ANTH 2110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Binary Opposition, European Colonialism, Actant
21 Nov 2017
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2110 lec 11 relating to no humans: nature and environment. What do we consider to be nature: not manmade, untouched, nature preserve, forest, water, open air, green spaces, not natural, technology, construction sites, chemical, residential areas, gmo food, Binary opposition a conceptual division of the world into two distinct (usually opposing) categories. Nonhuman: a purely technical thing (e. g. hinge, door-closer) that is an actant: actant: entities that do things (actants can be humans, nonhuman animals, or nonhuman things) Latour makes us think about the opposition between humans and non-humans. We make this distinction, like we oppose culture and nature. Two spheres, nonhumans nature and humans culture, they do not over-lap, they are different. However, there is mixing, they are combined. Seen as separate but they are not (a bunch of lines), network, underlie that conceptual dichotomy that they are different, work of translation, or delegation. We delegate certain acts to these non-human things.
