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Law and aesthetics in the Anthropocene : from the rights of nature to the aesthesis of obligations
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Matthews, Daniel (2023) Law and aesthetics in the Anthropocene : from the rights of nature to the aesthesis of obligations. Law, Culture and the Humanities, 19 (2). pp. 227-247. doi:10.1177/1743872119871830 ISSN 1743-8721.
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/1743872119871830
Abstract
The Anthropocene thesis contends that the earth has entered a new geological epoch, dominated by human action. This article examines the Anthropocene in relation to law and aesthetics, arguing that the concepts of law and the stories of law’s origins that we mobilise in this context play a significant role in rendering us sensitive or insensitive to the multifarious challenges that the Anthropocene poses to social life. In arguing against aspects of Earth Jurisprudence scholarship, which has developed a novel understanding of the ‘rights of nature’, this article argues that it is through an attention to obligations, rather than rights, that a sensitivity to the forces and relations that define the Anthropocene might be fostered. The shift from rights to obligations entails a commensurate movement from aesthetics – where questions of form, integrity and harmony predominate – to aesthesis, the study of the somatic, sensory and affective dimensions of human experience. The article concludes by arguing that it is within the contemporary city, understood as a discrete form of human and infrastructural association, that an aesthesis of obligations in the context of the Anthropocene can be most acutely perceived.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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Subjects: | K Law [LC] > K Law (General) K Law [Moys] > KB General and Comparative Law |
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Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Law | ||||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Law -- History, Obligations (Law) -- History, Natural law -- History, Aesthetics | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Law, Culture and the Humanities | ||||||||
Publisher: | Sage | ||||||||
ISSN: | 1743-8721 | ||||||||
Official Date: | June 2023 | ||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 19 | ||||||||
Number: | 2 | ||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 227-247 | ||||||||
DOI: | 10.1177/1743872119871830 | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
Re-use Statement: | Matthews, D. (2023). Law and Aesthetics in the Anthropocene: From the Rights of Nature to the Aesthesis of Obligations. Law, Culture and the Humanities, 19(2), 227-247. https://doi.org/10.1177/1743872119871830. © The Author(s) 2019. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications. | ||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 16 November 2023 | ||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 16 November 2023 |
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