A new Routledge book series, publishing novel explorations of normativity for contemporary theorisations of life, in a rapidly evolving global technosocial ecology.

This book series invites original scholarship exploring the emerging realm of ‘econormativity’. A fundamentally interdisciplinary project, the series welcomes contributions from law and legal theory, political and social theory, science and technology studies, environmental studies, human geography, history, the history of ideas, design studies, creative arts research, Indigenous studies, philosophy, anthropology, and any discipline where novel ‘modes of existence’, new norms and new normativities, are challenging existing conceptual, and especially legal, frameworks.

In an era of profound ecological and technological disruption, an urgent need arises to re-think the basic coordinates of social life and institutional ordering. Conventional understandings see normativity as consisting of rules or principles of entirely human origin, guiding or evaluating the behaviour of humans in their interactions with each other and the world. The non-human or more-than-human world appears only as an object—almost never as a participant with agency in the formation of normativity and its effects. Yet this is precisely what is being challenged, as systems of governance founded on this presupposition encounter new planetary and environmental imperatives, and at the same time, the novel ontological conditions of networked algorithmic technical systems. Normativity encompasses the formation of standards and ideals, as well as processes and practices of evaluation – but also that which guides and shapes life itself in its forms, structures and patterns.

As such, rethinking the nature of normativity, meaning and value, and reimagining how political and legal institutions approach their role in the ordering and guidance of communities constitute a new imperative for contemporary theory and practice. From an ‘econormative’ perspective, normativity is inherently ecological, made through complex relations between co-evolving entities, encompassing material, technical, social, and processual aspects of life, and guiding their evolution. The ‘eco’ in ‘econormative’ therefore refers not only to relationships between living beings, or between living beings and their habitats, but to the formation of norms across milieux composed of intermeshing biological, geological, social, and technological/technical forms and processes.

Series Editors

Connal Parsley, University of Kent, UK

Conor Heaney, University of Kent, UK

Margaret Davies, Flinders University, Australia 

Scott Veitch, University of Hong Kong, China

Publication Format

• Short ‘key concept’ style books (25,000-50,000 words) presenting specific concepts, authors or issues
• Research monographs
• Edited collections

To discuss a potential project for the series, or to submit a proposal, contact the series editors.