Image Title: O entre dos entes (The in between of the beings)

Used with permission from Collection Photography Artist: Elena Landinez (elenalandinez.net)

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Public Humanities is a new international open-access, cross-disciplinary, peer-reviewed journal at the intersection of humanities scholarship and public life. The journal invites proposals for themed issues that pose urgent questions on contemporary public issues that require rigorous and relevant humanities knowledge.

The journal invites submissions for the upcoming issue The Rights of Nature, which will be Guest Edited by Ramiro Avila Santamaría and Manuela Picq.

The deadline for submissions is December 1, 2025 

Description 

Our home, planet earth, is going through an unprecedented crisis that is affecting both the human species and all other forms of beings, from animals and fungi to microorganisms and ecosystems. Fires, floods, desertification, and typhoons are happening, leaving entire cities without sufficient drinking water, increasing heat-related mortality, and provoking mass extinction, death and climate refugees. These events are the result of a social, economic and political system that treats nature as an object to be dominated and exploited indiscriminately.

We urgently need to change the way we relate to nature. One of the ways to do so is to consider nature as a subject of rights, as a living entity that has the right to exist, to be respected, to fulfil its natural role without arbitrary interference and to be repaired when its rights are violated. The constitution of Ecuador, for the first time in the history of modern law, has recognized nature as a subject of rights and also calls it Pacha Mama (Mother Earth). Dozens more countries have followed recognizing the rights to nature through sentences, laws, or resolutions. The views of nature as a being is expanding in a variety of realms from the arts, to philosophy and the natural sciences.

This themed issue engages with the emerging global movement for the rights of nature and considerations of nature as a living being, taking local experiences into consideration for global solutions. The protection of nature goes hand in hand with climate and social justice. One of the ways to address climate collapse is to recognize and disseminate a more respectful, harmonious and transformative relationship of the human species with nature.

We invite submissions that address the following questions and topics: 

• How does the recognition of the rights of nature contributes to a new relationship between the human species and nature?
• How does the philosophies, cultures and lifeways of indigenous peoples contribute to the understanding of nature as a subject of rights or as a living being?
• local resistance to extractivism or initiatives against oil, mining, industrial agriculture, and the lessons learned for other communities in resistance worldwide
• How do social sciences, natural sciences, legal studies and indigenous knowledge interrelate and mutually enrich each other to build a new transformative paradigm?
• How can we learn from nature to regenerate ecosystems and regenerate society?
• How to restore nature effectively?
• The role of literature, painting, film, documentaries and other artistic manifestations to understand ecological collapse, the rights of nature and the need to protect it.
• How have the rights of nature developed in national jurisdictions? what local experiences can be globalized?
• What is the relationship between capitalism and rights of nature?
• What are the most notable characteristics of the Anthropocene and its effects on nature?
• How do indigenous worldviews deepen the rights of nature?
• Could a biocentric or holistic paradigm contribute to reestablish an environmental balance necessary for a different coexistence between human beings, non-human beings and planet Earth?

Please see the journal's author instructions for information on journal style and the range of article types that are accepted.

Submission guidelines

Submissions should be written in accessible language for a wide readership across and beyond the humanities. Articles will be peer reviewed for both content and style. Articles will appear digitally and open access in the journal.  

All submissions should be made through the Public Humanities online peer review system. Authors should consult the journal’s Author Instructions prior to submission. 

All authors will be required to declare any funding and/or competing interests upon submission. See the journal’s Publishing Ethics guidelines for more information.  

Contacts

Ramiro Avila Santamaría: ramiro.avila@uasb.edu.ec 

Manuela Picq: mpicq@amherst.edu