual-historical tradition in modern earth science that opposed itself toward mechanistic philosophy by taking up a holistic approach in order to study the earth, which meant that technology ontologically came to be attributed organic rather than mechanical features. In addition, the thesis highlights the historical coincidence – as opposed to the necessity – of this particular understanding of technology.
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- Hornborg, Alf
(author)
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Anthropology in the Anthropocene
- 2020
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In: Anthropology Today. - : Wiley. - 1467-8322 .- 0268-540X. ; 36:2, s. 1-2
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)
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| 7. |
- Hornborg, Alf
(author)
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Att känna katastrofen
- 2020
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In: Dagens arena.
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Journal article (pop. science, debate, etc.)
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- Hornborg, Alf
(author)
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Beyond Prometheanism : Modern technologies as strategies for redistributing time and space
- 2024
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In: Environmental Values. - 0963-2719. ; 33:1, s. 28-41
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Technologies developed since the late eighteenth century differ from earlier forms of technology by being as dependent on world market prices of labour, land and other biophysical resources as on human inventiveness. Yet, whether their outlook is mainstream or heterodox, modern people tend to view technology simply as ingenuity applied to nature, while oblivious of the extent to which it is contingent on the asymmetric exchange of resources in global society. Although inextricably entwined in the real world, the phenomena studied by economics and engineering are kept conceptually separate. This is achieved by disregarding the materiality of world trade. Modern technologies are not just instruments for solving problems but social strategies for redistributing time and space in world society, displacing work and environmental loads to sectors of the world system where wages are lower and environmental legislation less rigorous. Technology should not remain extraneous to social theory. A sociometabolic reconceptualisation of technology is particularly essential for critics of global capitalism.
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| 10. |
- Hornborg, Alf
(author)
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Beyond the Image of COVID-19 as Nature's Revenge : Understanding Globalized Capitalism through an Epidemiology of Money
- 2021
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In: Sustainability. - : MDPI AG. - 2071-1050. ; 13:9
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Public discussion of the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic has reproduced several recurrent and interrelated topics in discourses on sustainability and the Anthropocene. First, there is an ambiguous concern—sometimes ominous, sometimes hopeful—that the pandemic will precipitate radical social transformation or even collapse. Second, there is widespread reflection over the risks of economic globalization, which increases vulnerability and undermines local food security. Third, the pandemic is frequently imagined as nature’s revenge on humankind. This metaphor reflects a fundamental conceptual dualism separating nature and society that continues to constrain our efforts to understand the challenges of sustainability. To help transcend the epistemological and ontological dichotomy of nature versus society, the article proposes an epidemiological approach to all-purpose money. Conventional money is an artifact with far-reaching repercussions for global society as well as the biosphere. To approach it as the source of behavioral algorithms with severely detrimental consequences for both social and ecological systems might provide a middle ground for natural and social science.
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