Vol. 4, Issue #3 Summer 2024

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Editorial: Heresies and Sacred Cows
Prosperity, Urbanity, and Ecological Consciousness
Heretical Resonances: Historicizing Social Ecology in the Neoliberal Epoch
Social Ecology After the Collapse of Western Hegemony
From Ambivalence to Profanity: Resisting the Dogmatic Ideal of Community
Agency in Eugenics Thinking
Second Nature Beyond the Human
Always Swimming Upstream: My Social Ecology Journey
In Conversation on Dialectical Naturalism
Editorial: Heresies and Sacred Cows

This issue of Harbinger is dedicated to exploring what might be called social ecology “heresies” – new perspectives that critique, challenge, or rethink its prevailing “orthodoxies” and take aim at some of our political community’s sacred cows.

Prosperity, Urbanity, and Ecological Consciousness

The indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest—ranging from southern Canada to northern California—have long had…

Heretical Resonances: Historicizing Social Ecology in the Neoliberal Epoch

Murray Bookchin was keenly aware of the unique constraints, as well as possibilities, imposed by…

Social Ecology After the Collapse of Western Hegemony

The 1960s saw the development of the struggles of various social groups as well as…

From Ambivalence to Profanity: Resisting the Dogmatic Ideal of Community

Calls for radical community-based action in response to the climate crisis seem to grow louder…

Agency in Eugenics Thinking

Armed with its twisted philosophy of history and mystical sensibility, the very idea of eugenics…

Second Nature Beyond the Human

This essay is the first of a planned three-part series delving into the science of…

Always Swimming Upstream: My Social Ecology Journey

When my teacher Pamela Boyce Simms gave a presentation at the 2017 ISE Summer Gathering…

In Conversation on Dialectical Naturalism

Murray Bookchin’s ideas on dialectical naturalism have sparked significant debate among ecophilosophers, even within social…

Issue #2

Editorial: Social Ecology and the New Abolitionism

“Our contention in assembling this issue is both that the ideas of social ecology have important—even necessary—insights for militant movements against racism and that social ecology as a body of revolutionary thought stands to develop itself much further through a deeper engagement with the ideas animating anti-colonial, anti-racist struggles.”

Social Ecology, Racism, Colonialism, and Identity: Assessing the Work of Murray Bookchin

“A central task for social ecological theory is to incorporate what is useful in the historical and theoretical scholarship that Bookchin…neglected, without also smuggling in the problematic political assumptions that he correctly warned of.”

The Walled Commons to the Picket Fence: Racism as an Ecological Force in Mid-Twentieth Century America

“The forces of racism and its profiteers therefore carried out the systematic destruction of American cities and brought the built environment of human habitation into a collision course with both local ecosystems and global biospheric stability. The result was a society that is almost uniquely anti-ecological in human history.”

Go to Issue #2

Issue #1

Wither the State

Marxists and anarchists alike have neglected the role of direct democracy in the governance of a revolutionary society. By building on common ground shared by both traditions, social ecology offers a path out of this historical deadlock.

When Plants Sing: Plant Bioacoustics and the Problem of Anthropomorphism

Our understanding of the growing field of plant bioacoustics is limited by our penchant for anthropomorhism: projecting the categories and problems of human society onto the natural world.

Jordan Peterson, Carl Jung, and the Challenge for Social Ecology

Jordan Peterson has sparked a revival of interest in Carl Jung’s thought. Is there an anti-capitalist interpretation of this critic of secular modernity that Peterson is ideologically blind to?

Go to Issue #1

Write for us

Harbinger: A Journal of Social Ecology seeks to publish rigorous inquiry guided by emancipatory political goals. As social ecology is a broad and interdisciplinary field, we’re open to a variety of formats and topics, including but not limited to theoretical and philosophical texts, strategic reflections on current organizing projects, artistic contributions, book/film/tv/performance reviews, and essays interrogating a wide spectrum of relevant topics.