Abstract

KONIK, Adrian. Problematising the discursive bases of contemporary ecopolitical vanguardism in social ecology and ecosocialism. Acta acad. (Bloemfontein, Online) [online]. 2024, vol.56, n.2, pp.138-160. ISSN 2415-0479.  https://doi.org/10.38140/aa.v56i2.8976.

Despite its pre-1968 epistemic ground receding further into history, vanguardism persists as an ecopolitical position, its hubris continuing to have a divisive effect on those agonistic collective strategies otherwise required to confront and surround neoliberal configurations - which themselves involve advanced mechanisms of corporate collaboration. Accordingly, in support of transversal ecopolitics, in what follows, contemporary ecopolitical vanguardism's historical-discursive bases in Murray Bookchin's social ecology and Joel Kovel's ecosocialism will be critically engaged with through archaeological and deconstructive means, and vis-à-vis deep ecology and ecofeminism that emerged alongside these two movements, but which remain orientated around the transversalism of a post-1968 episteme. In this regard, while Foucauldian and Derridean approaches will inform the ensuing discussion, Laclau and Mouffe's conception of radical democracy - as the extension of chains of equivalence between struggles to facilitate the formation of a left-wing hegemony based on dialogical engagement - will also comprise a key theoretical coordinate.

Keywords : deep ecology; ecofeminism; social ecology; ecosocialism; vanguardism.

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