The anxiously awaited “second wave” of coronavirus infections has arrived. Just like in March and April, headlines are dominated by daily infection counts, and an increasingly cacophonous choir of restrictions have come into place. Unlike during the first wave, when arguably governments had the excuse of facing a genuinely novel situation, one would think that […]
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Cycling through a power struggle
One of the most visible effects of COVID-19 in Brussels, where I live, has been the creation of a bunch of new cycle paths. Given that space in a very dense city is limited, these have tended to be overwhelmingly taken from areas previously designated for cars. In some cases, where there used to be […]
The Ecology of Fear (and possibility)
Fear acts in an affective ecosystem, but by its very nature is a domineering feeling; it tends to drown everything else out. It can therefore easily outlive its usefulness (jolting us awake), an become a hindrance (blurring out the obvious). In this post, I want to think further about the role of fear in undermining the radical potential for political change that the pandemic has opened up.
Viral Political Ecology IV
In one of the posts in this series I spoke about the loss of horizon, the feeling of dread at a seemingly never-ending crisis. Here I want to think further about the possibility of a future beyond crises. More precisely, I am interested in the necessity of thinking the long term, despite the requirements of […]
Viral Political Ecology III
The intrusion of the coronavirus and the disruption caused in response are excellent occasions for mapping the cracks of the present system. There is nothing better than a crisis to force a reckoning. In the last two posts, I started thinking critically about what the current moment means. Here, I want to continue that reflection […]
Viral Political Ecology II
The last weeks have continued to be dominated by a dizzying amount of covid-19 news. It seems as if the whole world is caught in a series of parallel accelerating spirals: one country after another goes from urging caution to shutting all activities down (or, more precisely, trying to move them online). The speed of […]
Viral Political Ecology
The developing coronavirus pandemic has been hogging attention for weeks now. Many simple observers are incredulous that governments, like Italy’s, will willfully paralyze their economies in order to stem the transmission of a pathogen that is far from the deadliest in the long history of human pathogens. That being said, it is very hard for […]
The Difficulty of Slowing Down
The Great Acceleration has been proposed, with good reason, as the proper kicking into gear of the Anthropocene. Long story short, across virtually all indicators of production/consumption (energy, land use, commodities, and so on), the post-WWII world has hit the accelerator hard. Speaking about it in the past tense is misleading, as all indicators currently show […]
Ecological Depression
Ecological depression may become an acceptable diagnosis for an increasing number of people. It is characterised by feelings of impotence and despair when confronted with the massive scale of socio-environmental destruction in our world. It leads to paralysis. In today’s news cycle, not only are environmental problems under-reported, they also tend to be assimilated to […]
Gratitude
I have spent the last three months in New Zealand, immersed in a world very different from the one that defines my usual daily life. I have had the luxury of time-to-think, something that, even though I became an academic for it, is rarer by the day. I have also had the opportunity to start […]
