The Subject as Aidagara: Ontological Porosity and Nomadic Becoming in the Face of the Socio-Environmental Crisis

Abstract

The problem of the socio-environmental crisis is often analyzed as a technical failure, overlooking its ontological root: the modern subject's closed-mindedness toward their own environment. This article proposes the figure of the porous subject in an attempt to overcome this division. Drawing on the philosophy of Watsuji Tetsurō, specifically Fūdo (medium) and Aidagara (inter-being) with their respective technological updates, it is argued that human subjectivity is an inseparable extension of the technical-natural medium. In order to give political agency to this porosity and thus elucidate the risks of determinism, Rosi Braidotti's conception of vitalist materialism (nomadic subject/Zoë) and Timothy Morton's topology of the Mesh are assembled. Finally, after discussing the criticisms of possible totalitarianism and the risk of nostalgic romanticism, we conclude by formulating an ethic of Nagara (simultaneity) in which social justice implies a recognition of the need to inhabit our radical codependence in a wounded world.