Between Gaia and Ground: Four Axioms of Existence and the Ancestral Catastrophe of Late Liberalism

by Elizabeth A. Povinelli

Overview

In Between Gaia and Ground Elizabeth A. Povinelli theorizes the climatic, environmental, viral, and social catastrophe present as an ancestral catastrophe through which that Indigenous and colonized peoples have been suffering for centuries. In this way, the violence and philosophies the West relies on now threaten the West itself. Engaging with the work of Glissant, Deleuze and Guattari, Césaire, and Arendt, Povinelli highlights four axioms of existence—the entanglement of existence, the unequal distribution of power, the collapse of the event as essential to political thought, and the legacies of racial and colonial histories. She traces these axioms' inspiration in anticolonial struggles against the dispossession and extraction that have ruined the lived conditions for many on the planet. By examining the dynamic and unfolding forms of late liberal violence, Povinelli attends to a vital set of questions about changing environmental conditions, the legacies of violence, and the limits of inherited Western social theory. Between Gaia and Ground also includes a glossary of the keywords and concepts that Povinelli has developed throughout her work.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781478021872
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	08/02/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	200
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Elizabeth A. Povinelli is Franz Boas Professor of Anthropology and Gender Studies at Columbia University and founding member of the Karrabing Film Collective. Her most recent book is The Inheritance, also published by Duke University Press.

Table of Contents

Preface  ix
Acknowledgments  xiii
Introduction  1
Section I
1. The Four Axioms of Existence  15
2. Toxic Late Liberalism  36
Section II
3. Atomic Ends: The Whole Earth and the Conquered Earth  63
4. Toxic Ends: The Biosphere and the Colonial Sphere  86
5. Conceptual Ends: Solidarity and Stubbornness  112
Postscript  131
Glossary  134
Notes  143
Bibliography  157
Index  173

Editorial Reviews

"Sociologists, anthropologists, and decolonial thinkers across, beyond, and against disciplinary thought will be interested in Povinelli’s newest interrogation of what she terms the 'ancestral catastrophe of late liberalism.' . . . For sociologists whose discipline was formed through a western imperial gaze, with its epistemological commitment to abstraction and the discovery of universal social laws, Povinelli’s challenge is a vital one."

Contemporary Sociology - Molly Talcott

"One of the book’s greatest contributions is that it generates dialogue between a significant part of prevailing critical theory and the issue of power. This is achieved through detailed attention to the implications of the task of analysis and development of concepts for understanding social processes and seeking transformations to situations of violence and injustice. This could be useful not only in academic contexts, but also in struggles in which indigenous peoples, Afro-Americans, and other excluded groups participate."

Social & Cultural Geography - Pablo Rojas-Bahamonde

"Ambitious in scope and far-reaching in its critique, Povinelli’s Between Gaia and Ground offers invaluable insights toward a decolonial environmental theory that can inspire more just ecological practices. It will undoubtedly shape future discussions across many fields."

Contemporary Political Theory - Mirra-Margarita Ianeva

"Bringing a range of critical thinkers into discussion with each other, such as Hannah Arendt, Gregory Bateson, Edouard Glissant, and Aime Cesaire, Povinelli illuminates the implications of political action when critical theory is differently positioned across colonialism. . . . Between Gaia and Ground is a timely book to shine a light on the limits of Western critical thought, and its co-option into late liberal violence."

Thesis Eleven - Angie Sassano

Between Gaia and Ground not only extends the trajectory of Elizabeth A. Povinelli’s pathbreaking work, it participates in a highly promising movement to unsettle disciplines and narrative genres in the aftermath of global capital, militarism, and accelerating environmental destruction. Provocative and timely.

The Future of Fallout, and Other Episodes in Radioactive World-Making - Joseph Masco

Engaging with modern philosophy’s original problem of how to ground truth (approached in ontological terms) within the limits of human existence (delimited in historical terms), Between Gaia and Ground proposes a starting point for thinking about the capitalist present that foregrounds precisely what pre- and post-Enlightenment European thinkers have consistently foreclosed. Locating colonial and racial power at the core of the thinking of existence, Elizabeth A. Povinelli provides an urgently needed corrective to contemporary critical theorizing's insistence on ignoring its existential conditions of emergence (thought in political terms).

Unpayable Debt - Denise Ferreira da Silva

Drawing on wide-ranging intellectual and political itineraries, Between Gaia and Ground offers a provoking way to theorize environmental violence that will be sure to attract and stir up readers.

The Economization of Life - Michelle Murphy

"Sociologists, anthropologists, and decolonial thinkers across, beyond, and against disciplinary thought will be interested in Povinelli's newest interrogation of what she terms the 'ancestral catastrophe of late liberalism.' . . . For sociologists whose discipline was formed through a western imperial gaze, with its epistemological commitment to abstraction and the discovery of universal social laws, Povinelli's challenge is a vital one."--Molly Talcott "Contemporary Sociology" (5/1/2023 12:00:00 AM)

"Bringing a range of critical thinkers into discussion with each other, such as Hannah Arendt, Gregory Bateson, Edouard Glissant, and Aime Cesaire, Povinelli illuminates the implications of political action when critical theory is differently positioned across colonialism. . . . Between Gaia and Ground is a timely book to shine a light on the limits of Western critical thought, and its co-option into late liberal violence."--Angie Sassano "Thesis Eleven" (2/20/2023 12:00:00 AM)

"Ambitious in scope and far-reaching in its critique, Povinelli's Between Gaia and Ground offers invaluable insights toward a decolonial environmental theory that can inspire more just ecological practices. It will undoubtedly shape future discussions across many fields."--Mirra-Margarita Ianeva "Contemporary Political Theory" (3/22/2022 12:00:00 AM)

"One of the book's greatest contributions is that it generates dialogue between a significant part of prevailing critical theory and the issue of power. This is achieved through detailed attention to the implications of the task of analysis and development of concepts for understanding social processes and seeking transformations to situations of violence and injustice. This could be useful not only in academic contexts, but also in struggles in which indigenous peoples, Afro-Americans, and other excluded groups participate."--Pablo Rojas-Bahamonde "Social & Cultural Geography" (10/1/2022 12:00:00 AM)

"Engaging with modern philosophy's original problem of how to ground truth (approached in ontological terms) within the limits of human existence (delimited in historical terms), Between Gaia and Ground proposes a starting point for thinking about the capitalist present that foregrounds precisely what pre- and post-Enlightenment European thinkers have consistently foreclosed. Locating colonial and racial power at the core of the thinking of existence, Elizabeth A. Povinelli provides an urgently needed corrective to contemporary critical theorizing's insistence on ignoring its existential conditions of emergence (thought in political terms)."--Denise Ferreira da Silva, author of "Unpayable Debt"

"Drawing on wide-ranging intellectual and political itineraries, Between Gaia and Ground offers a provoking way to theorize environmental violence that will be sure to attract and stir up readers."--Michelle Murphy, author of "The Economization of Life"

"Between Gaia and Ground not only extends the trajectory of Elizabeth A. Povinelli's pathbreaking work, it participates in a highly promising movement to unsettle disciplines and narrative genres in the aftermath of global capital, militarism, and accelerating environmental destruction. Provocative and timely."--Joseph Masco, author of "The Future of Fallout, and Other Episodes in Radioactive World-Making"

From the Publisher