Act II: Being Careful with Atiku, Killing Caribou (The Science Question in Cosmopolitics)
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Published:January 2025
The chapter explores the consequences of the modern collective’s shift to a postnatural order. It does so by analyzing a conflict that pitted Innu hunters against wildlife managers in Labrador, Canada. It is argued that while the postnatural order may appear open to a variety of enactments of human/nonhuman assemblages, it continues to expand infrastructures of displacement. This is particularly the case in a context where the natural sciences are, in practice, treated as the primary spokespersons for nonhumans. The question posed by the analysis is, Can science be enrolled in a cosmopolitics oriented toward emplacement? The answer is perhaps yes, but only to the extent that practitioners, faced with the prospect of conversion, are willing to recant universals in favor of viably small stories.