ABSTRACT
Posthumanism is not a theory, or even a coherent set of propositions, but rather a collection of projects that question the centrality of humans in relation to other things on the planet. The central concern has been to interrogate human hubris, to ask what is missed in the world when humans take themselves so seriously and consider themselves the centre of all that matters. The chapter explores what an applied linguistic commons, focusing discussion on reclaiming the commons as a political and spatial project. It discusses the affinities between many aspects of posthumanism and current trends in applied linguistics that are opening up to a broader, distributed understanding of the relations between semiotics, things and places. Posthumanism does not seek to efface humans but rather to reorganize the relationships among humans and other animals and objects, to move towards a new settlement that is less anthropocentric. Another way to think about the posthumanist project therefore is in terms of provincialization.
