Nature or technics? Sars-CoV-2, new materialisms and critique of the Anthropocene

Journal title SOCIOLOGIA URBANA E RURALE
Author/s Luigi Pellizzoni
Publishing Year 2022 Issue 2022/127 Language Italian
Pages 13 P. 94-106 File size 284 KB
DOI 10.3280/SUR2022-127008
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The Sars-CoV-2 pandemic urges environmental sociology to reflect on the appropriate ap-proaches to account for it. For long the discipline was dominated by the debate between real-ism and constructivism, de facto privileging the latter. The "ontological turn" in the social and human sciences has brought to the fore anti-dualistic materialisms, on paper suited to deal with a socio-material hybrid such as Sars-CoV-2. However, the emancipatory implications drawn from the critique of modern dualisms are not reflected in a situation in which value extraction coincides ever more with a denial of the distinction between nature and technology. The debate over the Anthropocene provides a perspective useful to bring clarity.

Keywords: Sars-CoV-2, ontological turn, sustainable materialism, Anthropocene, environ-mental justice, care

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Luigi Pellizzoni, Natura o tecnica? Sars-Cov-2, nuovi materialismi e critica dell’Antropocene in "SOCIOLOGIA URBANA E RURALE" 127/2022, pp 94-106, DOI: 10.3280/SUR2022-127008