Abstract | This chapter is a reflective essay on the ramifications of corporate land ownership for relationships between lands, peoples and places, a relationship that is, I argue, fundamentally ontological. Dystopic visions are evidenced in recent times in the fractious arguments about the environmental and ecological crisis on the one hand and the ethical dilemmas presented by mass migrations of poor people on the other. The former amplifies the deterioration of human relationships with nature whereas the latter amplifies the deterioration of relations between people. Both implicate our capacities to produce and reproduce the conditions necessary for human life, driving people in rich countries to challenge scholars and statesmen alike to address the continued destruction of nature as exemplified by the strident opposition to climate change in recent times. The social chasms, divisions and vitriol in the West against mass human migrations challenge basic notions of human solidarity which also constitutes an essential social condition for human life. Together, the nature–people chasm in theories and practices produce what I shall call ontological angst, a cognitive dissonance that is articulated as dystopia in our times. |
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