UC EVENTS

Anti-Anthropocentric Democracy: Devices of Extra-Human Representation and Expression

Lucas Veloso will present the paper 'Anti-Anthropocentric Democracy: Devices of Extra-Human Representation and Expression' co-authored with Ângela Marques, published in 2023 in the Brazilian journal Teoria e Pesquisa. The paper considers practical and institutional possibilities of an 'anti-anthropocentric democracy', characterized by the constant effort to address decision-making biases that threaten extra-human existences. The authors start by examining the proposition's foundations that all sentient biological entities have an inalienable and politically relevant interest in preserving their existence. Based on that, they propose three devices that can promote extra-human representation, expression, and visibility: a) Political and epistemic alliance with non-Western populations, such as indigenous; b) Empowering and dissensual deliberative experiments that foster pragmatic compromises between different cosmologies; c) The use of imagery and audiovisual artifacts to minimize trans-ontological 'incommensurabilities' and increase the possibilities of being affected by radical otherness. 

This seminar will be chaired by Wendy Conway-Lamb. 

About the speaker 

Lucas Veloso is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science in Brazil (PPGCP-UFMG) and member of the research group on democracy and justice Margem. He researches democratic innovations, deliberative democracy, and socio-political vulnerabilities, and takes part in the team that builds Brazil's first citizen assembly on gene editing. His latest publications have addressed the following topics: a) social and political theory and epistemology; b) vulnerabilities in citizen participation and digital democracy; c) climate emergency, technology, and other socio-technical controversies.