CSD Seminar: The Ethics and Politics of “(Not) Too Late”

'The Ethics and Politics of “(Not) Too Late”: A Critical Theory of Ecological Emotions' with Mihaela Mihai

While the scientific evidence around climate change and the reduction of biodiversity is overwhelming, commensurate political action is not forthcoming. In response to generalised inertia, numerous environmental scientists, activists, writers, theologians, journalists and members of communities who have borne the brunt of the crisis – including historically exploited Indigenous people, racialised and impoverished populations – are increasingly vocal about their ecological emotions, i.e., emotions tracking various forms of environmental destruction and accompanied by experiences of discomfort, pain, and suffering. Situated at the intersection of political theory, sociology and the environmental humanities, this talk will provide a political reading of increasingly numerous testimonies of ecological emotions. I suggest that, far from being the expression of a self-indulgent, liberal-individualist and therapy-obsessed culture, the activists, scientists and community leaders testifying to their eco-distress simultaneously instantiate forms of non-alienated relationality to the environment and act as unelected, self-authorised political representatives of a disenfranchised constituency.

Mihaela Mihai is Professor of political theory at the University of Edinburgh. Her work touches on political emotions, memory politics and aesthetics. She is the author of Negative Emotions and Transitional Justice (Columbia University Press, 2016) and Political Memory and the Aesthetics of Care (Stanford University Press, 2022).