An ethics of belonging

Traditional ethical theories explore rights and duties of individuals; even those interested in the ethics of social relations have as their starting point individuals who then relate with one another. Yet, new ways of understanding ourselves and our relation to the ecosphere point to an inverse state of affairs: that individuals only arise from originary relations. This paper explores possibilities of ethics from a standpoint of relations and interconnectedness. Beginning with a phenomenological exploration of the notion of belonging (Barbaras), it moves to an exploration of its ethical implications. If ethics of care (Gilligan) began the journey, new understandings of our performative entanglement in the becoming of the world (Haraway, Barad, Butler) ask that we consider more radical ideas of responsibility.