The Politics of Planetary - History and International Affairs Workshop

Summary

The ideas of ‘planet’ and ‘planetary’ have become increasingly relevant frameworks across the arts, humanities, and social sciences, and inform debates on the predicaments of climate change and the Anthropocene.

At a time when humans have become a geological force, capable of interfering with Earth processes, planetary thinking invites us to decentre humanity and look at Earth as an interconnected system of agents and species, on which human life depends (Chakrabarty, 2021).

When it comes to international relations, ‘planetary politics’ aims to offer new perspectives for thinking politics beyond the state and imagine forms of governance that are not centred on markets (globalisation) and national sovereignty (global institutions). In turn, ‘planetary politics’ promises to ‘nurture worlds for all humans and species co-living in the biosphere’ (Burke et al., 2016).

What makes the concept of the ‘planet’ different from the ‘world’ or the ‘globe’? How are planetary perspectives reshaping our understanding of the ‘international’ and the ‘global’ political spaces? What are the limits and possibilities of planetary thinking?

Will planetary thinking promote an emancipatory political project or a new imperial universalism obscuring power asymmetries and responsibilities for climate change?

As any political concept, the ‘planet’ too has a history, it reflects multiple relationships between humanity and nature, and ‘can be mobilised with different ideological meanings’ (Müller and Mueller, 2025).

The aim of this workshop is to provide an inter-disciplinary discussion to challenge simplistic accounts of the planetary and add historical perspective to contemporary policy debates.

Convenor: Giuseppe Grieco (City St George’s)

Programme

Welcome coffee from 2:30 pm

2:50 pm Introduction

3:00 pm Talks

• Edward Jones Corredera (UNED, Madrid)
• Antonio Ferraz de Oliveira (KCL)
• Or Rosenboim (Bologna)
• Alina Utrata (Oxford)
• Andrew Fitzmaurice (QMUL) TBC

4:45 pm Roundtable discussion

6:00 pm Drinks