Parliament of Things

Workshop at Ecosystemic Awareness LAB: Cities for All Life, VDU, Kaunas. 2026-09-02

by Augustas Lapinskas

Philosopher Bruno Latour invites us to broaden the idea of a political assembly and asks: who represents the nonhumans? Who speaks for the things, beings and technologies that participate in shaping our common world?

Latour proposed Parliament of Things in 1989 as a radical rethinking of political representation, suggesting that the interests of nonhuman entities—animals, plants, rivers, mountains, and even technological or environmental systems—should be considered in political deliberations, not just human concerns. This idea emerged from his critique of modernity, which he argued systematically ignored the agency, rights, and autonomy of objects and nonhuman actors.

Parliament of Plants, Céline Baumann, 2019-2025

Latour-inspired guide to representing nonhumans

1. Represent through spokespersons

In Politics of Nature, Latour argues that the political collective should include both humans and nonhumans. Because a river, soil, a plant, microbes, atmospheric CO₂, and other nonhumans cannot participate in conventional political speech, they enter the collective through spokespersons (porte-paroles).

Importantly, Latour does not assume that the spokesperson transparently communicates what the nonhuman “wants.” Quite the opposite: representation must remain questionable. As he puts it, the central problem becomes how to get those “in whose name we speak to speak for themselves.”

Bruno Latour, Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy, Ch. 2: “Learning to Be Circumspect with Spokespersons,” Harvard University Press, 2004. (JSTOR)

2. Do not anthropomorphise

Derive an entity’s “demands” from what enables, constrains and affects it—sunlight, water, habitat, pollutants, other species, infrastructure—rather than inventing human-like desires.

Latour's nonhumans are actors because they make differences within networks of relations. Once nonhumans cease being treated merely as passive objects, they can enter the collective as actors whose actions constrain what humans can do.

For example, instead of writing:

Plant:
“I want people to protect me.”

a more Latourian representation would derive the plant's political position from what it actually does and requires:

Plant:
requires sunlight;
depends on particular pollinators;
exchanges pollen/nectar with insects;
disperses through animals;
responds negatively to soil compaction;
cannot persist under repeated mowing.

Its political demands emerge from its relations and dependencies, rather than from simply anthropomorphising it.

Latour, Politics of Nature, Ch. 2: “Associations of Humans and Nonhumans,” 2004. (JSTOR)

3. Make mediation visible

Show how knowledge was produced: observation, measurement, scientific literature, testimony, mapping or artistic interpretation. Representation is a chain of translations, not direct access to an entity’s voice.

Latour rejects the idea that either scientists or politicians simply transmit an already-existing truth. Representation is always mediated. A scientist speaking for a polluted river is interpreting measurements; an ecologist speaking for a plant is interpreting observations; a designer constructing a fictional first-person statement for a plant is performing another kind of translation.

The important question therefore isn't:

“Is this literally what the plant would say?”

but rather:

“Through what chain of observations, measurements, relations and translations has this proposition been produced, and how faithful is the spokesperson?”

Latour consequently argues that we should remain circumspect with spokespersons and continually test the fidelity of representation.

Bruno Latour & Peter Weibel (eds.), Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy, MIT Press, 2005. (open out of print pdf)

4. Allow multiple representations

No spokesperson has absolute authority. Scientists, inhabitants, activists and artists may articulate the same entity differently.

The same wetland could be articulated through a hydrologist, a frog population, water-level measurements, mosquitoes, residents, historical maps, microbial sampling, flood events, and so forth. These may produce contradictory propositions. That isn't a defect. The purpose of the political process is partly to discover what entities exist, what they require, what they affect, and which associations can coexist.

Latour describes this as progressively composing a common world rather than assuming beforehand what “Nature” demands.

Bruno Latour, Politics of Nature, Ch. 2–3, on the collective and its powers of representation, 2004. (JSTOR)

5. Expand modes of representation

Latour further develops the idea of multiple representations through Dingpolitik—literally a “politics of things.” Instead of imagining politics as humans sitting around debating opinions, political publics form around contested things/issues: rivers, landscapes, pollution, technologies, resources, climate, infrastructures, etc.

This produced the idea of an “object-oriented democracy” in Making Things Public: political representation can involve maps, scientific instruments, exhibitions, visualizations, models, objects and artistic practices—not merely parliamentary speech.

Do not present yourself as giving the plant its authentic voice.

A more Latourian framing would be that you are constructing a spokesperson apparatus through which the plant's observed dependencies and relations are translated into propositions intelligible within a human assembly. The fictional voice can be playful and anthropomorphic, while its claims remain anchored in observable relations—sunlight, pollination, seed dispersal, pollution, parasites, soil, maintenance practices, etc.

That distinction between “speaking for nature” and constructing accountable conditions through which nonhumans can become politically articulated is, I think, the most useful Latourian insight for this kind of practice.

Bruno Latour & Peter Weibel (eds.), Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy, MIT Press, 2005. pp. 14–41. (open out of print pdf)

Choose a nonhuman entity to represent: Think of different scales, from microscopic to geographic. Talk to other representatives and see what remains unrepresented and could benefit from you representing it.

Represent a nonhuman:

Write a letter to the European Parliament:

You do not need to be an EU citizen to write to Members of the European Parliament.

Ideally, if given time and resources, we should be able to base the entity’s representation on observable traces, scientific knowledge, direct encounters and ecological relationships.

But for the extent of this workshop, be gunuine and make clear how you know what you claim on its behalf, do not try to invent an authentic nonhuman voice. Translate its dependencies, vulnerabilities, agency and relationships with other entities into concrete political demands concerning the proposed legislation.

Adress the upcoming vote for Establishing the Temporary Decarbonisation Fund .

2025/0418(COD)

Establishing the Temporary Decarbonisation Fund

Proposal: Establishing the Temporary Decarbonisation Fund — 2025/0418(COD)
Procedure: Ordinary legislative procedure, first reading
European Parliament plenary: 14 September 2026 (indicative)
Committee: Environment, Climate and Food Safety (ENVI)
Status: Awaiting Parliament’s first-reading position.

European Parliament Legislative Observatory — full procedure 2025/0418(COD)

The representatives in The Hypermodern Parliament of Things are seated in the parliament chamber. The chamber forms the concretisation of a data-powered system in which nature, technology and human are equally represented in a technocentric democracy.

The Hypermodern Parliament of Things – Archiprix 2024 – Archined, Karim Jaspers, 2023

Brief for Nonhuman Spokespersons

The Temporary Decarbonisation Fund (2025/0418(COD)) is a proposed EU fund intended to help carbon-intensive European industries reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions. It particularly concerns sectors such as steel, aluminium and fertiliser production and would use revenues linked to the EU Emissions Trading System to support industrial decarbonisation. The European Parliament is expected to consider the proposal at first reading in September 14'th, 2026.

European Parliament — full legislative procedure 2025/0418(COD)

How to address it as a nonhuman spokesperson

Consider how industrial emissions, climate change and industrial decarbonisation affect the entity you represent, directly or through its relationships with other entities. Your letter might address:

What is at stake for this entity? Consider temperature, water, air, soil, habitat, food, seasonal cycles or other conditions it depends upon.
How do you know? Ground your representation in observations, encounters, measurements, scientific evidence or other detectable traces of the entity.
Who else is involved? Identify other human and nonhuman actors connected to its situation.
What should change? Translate these relationships into a concrete request to Parliament: what should the Fund support, prioritise, prevent or take into account?

You are not pretending to speak in the entity’s own voice. You are making its interests and relationships politically present, while remaining explicit about how you have interpreted and translated them.

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