Toward a critical posthuman geography

Abstract

Geographical analyses of posthuman thought have called for the need to develop a critical form of posthumanism that neither rehashes the pitfalls of humanism, nor promulgates a universalized and ungrounded subject position. This article demonstrates how recent advances in critical posthumanism work to address the limitations of posthuman thought by offering a unified philosophical framework that situates knowledge claims and reimagines human subjectivity and human-nonhuman relations. Critical posthumanism not only synthesizes several of the political, methodological, and philosophical strands of posthuman thought that geographers and philosophers have drawn out, but it also foregrounds an affirmative ethico-political ethos toward a historical moment characterized by socioecological injustices, intersectional inequalities, and advanced capitalist economic systems. By separating itself from transhumanist and epochal forms of posthumanism, critical posthumanism offers cultural geographers concentrating on human-nature relations a more philosophically rigorous, socially accountable, and critical way of approaching the stakes involved in posthumanist discussions.