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Theorizing the More-Than-Human State

This article seeks to explore the possibilities of theorizing the more-than-human state (MTHS), by paying attention to the agentive and affective power of nonhumans as social forces—qualities that are usually believed to belong only to humans—in constructing the state’s form and strategies. For this task, I attempt to contribute to a self-reflexive debate on the strategic-relational approach (SRA), one of the key theoretical resources for research on capitalist states, vis-à-vis a more-than-human geographical perspective, while suggesting that the “human-centric” SRA could be modified to fit the MTHS theorization. More specifically, I first discuss the political and ecological significance of the SRA, as well as the anthropocentrism that remains unchallenged in this approach. Then I explore cases that have taken place in South Korea that reveal signs of the changing state form from a more-than-human perspective, while sketching out a more-than-human framework for the SRA, which reveals a new contact zone between state theory and more-than-human geography.