Between Gaia and Ground

“Engaging with modern philosophy’s original problem of how to ground truth (approached in ontological terms) within the limits of human existence (delimited in historical terms), Between Gaia and Ground proposes a starting point for thinking about the capitalist present that foregrounds precisely what pre- and post-Enlightenment European thinkers have consistently foreclosed. Locating colonial and racial power at the core of the thinking of existence, Elizabeth A. Povinelli provides an urgently needed corrective to contemporary critical theorizing's insistence on ignoring its existential conditions of emergence (thought in political terms).” - Denise Ferreira da Silva, author of Unpayable Debt

“Between Gaia and Ground not only extends the trajectory of Elizabeth A. Povinelli’s pathbreaking work, it participates in a highly promising movement to unsettle disciplines and narrative genres in the aftermath of global capital, militarism, and accelerating environmental destruction. Provocative and timely.” - Joseph Masco, author of The Future of Fallout, and Other Episodes in Radioactive World-Making

“Drawing on wide-ranging intellectual and political itineraries, Between Gaia and Ground offers a provoking way to theorize environmental violence that will be sure to attract and stir up readers.” - Michelle Murphy, author of The Economization of Life

"One of the book’s greatest contributions is that it generates dialogue between a significant part of prevailing critical theory and the issue of power. This is achieved through detailed attention to the implications of the task of analysis and development of concepts for understanding social processes and seeking transformations to situations of violence and injustice. This could be useful not only in academic contexts, but also in struggles in which indigenous peoples, Afro-Americans, and other excluded groups participate." - Pablo Rojas-Bahamonde, Social & Cultural Geography

"Ambitious in scope and far-reaching in its critique, Povinelli’s Between Gaia and Ground offers invaluable insights toward a decolonial environmental theory that can inspire more just ecological practices. It will undoubtedly shape future discussions across many fields." - Mirra-Margarita Ianeva, Contemporary Political Theory

"Bringing a range of critical thinkers into discussion with each other, such as Hannah Arendt, Gregory Bateson, Edouard Glissant, and Aime Cesaire, Povinelli illuminates the implications of political action when critical theory is differently positioned across colonialism. . . . Between Gaia and Ground is a timely book to shine a light on the limits of Western critical thought, and its co-option into late liberal violence." - Angie Sassano, Thesis Eleven

"Sociologists, anthropologists, and decolonial thinkers across, beyond, and against disciplinary thought will be interested in Povinelli’s newest interrogation of what she terms the 'ancestral catastrophe of late liberalism.' . . . For sociologists whose discipline was formed through a western imperial gaze, with its epistemological commitment to abstraction and the discovery of universal social laws, Povinelli’s challenge is a vital one." - Molly Talcott, Contemporary Sociology