Susanna Trnka is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Auckland and coeditor of
Catherine Trundle is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at Victoria University of Wellington and coeditor of
Susanna Trnka is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Auckland and coeditor of
Catherine Trundle is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at Victoria University of Wellington and coeditor of
In this essay I consider the relation between ontological starting points, harm reduction, and responsibilization. I begin with a brief discussion of the dominant “modern form of ontology” and its relation to familiar notions of morality and biopolitics. I then consider what I call the typical model of harm reduction as an illustration of the enactment of this ontology and how this results in what we call responsibilization. I then briefly and critically engage a recent and influential alternative ontology offered by a prominent social theorist, and consider its shortcomings in taking up a Levinasian conception of responsibility. Finally, and in response to this critique, I turn to the unique case of Vancouver, Canada and the enactment of what I call a politics of world-building, through which political agonists are in the process of creating a new world characterized as attuned with itself.
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