Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Ex-orbitant globality
AU - Clark, Nigel
PY - 2005/10
Y1 - 2005/10
N2 - Social theorists, drawing on the study of complex dynamical systems to address global processes, tend to evoke an immanent globality devoid of a constitutive otherness or outside. However, as well as dealing with the internal dynamics of systems, complexity studies point to the mutual implication of systems and their surroundings: a concern that resonates with the interest in the convolutions of the inside–outside relationship prominent in post-structural philosophies. This article, looking at theories about the dynamical characteristics of the solar system, galaxy and universe, develops the idea of an ex-orbitant globality that treats the earth as a system in active and ongoing interchange with its cosmic environment. A sense of the inevitable excess and unpredictability that attends this openness to the cosmos and to further other-than-human influences, it is suggested, has repercussions for the way we respond to environmental change injecting an element of abyssal undecidability into all our deliberations.
AB - Social theorists, drawing on the study of complex dynamical systems to address global processes, tend to evoke an immanent globality devoid of a constitutive otherness or outside. However, as well as dealing with the internal dynamics of systems, complexity studies point to the mutual implication of systems and their surroundings: a concern that resonates with the interest in the convolutions of the inside–outside relationship prominent in post-structural philosophies. This article, looking at theories about the dynamical characteristics of the solar system, galaxy and universe, develops the idea of an ex-orbitant globality that treats the earth as a system in active and ongoing interchange with its cosmic environment. A sense of the inevitable excess and unpredictability that attends this openness to the cosmos and to further other-than-human influences, it is suggested, has repercussions for the way we respond to environmental change injecting an element of abyssal undecidability into all our deliberations.
KW - complexity
KW - cosmology
KW - globalization
KW - otherness
KW - responsibility
U2 - 10.1177/0263276405057198
DO - 10.1177/0263276405057198
M3 - Journal article
VL - 22
SP - 165
EP - 185
JO - Theory, Culture and Society
JF - Theory, Culture and Society
SN - 0263-2764
IS - 5
ER -