COSMOTECHNICAL COSMOPOLITICS

Deniz Yenimazman

This essay examines how Bruno Latour’s cosmopolitical project can be reinterpreted in light of contemporary debates on technology, anthropology, and planetary transformation. Latour’s actor-network theory provides a powerful framework for analysing how heterogeneous actors participate in the composition of collective life. By reconceptualizing the social as a network of mediations among human and nonhuman actors, Latour challenges the modern distinction between nature and society and proposes a cosmopolitical perspective in which collective life emerges from dynamic processes of association. Yet the growing importance of technological infrastructures and environmental transformations raises questions that extend beyond the relational analysis developed within actor-network theory. To address these questions, the essay brings Latour’s cosmopolitics into dialogue with Yuk Hui’s concept of cosmotechnics, which emphasizes the historical and cultural plurality of technological orders and the ways in which technological systems are embedded within particular cosmological and ethical traditions. Anthropological perspectives developed by Philippe Descola and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro further illuminate how different ontological regimes structure relations between humans, nonhumans, and material environments. Finally, McKenzie Wark’s analysis of informational infrastructures highlights how contemporary technological systems organize new forms of power, knowledge, and governance. By situating Latour’s cosmopolitical project within this broader theoretical constellation, the essay argues that inheriting Latour today requires extending cosmopolitics toward an analysis that integrates cosmotechnical plurality, anthropological ontology, and the infrastructural conditions through which technological systems shape contemporary collective life.