This article reflects on the possibilities for political action emerging out of quotidian engagements. Following controversies on the patenting of seeds in Canada and globally within the Committee for Food Security I explore what gave the impulse for political resistance in these different arenas. How did collective action emerge and how did it sustain itself? Three political concepts are important for understanding the political actions that I observed: Eigen-Sinn, empathy and strategy. These allowed me to follow and theorize political engagements. I first reflect on the potential to resist as a capacity of all human beings, because they have Eigen-Sinn: the capacity to attribute their own meanings to things, and act in their own self-interested way according to the meaning given. Self-interested action can only become political, however, when humans go beyond their strictly individual interests and empathize with others (humans and nonhumans), what Adorno described as getting into ‘live contact with the warmth of things’. Finally, I discuss how collective action can become not only possible, but also effective, by building and defending a space for strategic action.

中文翻译：

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“要采取行动……”从抵制冲动到全球政治战略

本文反映了从quotidian接触中产生政治行动的可能性。在加拿大和全球范围内的粮食安全委员会中，就种子专利申请发生争议之后，我探讨了在这些不同领域推动政治抵抗的动力。集体行动是如何产生的以及如何自我维持？三个政治概念对于理解我观察到的政治行动很重要：本征·辛恩，同理心和战略。这些使我能够追踪和理论化政治参与。首先，我要反思作为全人类的能力进行抵抗的潜力，因为他们具有本征·辛恩（Eigen-Sinn）：将自己的含义赋予事物的能力，并根据给定的含义以自己的私利方式行动。自私自利的行动只能成为政治行为，当人类超越了他们个人的严格兴趣并同情他人（人类和非人类）时，阿多诺称之为“与事物的温暖进行实时接触”。最后，我讨论了如何通过建立和维护战略行动空间来使集体行动不仅可能而且有效。