Raffaele Sindoni Saposhnik's Qualifying Exam

Raffaele Sindoni Saposhnik will stand for the Qualifying Examination for acceptance into candidacy for the Ph.D. degree on Friday, April 18 at 1:00 p.m. in Kroon 319. All faculty are welcome and invited to attend. Copies of Raffaele’s dissertation prospectus and qualifying exam questions and answers can be obtained from the Doctoral Program Office (contact: elisabeth.barsa@yale.edu).
Committee members:
• Profs. Justin Farrell and Gerald Torres (Co-Chairs)
• Prof. Jake Kosek (Univ. California – Berkeley)

Mr. Sindoni's written examination consisted of two questions related to a critical study of how the Rights of Nature have been deployed and the potential complications arising from ontological positions embedded in the various forms of rights claiming.

1. Underlying Normative Perspective
The normative foundation of this dissertation proposal is rooted in a critical stance against neoliberalism and its consequences for human and non-human well-being, coupled with a commitment to exploring alternative frameworks of rights and recognition, particularly for the non-human environment. The prospectus operates under the normative belief that the natural world has inherent value beyond its utility for human economic activity and should be protected from commodification. By rejecting the anthropocentric focus of traditional rights frameworks, the possibility of extending legal and moral standing to non-human entities emerges in high relief. This is framed as a necessary step to challenge the current ontological framework where corporate "persons" possess significant rights, potentially at the expense of individuals and the environment.

Drawing upon Donna Haraway’s concept of sympoiesis ("making-with") and Sylvia Wynter’s critique of the colonial-racial foundations of "personhood," critically assess whether the Rights of Nature effectively disrupts colonial epistemologies or unintentionally extends a colonial ontology.

How might the extension of liberal "rights" to non-human entities paradoxically reaffirm the epistemic and ontological boundaries that have historically justified colonial dispossession? Could the Rights of Nature be constrained by the logic of inclusion/exclusion inherent in liberal frameworks of personhood?


2. The key methodological questions revolve around understanding the diverse perspectives on rights, the strategic deployment of legal frameworks by the Rights of Nature movement, the potential limitations and contradictions of this strategy, and the exploration of alternative approaches to recognizing the rights and standing of the non-human world. The dissertation poses several key methodological questions centered around understanding the emergence, implementation, and implications of the Rights of Nature as a social and legal phenomenon.

Given that Rights of Nature claims rely on state-sanctioned legal frameworks historically complicit in colonial forms of knowledge production and governance, how might your methodological approach reproduce or subvert colonial epistemologies? What tensions might arise in translating relational and Indigenous ontologies into Western academic and legal discourses through your chosen methods?

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