Continuity and Discontinuity in Niche Construction: Towards a Political Understanding of Domestication Process
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.48160/18532330me8.181Keywords:
artificial selection, niche construction, domestication, use value, Marx, praxisAbstract
The variation under domestication has been studied by evolutionary biology since the beginning of the Darwinistre search programme, highlighting artificial selection as a part of the development of the concept of natural selection. Recently, niche construction theory has been used to analyze the process of domestication which has historically been part of social life for human beings. In the present work we make an approach to the implications of artificial selection as an element in the line of dialectical tension between nature and society. We analyze from a Marxist perspective the elements of continuity and discontinuity that there production of a “second nature” introduces in the process of niche construction. We focus on the politic dimension of use value (Echeverría 2001) as an emerging process in the reproduction of a social and cultural identity in human societies. In this work we focus on domesticated plants.
The existence of a telos or subjacent intentionality configures distinctive features of human niche construction (Zeder 2009) and centrally of artificial selection. The reproduction of a second nature is directed by a telos which is not only nor necessarily related to the magnitude of resources appropriated by human beings, but also to the generation of use value adapted to a certain form of social life that is recreated and given place: apolitic dimension.
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