Videogames are not subjects to be operated on, but rather bodies that humans live both with and inside of. In order to reconcile human existence with this nonhuman life, this thesis looks to evaluate the exact relationships developed between humans and assemblages in order to understand how humans are disciplined to return to games time and time again. The recognition of the nonhuman life of videogames necessitates a rethinking of the word “life,” as well as a reformulation of ethics around the new sets of obligations humans have toward videogames if we begin to recognize them as alive.

This thesis is concerned with the conditions of generating a livable Karoo landscape and the arts of living on a damaged Karoo veld. It takes place in a context where the anthropogenic influences on land degradation, desertification and biodiversity loss continues to haunt the Karoo in the present. The Karoo is a semi-arid region that spans the interior of South Africa. It is also region that has been subject to ongoing and widespread concern of the impact of overgrazing, threatening the livability of the Karoo landscape. This is a result of human/nonhuman relations that have been grounded in a colonial mastery of the land, whereby the advent of private property regimes, modernist technologies and capitalist extraction has allowed for the land to be cheapened, exhausted and severely degraded in a process of colonial dispossession. This research is a qualitative ethnography interacting with farmers and nonhumans on rangelands in the Great Karoo. This thesis shows how the earlier degradation of the Karoo has demanded farmersto pay attention to the relationalities between ecology and economy, since their economic/ecological survival depends entirely on the ongoing multispecies assemblages of which humans form a part. Infrastructures and technologies have become grounds for new ontological practices of regenerating the Karoo veld. Infrastructures (namely fencing) and sheep are used in ways that mimic the earlier migration of large herds of antelope. Here, the bodies of sheep are curated and moved in order to perform a particular ordering of a Karoo ‘nature’. This movement is believed to instigate multispecies liveliness. Sheep, who were once destroyers of the veld, are now enrolled in practices that are believed to bring back the ‘natural’ vegetation of the Karoo. The thesis problematises the ongoing Western ways of knowing that separate the world into binaries of ‘nature’/’culture’, ‘human’/’non-human’, ‘subject’/object’, ‘domestic’/‘wild’, ’economy’/‘ecology’, ‘life’/‘death’. Rather, it argues that a concern with ontological plurality is a process of paying attention to the mutual ecologies and multiple species that gather in human/nonhuman worlding projects on rangelands in the Karoo.

This essay marks the degrading biosphere in David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas and argues that its narrative disclosure is meaningfully explored using the idea of a growing ecological awareness. The book depicts agentive nonhumans that are unseen or under-attended by the novel’s humans. I suggest this literary presentation of the biosphere is best understood as after the discovery of global warming when matters of ecological concern “intruded,” to use Timothy Morton’s word, on a human-only society with underequipped modes of historical thought. To construct my reading, I motivate recent work in object-oriented philosophies that would eschew anthropocentric metaphysics. I unpack Cloud Atlas’ ecological vision using Morton’s philosophy in which he explores the conceptual and aesthetic consequences of the hyperobject – a thing that is massively distributed in time and space relative to humans. My analysis will examine passages and techniques that construct Cloud Atlas’ “scenery,” and I argue that they evoke a degrading biosphere that interacts substantially with the human-only personal dramas. Features of the book’s formal construction allow for the animation of this scenery in the reader’s cross-novel interpretation. I look at how characters narrate this scenery to build my argument that the novel’s ecological vision makes claims on its storytelling characters. But as those characters still miss the long-view historical perspectives afforded the reader, they are shown to want community. I end by ruminating on how Cloud Atlas, which would “stretch” the literary novel, questions what the novel is at this ecological moment.

Submitted by Jordan (jordanbiblio@gmail.com) on 2016-10-10T15:47:44Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DISS_2015_Leonardo Santos Sousa.pdf: 772785 bytes, checksum: 00099ebd6ff03f6cbfa8fd7bb9cbf48b (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Jordan (jordanbiblio@gmail.com) on 2016-10-10T15:49:28Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DISS_2015_Leonardo Santos Sousa.pdf: 772785 bytes, checksum: 00099ebd6ff03f6cbfa8fd7bb9cbf48b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-10-10T15:49:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DISS_2015_Leonardo Santos Sousa.pdf: 772785 bytes, checksum: 00099ebd6ff03f6cbfa8fd7bb9cbf48b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-03-31 / O presente trabalho tem como objetivo central investigar as associações de não-humanos e humanos na composição do coletivo pelo viés filosófico contido nas obras latourianas: Política da Natureza: Como fazer ciência na democracia e em Esperança de Pandora: Ensaios sobre a realidade dos estudos científicos. Esse objetivo central desdobra-se em dois objetivos específicos: discutir a influência da Ecologia Política latouriana na composição progressiva do coletivo e investigar as contribuições do empirismo relativista, no sentido de se ter a compreensão das práticas científicas na contemporaneidade. Bruno Latour vem construindo um empirismo relativista que, em linhas gerais, refuta a separação entre as entidades ontológicas natureza e cultura, bem como a separação entre sujeito e objeto. Todo seu esforço concentra-se em problematizar a ideia da existência de uma rígida separação entre natureza e sociedade. A proposta latouriana, contida no acordo amoderno, procura estabelecer o exercício do diálogo pleno entre as coisas e os demais atores e, com isso, delimitar o poder antropocêntrico nas práticas científicas porque a democracia exige a participação política de todos os actantes. As proposições articuladas no coletivo não são oriundas, apenas, do logocentrismo; mas engendram-se pelas/nas tramas tecidas pelos humanos e não-humanos. O gesto iconoclasta dos modernos, com o qual separaram o coletivo em duas dimensões, natureza de um lado e a sociedade de outro, mostrou-se ineficiente uma vez que esta cisão não aconteceu devido à proliferação dos híbridos, no meio do caminho dessas dimensões, pelo trabalho de mediação. A proposta de Latour demonstra que as coisas não se calam, nem tão pouco se subordinam ao autoritarismo logocêntrico dos humanos. Mesmo que suas vozes pareçam inaudíveis, as coisas falam através dos aparelhos de fonação e, podem tecer proposições bem articuladas no parlamento das coisas, como forma de compor o mundo comum. / This work is mainly aimed to investigate the associations of non-human and human in the composition of the collective philosophical bias contained in latourianas works: Type of Policy: How do science in democracy and Pandora's Hope: Essays on the reality of studies scientific. Having two specific objectives: to discuss the influence of political ecology Latourian the progressive composition of the team and investigate the contributions of relativistic empiricism, in order to have the understanding of scientific practices nowadays. We realize that Bruno Latour has built a relativist empiricism that, in general, rejects the separation between the ontological entities Nature and Culture as well as the separation between subject and object. All efforts are concentrated into question the idea of having a rigid separation between nature and society. The Latourian proposal, contained in amoderno agreement seeks to establish the exercise of the full dialogue between things and the other actors; and thereby defines the anthropocentric power in scientific practices, that democracy requires the political participation of all surfactants, since the proposals articulated in the collective are not derived solely from the logocentrism; but are engendered by / in the plots woven by humans and nonhumans. We realized that the iconoclastic gesture of modern, with which separated the collective in two dimensions: nature on one side and society on the other, was inefficient, why this split happened not because of the proliferation of hybrids on the way these dimensions, the mediation work. We can see that things are not silent, neither are subordinated to the logocentric authoritarianism of humans, even though their voices seem inaudible, things speak, weave well articulated propositions in parliament of things, as a way of composing the common world.

Orientadora: Mariana Claudia Broens / Co-orientadora: Maria Eunice Quilici Gonzalez / Resumo: O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar o processo de ampliação do estatuto moral dos animais não-humanos a partir de diferentes perspectivas teóricas. Para isso, examinamos primeiramente concepções filosóficas contemporâneas sobre a relação animais humanos/animais não-humanos de Luc Ferry, para quem a cultura afasta os seres humanos dos demais animais, e de Michael Pollan, para quem se estabeleceu uma relação simbiótica entre animais humanos e não-humanos. Em seguida, analisamos diferentes concepções do estatuto moral dos animais não-humanos no que diz respeito ao progressivo reconhecimento de sua condição de seres vivos, capazes de sentirem dor e de possuírem um self (Singer, 1994, 2004; Regan, 1983, 1999, 2006; Wise, 2002, 2011; Damásio, 2004, 2010; de Waal, 2006, 2007). A partir dessa análise inicial, discutimos a noção de expansão dos círculos morais proposta inicialmente por William E. H. Lecky (1869), segundo a qual o âmbito da consideração moral se ampliou do círculo familiar para o círculo da comunidade, depois abarcando a nação e assim sucessivamente graças ao desenvolvimento da racionalidade humana. Por fim, esboçamos uma explicação alternativa à concepção racionalista dessa dinâmica de expansão/retração dos círculos morais a partir da perspectiva sistêmica, sugerindo que tal dinâmica ocorre auto-organizadamente, no sentido proposto por Debrun (1996) de auto-organização secundária. / Abstract: The objective of this study is to analyze the amplification of the moral status of nonhumans from different theoretical perspectives. First, we examine contemporary philosophical conceptions of the human animal/non-human animal relationship as proposed by Luc Ferry, for whom culture alienates humans from other animals, and as proposed by Michael Pollan, who establishes a symbiotic relationship between human animals and nonhumans. Next, we analyze different conceptions of the moral status of nonhumans with regard to the progressive recognition of their status as living beings capable of feeling pain and having a self (Singer, 1994, 2004; Regan, 1983 1999 2006; Wise, 2002, 2011; Damasio, 2004, 2010; de Waal, 2006, 2007). Based on this initial review, we discuss the notion of the expansion of the moral circle first proposed by William E. H. Lecky (1869), according to which the scope of moral consideration has expanded from the family circle to the circle of the community, then covering the nation and even wider circles, due to the development of human rationality. Finally, we outline from the systemic perspective an alternative explanation to the rationalist conception of this dynamic expansion/retraction of moral circles, suggesting that such dynamics are self-organized in the sense of secondary self-organization proposed by Debrun (1996). / Mestre

Submitted by Morgana Silva (morgana_linhares@yahoo.com.br) on 2016-08-29T19:27:26Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 3495573 bytes, checksum: e641f3ed62e22f91f6926fe654b0a6f1 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-29T19:27:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 3495573 bytes, checksum: e641f3ed62e22f91f6926fe654b0a6f1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-26 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / Focusing on domesticatory processes, the dissertation seeks to understand how to build modes of relationship and interaction between human and nonhuman animals in rural areas in the interior of Paraíba, Brazil. The research revealed that these relationships and interactions are defined by configurations based on hierarchical principles where the technical and emotional-affective dimensions play a key role. In these configurations individualizing interactions (centered on concrete specimens relations, and not species generic) allow the formation of an evaluative scale regulating the relationship. It favors positions of physical and emotional closeness during handling, as well as distancing strategies (always physical and emotional) for commercialization and slaughter. Thus, affect and use techniques and alienation are not posed as contradictory elements among themselves, but as complementary components. / Focando processos domesticatórios, o presente trabalho busca compreender como se constroem os modos de relação e interação entre animais humanos e não humanos, nos espaços rurais no interior da Paraíba. A pesquisa revelou que tais relações e interações são definidas por configurações baseadas em princípios hierárquicos, onde as dimensões técnica e emocional-afetiva desempenham um papel fundamental. Por sua vez, nestas configurações, são as interações individualizantes (centradas nas relações concretas entre espécimes e não entre espécies genéricas) que permitem a formação de uma escala valorativa na regulação das relações. Isto favorece posicionamentos de proximidade física e emocional durante o manejo, além de estratégias de distanciamento (sempre físico e emocional) para a comercialização e o abate. Dessa forma, afeto e técnicas de uso e de alienação não se colocam como elementos contraditórios entre si, mas como componentes complementares.

The current communicative planning paradigm appears to lack the ability to include the voices of the voiceless and is stuck in practices that continue to confirm the status-quo through technocratic quick fixes, which do not solve underlying problems causing climate change. This thesis is an exploration of how two unconventional methods, storytelling and co-created speculative design, can contribute to a change in paradigm, specifically improve the inclusiveness of coproduction, where nonhumans are involved in the decision-making processes. This thesis takes the reader on a journey through the embodiment of water in Slussen, by an analysis of semi-structured interviews and a critical discourse, a story from the perspective of water with the title Suorssá, and two alternative designs of Slussen if water were in charge. The applied lense in this thesis is a combination of Latour’s perspective on actants, Bell’s studies of the future, storytelling, critical utopianism, and ecocentrism. The methods and lense are embedded in a case study of water in Slussen, which is a major urban development in Sweden where water plays a considerable role. Through this journey an alternative perspective is attempted to be shared with the participants and an increasing openness towards ecocentrism, where all organisms on the planet have an intrinsic value irrespective of humans, is created. The results suggest that a truly inclusive planning paradigm, especially for megaprojects like Slussen, seems to be a utopian thought. Nonetheless, storytelling and co-created speculative designs turn out to be an effective step towards realizing this vision.

Submitted by Pedro Lallo (pedrolallo@hotmail.com) on 2016-04-19T21:11:46Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Pedro Lallo para entregar.pdf: 1738982 bytes, checksum: aef96c52bf8c63ff50dbadd8eacd653b (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Felipe Augusto Arakaki (arakaki@reitoria.unesp.br) on 2016-04-26T17:44:06Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 lallo_pga_me_mar.pdf: 1738982 bytes, checksum: aef96c52bf8c63ff50dbadd8eacd653b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T17:44:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 lallo_pga_me_mar.pdf: 1738982 bytes, checksum: aef96c52bf8c63ff50dbadd8eacd653b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-12-16 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar o processo de ampliação do estatuto moral dos animais não-humanos a partir de diferentes perspectivas teóricas. Para isso, examinamos primeiramente concepções filosóficas contemporâneas sobre a relação animais humanos/animais não-humanos de Luc Ferry, para quem a cultura afasta os seres humanos dos demais animais, e de Michael Pollan, para quem se estabeleceu uma relação simbiótica entre animais humanos e não-humanos. Em seguida, analisamos diferentes concepções do estatuto moral dos animais não-humanos no que diz respeito ao progressivo reconhecimento de sua condição de seres vivos, capazes de sentirem dor e de possuírem um self (Singer, 1994, 2004; Regan, 1983, 1999, 2006; Wise, 2002, 2011; Damásio, 2004, 2010; de Waal, 2006, 2007). A partir dessa análise inicial, discutimos a noção de expansão dos círculos morais proposta inicialmente por William E. H. Lecky (1869), segundo a qual o âmbito da consideração moral se ampliou do círculo familiar para o círculo da comunidade, depois abarcando a nação e assim sucessivamente graças ao desenvolvimento da racionalidade humana. Por fim, esboçamos uma explicação alternativa à concepção racionalista dessa dinâmica de expansão/retração dos círculos morais a partir da perspectiva sistêmica, sugerindo que tal dinâmica ocorre auto-organizadamente, no sentido proposto por Debrun (1996) de auto-organização secundária. / The objective of this study is to analyze the amplification of the moral status of nonhumans from different theoretical perspectives. First, we examine contemporary philosophical conceptions of the human animal/non-human animal relationship as proposed by Luc Ferry, for whom culture alienates humans from other animals, and as proposed by Michael Pollan, who establishes a symbiotic relationship between human animals and nonhumans. Next, we analyze different conceptions of the moral status of nonhumans with regard to the progressive recognition of their status as living beings capable of feeling pain and having a self (Singer, 1994, 2004; Regan, 1983 1999 2006; Wise, 2002, 2011; Damasio, 2004, 2010; de Waal, 2006, 2007). Based on this initial review, we discuss the notion of the expansion of the moral circle first proposed by William E. H. Lecky (1869), according to which the scope of moral consideration has expanded from the family circle to the circle of the community, then covering the nation and even wider circles, due to the development of human rationality. Finally, we outline from the systemic perspective an alternative explanation to the rationalist conception of this dynamic expansion/retraction of moral circles, suggesting that such dynamics are self-organized in the sense of secondary self-organization proposed by Debrun (1996).

Video games are critical and relevant tools which can be used to influence perceptions of nature. Many games have already sought to educate players about environmental issues, but the effect that games as a whole have on players’ respect for nature is yet uncertain. This thesis thus aims to investigate this issue by conducting a game analysis based on a framework of respect for nature, which will be established as a foundational aspect of this paper. From the game analysis, lessons and design principles that can be employed in future game design to foster respect for nature in players will be collated.

Seit dem in den 1990er Jahren proklamierten Animal Turn befasst sich das interdisziplinäre Forschungsfeld der Human-Animal Studies mit dem von Missverständnissen geprägten Verhältnis zwischen Mensch und Tier. Das Bestreben liegt darin, Disziplinen wie Biologie, Philosophie, Soziologie, Anthropologie und Geschichte zusammenzuführen und einen Perspektivwechsel hin zur Anerkennung nichtmenschlicher Wirkmächtigkeit und ihrer Agency vorzunehmen. Ich werde zu Beginn meiner Arbeit nachvollziehen, in welchem Maße die religiöse, wissenschaftliche und philosophische Zentrierung des Menschen immer wieder dazu gedient hat, jedwede Form von Unterdrückung und Gewalt an sogenannten Anderen zu legitimieren. Dies war und ist nur dadurch möglich, dass sich der angebliche Universalismus des Menschen aus dem Konstrukt des heterosexuellen, weißen Mannes speist(e), dessen Männlichkeit als geschlechtslos, dessen „Weißsein als unrassifiziert, Cis-Geschlechtlichkeit als echt, und so weiter“ (Laboria Cuboniks 2015: 26) erscheint. So wurden „Tiere“, „Frauen“ und „Schwarze“ in abendländischen Diskursen immer wieder als „Andere“ konstruiert, diffamiert, diskriminiert und eliminiert. Während das Überleben auf einem gemeinsamen Planeten einen ebenso bescheidenen wie essentiellen Anspruch formuliert, bleibt darüber hinaus auf kommende Gemeinschaften zu hoffen, in der unterschiedlichen Seins- und Beziehungsweisen nicht mit Gewalt und Unterdrückung, sondern gegenseitigem Respekt, Neugierde und „uneigennütziger Solidarität“ (Vgl. Ebd.: 33) begegnet wird, sowohl zwischen Menschen als auch zwischen Spezies. Die Bestrebungen der Human-Animal Studies sind in diesem Sinne basal für zukünftige, fürsorglichere Gesellschaften, die erst mit der Überwindung des Anthropozentrismus möglich sind. Wie kommen wir endlich von den etablierten Positionen im Nachdenken über humans und nonhuman animals hin zu einer Neukonstitution von Beziehungsweisen und zu der Anerkennung produktiver Differenzen? Einen eigenen Wissenskanon zu formulieren, ist eine wirksame Intervention, um den hartnäckigen Fundamenten den Kampf anzusagen. Diese Arbeit ist in dieser Hinsicht auch eine Dokumentation meiner Recherche nach Verbündeten, deren Gemeinsamkeiten und produktiven Differenzen. Die titelgebenden ANIMAL REMINDER leihe ich mir von Martha C. Nussbaum und etabliere sie im Laufe der Arbeit als eine Figur der Transition: ANIMAL REMINDER verweisen auf die Probleme und Potentiale an porösen Grenzübergängen. Deren Koordinaten sind variabel und einer Vielzahl an Interpretationen und Irritationen unterworfen. ANIMAL REMINDER kommentieren zeitgenössische Diskurse an den Schnittstellen von feministischer Theorie, Kunst, Technik und Wissenschaft und lassen sie in unterschiedlichen Bedeutungsfacetten changieren. Sie durchwirken und verbinden die folgenden Kapitel auf der Suche nach widerständigen Praktiken: ANIMAL REMINDER erscheinen in der Liebe, in Verwandtschaften, bei der Reproduktion, in Architekturen, als Abjekte und Monster. Sie sind trans*, sie atmen und sind belebt. Ausgehend von der Ordnung der Lebewesen als nur eine mögliche von vielen, werde ich die Möglich- und Wirklichkeiten der Transformation sozialer Beziehungen und deren Bedingungen erforschen. Interdependenzen zwischen menschlichen und speziesübergreifenden Beziehungen werde ich fortlaufend bespiegeln. Mit dieser Arbeit erhebe ich keinen Anspruch auf Vollständigkeit, ihre Form der künstlerischen Recherche ist unabgeschlossen und durchlässig. Mein Umgang mit Sprache, Verknüpfung und Übersetzung ist spielerisch und beharrt auf ebendieser Unabgeschlossenheit. Jack Halberstam benutzt in seinen* Arbeiten den Asterisk nicht zur Markierung eines alternierenden Geschlechts, sondern drückt damit die „prinzipielle Konstruiertheit und Instabilität jeglicher (Geschlechts-)Identität“ (Halberstam 2021: 10) aus. „Trans* sei demnach weder als ein Seinszustand noch als ein zielgerichteter Übergang zu verstehen, sondern als genuine Unabgeschlossenheit ungewisser Seinsweisen, wie – aus einer queer-dekonstruktiven Perspektive – in letzter Konsequenz alle Identitäten betrachtet werden müssen.“ (Ebd.: 11) So bestand laut Halberstam auch der Nutzen des Begriffs queer nie darin, etwas zu beschreiben: „Queer sollte nie ein Begriff sein, mit dem sich jemand vollständig identifiziert, den jemand für sich in Anspruch nimmt […] Die Intention war vielmehr, mit queer ein kritisches Verhältnis zu Identität auszudrücken.“ (Halberstam 2007: 30) Dieses kritische Verhältnis ist für ANIMAL REMINDER wesentlich. Queere Diskurse sind in einer zweiten Hinsicht für diese Arbeit von Bedeutung: So wie das Tier als Prototyp für die Konstruktion von Andersartigkeit dient(e), können die Verhandlungen am Geschlecht als beispielhaft für die kulturelle Tradierung des Verhältnisses von Norm und Tatsache gelesen werden (Vgl. Laboria Cuboniks 2015: 22). Dieses Verhältnis ist laut Laboria Cuboniks nie festgelegt, sondern der unendlichen Aufgabe des Entwirrens unterlegen (Vgl. Ebd.: 28). Laboria Cuboniks (2015): „Xenofeminismus – Eine Politik für die Entfremdung“. In: Armen Avanessian, Helen Hester (Hg.): Dea Ex Machina. Merve Verlag Berlin Halberstam, Jack (2021): Trans*Positionen zu Geschlecht und Architektur. Anna Babka, Rosemarie Brucher (Hg.), Verlag Turia+r Kant Wien Berlin:Vorwort DELTA FIKTIVE TIERE* ANIMAL LOVERS [CON]FUSION ARCHITEKTUREN WE HAVE NEVER BEEN HUMAN