Indifferent globality: Gaia, symbiosis and ‘other worldliness

Nigel Clark’s ‘ex-orbitant globality ’ concerns the incalculability of other-than-human forces we typically fail to acknowledge, yet which haunt all considerations of environmental change. This article considers Gaia theory as a useful heuristic to register the ubiquity of bacteria to environmental activity and regulation. Bacteria are Gaia theory’s fundamental actants, and through symbiosis and symbiogenesis, connect life and matter in biophysi-cal and biosocial entanglements. Emphasizing symbiosis might invoke the expectation of a re-inscription of the human insofar as the ubiquitous inter-connectivity of life ultimately connects everything to the human. I want to argue toward the opposite conclusion: that bacterial liveliness suggests a profound indifference to human life. As such, symbiosis does not efface difference, nor its vigorous refusal to be absorbed within human formula-tions of world-remaking, including environmental change. Bacterial in-difference’s radical asymmetry suggests the need for non-human centred theories of globality. Key words biology ■ environment ■ globality JOHN URRY’s (2007) recent talk on environmental issues cited TheRevenge of Gaia (2006), in which James Lovelock discusses positivefeedback ‘tipping points ’ leading to significant and irreversible climate system changes (see also Hansen, 2008; IPCC, 2007). Urry’s presentation prompted me to consider the utility of engaging with Gaia theory in the context of pressing environmental issues and Urry’s forecast that sociology will only survive if it ‘embodies the ambitions of one or more social move