Hibernation. Survival Strategies in Times of Scarcity

Armen Avanessian, the influential philosopher and specialist in speculative thinking about the future, presents hibernation – winter sleep or torpor – as an enlightening natural technique for our times. He combines philosophical reflection with cultural analysis: hibernation becomes a metaphor for concrete strategies of winding down and winding up again amidst hyperactivity, the pressure to grow and multiple crises. Grounded in the natural sciences and original in its humanities approach, he describes hibernation as a planetary ethic: co-evolutionary niches between standstill and progress, and a holding back that enables regeneration and reinvention. From sci-fi dystopias to degrowth strategies, a conceptual framework for the present emerges. Whilst biology regards hibernation and estivation as evolutionary masterpieces – in the face of resource scarcity and as protection against ageing – Avanessian transforms them into a cultural force for progress: philosophical hibernation as a response to global warming and digital insomnia.