ABSTRACT
Following on study, writing, and reflection throughout the fall, the scholar takes up the matter of land relations as a guiding focus in confronting colonialism. Studying two excerpts of writing on decolonial work – one from India and one from his homeland – he come to terms with the underlying land logic which continues colonialism, capitalism, and industrialism both in his land and on planetary scales. The scholar calls this logic land abstraction. It joins capitalism and industrialism, including state communism, in a colonial source: the taking of the land as a mere resource or opportunity, severing it from being a field of good relationships. Land abstraction erases the land as relatable. The scholar then follows out what it would be to start restoring relatability in the land. Decolonial work provides the orientation: to honor agreements with indigenous nations that defend the land, to be morally accountable to all who are, and all that is, morally considerable in the land, and to restore the land as morally considerable. Such restoration begins to join decolonial work directly with our planetary situation. But the question remains how its form of autonomy should inform our view of the “Anthropocene.”
