Colonization of the Inner Planet: 21st Century Social Theory from the Politics of Sensibilities

Abstract

This book explores the conquest, predation and management of human bodies and emotions by the growing capitalist digital community. It seeks to understand the debate between various forms of the individual, subject, actor, and agent to emerge a social theory vision for the 21st century. The book moves beyond the colonization of the physical world to examine the process of colonization of humans. It focuses on the communication humans have with the world to understand how this impacts their sensibilities. This communication is influenced by technological innovations that enable a process of systematic colonization of human beings as bodies/emotions. This book explores a social theory which will allow us to understand this redefinition of the individual. This enables us to uncover connections between the colonization of the ‘inner planet’ that is the human society, and the dialectic of the person and the politics of their sensibilities. This is explored through the tensions that arise between the forms a person assumes in unequal and diverse cultural contexts and the emotions behind those cultural differences. The book will appeal to academics and postgraduate students of sociology, philosophy and anthropology, as well as psychologists, organizational specialists, linguists, ethnographers, historians, political scientists, administrators and professionals affiliated with NGOs.