Post-truths, Common Worlds, and Critical Politics: Critiquing Bruno Latour's Renewed Critique of Critique

Abstract

The emergence of so-called post-truth politics saw popular calls to return to the ‘facts’ clash with humanities and social science work which maintains a commitment to situated knowledge: as crystallised by prominent attacks upon gender studies, postcolonial theory, and feminist science and technology studies. This paper intervenes in debates that arose in response to these developments, with a focus on the promising “third path” proposed in Bruno Latour’s recent work. The paper argues that although Latour’s examination of the relationship between populism and environmental politics is critically important, the renewed “critique of critique” that accompanies his call to reclaim common worlds is dangerous. In particular, this re-articulated critique runs the risk of consecrating the marginalization of precisely the perspectives that are most under attack in the contemporary political moment.