Introduction: Enchanted Ecologies and Ethics of Care

Abstract

This special issue takes its point of departure in political philosopher Jane Bennett's concept of enchantment and her discussion of how moods of enchantment may inform an ethics of care. The contributions aim to rethink the concept of enchantment and unfold what an ethic of care may look like in times of ecological crises. The introduction outlines Bennett's conceptual groundwork and its reception and discusses its continued analytical purchase for understanding the unsettling moods and contradictory affects produced by colonialism and ecological change. Building on recent anthropological contributions to the ethics of care, the authors propose to broaden the way in which we think about ethical doings so they also come to involve unsettling affects, various subjectivities, and more dynamic ecological relations.