Beyond Anthropocentrism: Recalibrating James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) from the Perspective of Ecological Posthumanism

Abstract

The formulation of human history in terms of the “interiority” of the “Self” as contrasted to and by the “exteriority” of the “Other” is a direct result of the shift towards anthropocentrism. Posthumanism and the Anthropocene, as two fundamental conceptual indicators of current environmental discourses, have emerged from symmetrical developments in terms of their respective academic origins. While the concept of the Anthropocene is borrowed into the humanities from the natural sciences, particularly geology, the basic principle of posthumanism is constructed within the humanities themselves as a critique of their own innate cultures. Hence, ecological posthumanism, in contrast to the notion of anthropocentrism, blurs the binary of human and nonhuman in a post-dualistic, post-hierarchical manner to embrace the notion of “intrinsic value”, which approves the notion that nature possesses inherent value regardless of its usefulness to humans. The present paper explores James Cameron’s film Avatar (2009) from the perspective of ecological posthumanism to raise certain questions against the notion of “instrumental value” that treats nonhumans as commodities for the use of humans. The article also delves into Cameron’s portrayal of the anthropocentric mindset of the RDA administrator, as well as the destruction of “Home tree”, the spiritual and physical home of the “Na’vi”, with a view to promoting the symbiotic relationship between human and nonhuman. The focus will also be given on how Cameron’s advocacy of a post-anthropocentric worldview may address the ecological disaster of the contemporary world by dismantling the binary between nature and culture through the deep association between “Na’vi” and trees.