Introduction

Abstract

This chapter provides an introduction to the book, outlining the three major concepts dealt with in the book—responsibility, privileged irresponsibility and response-ability. The chapter also provides a brief introduction to the current conditions of the world which are focused on in the second half of the book, coloniality and the ecological crisis and their relationship to higher education. Importantly, the chapter provides some background to the theoretical lenses of feminist posthumanism/new materialism and the political ethics of care, which are read through each other. These approaches are predicated on a relational ontology, which holds that relationships pre-exist entities, and that entities only come into being through relationships. This introductory chapter also provides a brief sketch of each of the chapters to come, chapters on responsibility, privileged irresponsibility, response-ability, coloniality and ecological damage.