'Facing Gaia ' in Science

Climate change is one of the biggest problems currently facing humanity. Bruno Latour argues that this crisis is a result of our notion of nature as deanimate and inert. In Facing Gaia, he therefore develops a new notion of nature, based on the Gaia hypothesis. This thesis focuses on the role of science in this new notion of nature, and describes examples of what this could look like in practice. I have identified three roles: tracing Gaian loops, recognizing that the construction of facts is embedded in a network, and representing nonhuman actors in political negotiations. Examples include Suzanne Simard’s research on communication between trees, feminist epistemology, ‘Make it Work’ (a simulation of COP21 including non-state actors), and the Dutch water authorities.