Pensiero politico ecologista: storia e percorsi genealogici

Il volume si pone l’obiettivo di operare una ricostruzione una storia del pensiero politico ecologista. Il volume ospita i saggi dei segueti autori. Alberto Laganà Although rarely considered as a relevant chapter in the history of political ecology, Cornelius Castoriadis’s contribution to an ecological political thought of democracy stands out as a rather meaningful one. Starting from his social-historical research in the imaginary magma of Western modernity and his analysis of the political failures of radical social movements in the aftermath of May 1968, this paper seeks to explore Castoriadis’s political ecology as a manifold and multilayered contribution that is integral to his later political intervention on autonomy and the future of the democratic project. Facing the transformations of the social imaginary of late capitalism, the insertion of an ecological component is of paramount importance to a radical democratic political project as it contests the capitalist scheme of needs and core imaginary significations, pointing to an exigency of self-limitation and a new cultural creation of unprecedented magnitude. Jacopo Bonasera This essay takes into account the conceptual nexus between history, politics, and critique established by two major theorists of the Anthropocene: Bruno Latour and Dipesh Chakrabarty. It is argued that despite important theoretical differences between their reflections, they both find the Anthropocene to have disruptive effects on human possibilities to comprehend and criticize history. On the one hand, for Latour the discovery of Gaia brings about a new geo-history which allows us to both ‘disinvent’ old historical categories, and favor the political composition of a new order. Chakrabarty, on the other hand, finds in the Anthropocene the key to a new ‘negative universal history’ that makes the ‘evolutionary’ history of the species crucial for a critical understanding of the present. Finally, the way Latour and Chakrabarty utilize the concepts of ‘class’ and ‘population’ is used to draw conclusions on their conceptualization of political ecology. Carlo Marsonet Richard Malcolm Weaver (1910-1963) has been a major figure in the American conservative movement of the XX century. Although he is almost exclusively remembered for his masterpiece, Ideas Have Consequences(1948), his political thought is much broader and more multifarious than that. In particular, this contribution aims to consider one particular aspect of his intellectual production, namely his ecological thought. Indeed, his conservative sensibility is pervaded by a pronounced respect for what called “nature”, rather than “environment”. In this regard, after a brief introduction of this “realist” conservative, the article examines the profound influence that the so-called “Southern Agrarians” exerted on him. It then considers Weaver’s critique towards the ideology of progress and the anthropological crisis resulting from modernity. Finally, it describes his ideas about conservatism as the stewardship of a human-scale order and emphasises the key concept of piety Michele Garau The article is focused on the theoretical contribution of Jacques Camatte and the review «Invariance», founded by him in the late 1960s. The aim of the analysis is to describe how Camatte’s path starts in the Marxist debate – specifically belonging to the political tendency related to Amadeo Bordiga’s thought – and gradually breaks with this field. The core of this breakdown is based on the concept of productive forces. Camatte shows that the Marxist concept of economic and technical development is not critical enough toward the capitalist vision of productive forces. Furthermore, he seeks to underline that the program of Marxism and the labor movement is a sort of description of the capitalist mode of production in the phase in which it overcomes the «formal domination» and replaces the human community. This condition, that Camatte calls «Antropomorphosis of Capital» and «Wandering of Humankind», requires, in Camatte’s opinion, a new idea of revolution. Lorenza Perini In the Latin American context, where colonialism and the patriarchal system appear to be historically deeply intertwined, the research focuses on indigenous women and their struggle against the multiple systems of oppression to which they are subjected, highlighting how colonization has brought a different "nuance" in the concept of patriarchy in a sense of a reinforcement of the gender roles in society. However, contrary to those stereotypes that normally depict indigenous women as folkloric pawns with no history and agency, this research aims to show how, in the face of evidence of the destruction perpetrated through the extractive policies by the neoliberal capital in the 21st century, women have been actually the first to protest for their rights not only as individuals, but as members of indigenous communities. Through the existing literature, the paper try to outline their particular perspective on feminism, liberated from essentialist aspects and used as a practical and political "tool" in the struggle to become agents of social and cultural change and prefiguring, in Silvia Federici's words, "a new world". Giorgio Grimaldi This contribution aims to highlight convergences between federalist visions and ecologist political proposals, with particular reference to the process of European integration. Reviewing some elements linked to the developments of federalism and emphasising non violent thought, the article analyses the contribution of authors such as Adriano Olivetti, Denis De Rougemont, Luigi Zanzi and Alexander Langer, Green MEP and promoter of a "pan European federalism" - trying to find a specific "eco-federalist" strand within ecologist thought, characterised by a multilevel democratic and federal political vision, marked by a strong commitment to ecological sustainability, human development, autonomy and freedom of individuals and human communities. In part, this approach is also reflected in some of the experiences of Green parties, but it seems to present itself as an open prospect for revitalising regional integrations and the democratic development of supranational powers for the management of common goods and global climate policy. Patricia Chiantera-Stutte This contribution reconstructs a particular period in the history of ecological thought in Germany from the end of the 19th century to Nationalsocialism. Indeed, some key concepts used largely in ecological thought are formulated at this time: Oecologie, Umwelt, milieu and Lebensraum. The reconstruction of the meaning, use of these pivotal concepts, as the consideration of the political and intellectual milieus where they were developed are the object of this contribution, that considers their further development and appropriation during the phase of Nationalsocialism. In particular the changing meaning of the ideas of Oecologie, Umwelt, Oecumene and Lebensraum will be explored from the works by Ernst Haeckel and Friedrich Ratzel, to the Nationalsocialist ecological movements, supported by Rudolf Hess and Richard W. Darré.