ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the consequences of an insistence on the symmetrical relation between human and non-human actors, as it occurs in the discussions on ‘New Animism’. ‘New Animism’ is a cluster of theories in anthropology and related fields that seeks to reframe the old notion of animism as a relationship to non-humans in the environment of humans, and find a language with which to speak about these relations within academic and public debate. The chapter argues that the translations occurring in the reframing of animism hide an important asymmetry between narrative genres, which is where the entities denoted as non-humans in texts of New Animism occur as actors. Furthermore, the chapter argues that in hiding genres from the translations of practices and interpretations understood as Animism, New Animism lacks a theoretical framework for translating the ‘animist’ relationship to the environment fully into contemporary discourses on sustainability and sustainable action. Although the concepts of human and non-human actors foster respect for other types of relationships to the environment, the translations made in texts of New Animism do not provide examples with which to imagine new kinds of sustainable relationships needed to foster political action.
