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European Journal of Social Theory
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Nation, Nature and Natality

New Dimensions of Political Action

Oleg Kharkhordin

EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY AT ST PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

The concepts of nature and nation are both rooted in the notion of birth. Thus both can be conceived anew if the underlying vision of natality is conceptualized, following Hannah Arendt, not as a set of inexorable biological processes, but as the fundamental human capacity for political action. This reconceptualization of natality allows proposing an alternative to the prevalent commonsensical ethno-nationalist definitions of nation-hood, and also allows a view of the realm of nature itself as inherently political. Arendt's theory finds an interesting referential point in modern developments in biotechnology that threaten to undermine the `naturalness' of existing notions of ethnically conceived nations. Similarly, nature might be revealed to have a polis working at the very heart of what seemed to be a set of inexorable processes, independent from human beings.

Key Words: Hannah Arendt • natality • nation • nature • political action

European Journal of Social Theory, Vol. 4, No. 4, 459-478 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/13684310122225262
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