ABSTRACT
Interdependence, like gravity, is a fact of life. Everything is the effect of our being in a dynamic state of relatedness and coexistence. Life is predicated on a continual giving and receiving within and across species, through a multiplicity of processes, each of which is in turn embedded in still other interrelationships in a potentially infinite loop. The fantasy of independence is sought to be sustained in one of two ways: by means of an elaborate denial of interrelationships or else via their rearticulation in hierarchical terms. The former leads to the pretence that one’s existence can be self-governing and independent of others. The latter challenges this presumption in tacitly acknowledging interdependence but proposing that power over processes and beings can restore the sovereignty and autonomy that these interrelationships threaten to undermine. The dependence-independence dyad has assumed priority over the a priori of interdependence.
