The Ecological Citizen: Confronting human supremacy
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Long article
Urban ecocentrism, multispecies violence and the anti-utopian lessons of Princess Mononoke
The Ecological Citizen Vol 9 No 2 2026: epub-161-1 to 7
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ACCESS PDF OF ARTICLEFirst published: 19 April 2026 | PERMANENT URL | DOWNLOAD CITATION IN RIS FORMAT
Abstract
This article argues that the main challenge for urban ecocentrism lies in the difficulty of translating ethically ambitious ideals into practices compatible with urban realities of conflict, scarcity and institutional limits. Hayao Miyazaki's film Princess Mononoke is read as a portrayal of the city as an infrastructure of conflict, in which human survival, social inclusion and ecological destruction are structurally entangled, and where animals appear as territorial agents rather than symbolic victims. By bringing this diagnosis into dialogue with contemporary normative proposals on urban ecocentrism, particularly debates on the political recognition of urban animals, the article advances an anti-utopian conception of the ecocentric city. It proposes urban ecology as a political practice of limiting violence rather than an attempt to achieve harmony, and identifies the management of ecological conflict, the containment of damage and the institutionalization of responsibility as minimal conditions for ecological habitability in contemporary cities.
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