Thinking Planetary About Global Futures: Posthuman Cosmopolitanism

Abstract The link between the global condition and planetary thinking is a crucial one when thinking about the future. Positing itself in the context of future-oriented history and posthumanist and planetary thinking, the essay reflects on a central concept of global thought such as cosmopolitanism, theorizing the possibility of a posthuman cosmopolitanism. Built on concepts such as multiple modernities and secularities, philosophical posthumanism, and non-anthropocentric history, posthuman cosmopolitanism is primarily future-focused, globally rooted, and planetary oriented. Specifically, by proposing as a case study of a sort a posthumanist approach to a rethinking of cosmopolitanism, the essay emphasizes how thinking planetary and in a posthumanist and post-anthropocentric way does not entail, as it may be assumed, a relativization and loss of relevance of “the human” per se, but a more complex web of intra-active relations. By building on the work of authors such as Braidotti, Domanska, Chakrabarty, Simon, and Latour, the essay proposes an original reflection, engaging with a crucial issue such as how to think about a global future that focuses on globality as the product of interconnected, multiple processes and constantly shifting interrelations between human and non-human forces.