The World as Laboratory and Parliament – Bruno Latour's Political Ecology as Emerging from Science Studies Die Welt als Labor und Versammlungsort – Bruno Latours politische Ökologie aus dem Geiste der Wissenschaftsforschung

The historical and philosophical study of science and technology has undergone significant change in the last 20 years. The new goal of this approach is to focus on practices and the material representations of scientific knowledge. Bruno Latour, one of the main proponents of Science Studies, has broadened this new approach to a "symmetrical anthropology", which tries to overcome traditional distinctions such as nature and society, subject and object, or human and non-human actors. This essay reconstructs and evaluates those features of Latour's theory that have become central for his "political ecology". Discussing this proposal as an application of Latour's work in Science Studies, the paper argues that despite some serious flaws and shortcomings, he develops fruitful ideas for an anti-fundamentalist politics of nature.