Corporeal ethics in the more-than-human world (Rosalyn Diprose)

Abstract

<div lang="en" class="abs"><p class="abs_header">Abstract</p><p>Feminist ethics may draw together different threads of discussion on affects and corporeality. However, some of the discussions on feminist ethics, such as embodied ethics and posthuman ethics, have evolved largely separately, despite their apparent overlap. This chapter brings together embodied ethics and more-than-human ethics by drawing from Rosalyn Diprose’s notion of corporeal generosity. Diprose suggests that unsettling, affective encounters open us to new experiences, and in doing so present an opportunity for generosity towards those who are different to ourselves. By attending to such unsettling encounters within the author’s experience of a “bokashi compost”, the chapter attempts to put more-than-human corporeal ethics in practice. The author seeks to open herself to the alterity of the non-human others, such as the microbial presence of decaying organic matter, and listen to their teachings, by engaging with her own compost. She calls this ethical exercise corporeal generosity beyond human exceptionalism.</p></div>