---
title: "Planetary Constituent"
description: "Dawn Nakagawa and Laura Ryan's name for a new political subject: people \"whose primary political motivations lie in reversing human-caused damage to the planet.\" It arises from a double realization,…"
type: "glossary-term"
canonical_url: "https://antikythera.wiki/terms/planetary-constituent"
md_url: "https://antikythera.wiki/md/terms/planetary-constituent"
last_updated: "2026-09-06"
site: "Antikythera Wiki"
---

# Planetary Constituent

> A working definition written for this wiki from the reading notes; not Antikythera's own wording. From Antikythera Wiki (https://antikythera.wiki/terms/planetary-constituent), an independent guide to Antikythera's published work.

[Dawn Nakagawa](https://antikythera.wiki/people/dawn-nakagawa) and Laura Ryan's name for a new political subject: people "whose primary political motivations lie in reversing human-caused damage to the planet." It arises from a double realization, embeddedness (the human as holobiont, host to 100 trillion microbial cells) and damage, and its "we" is "we the living things" rather than "we the people." Planetary constituents remain national citizens but cannot find the agency they seek in a state system built on self-interest; they act instead through trans-local networks, city covenants, rights-of-nature cases, and youth movements. Institutions fit for them would be local, plural (extending to the more-than-human), scientific, and pragmatic. Gilman opposes the term to both the national citizen and the cosmopolitan "citizen of the world."

## Appears in

- [The Planetary](https://antikythera.wiki/work/book/the-planetary) (2024-11-10)

_Glossary generated 2026-09-06._