Anthropocene doesn't exist and species of the future will not recognise it (original) (raw)
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, backed up by an impressive amount of data, trace the history of our entry into the Anthropocene, an era characterised by the impact of human activities on the earth's physical and biological systems. These historians of science make a stand against the deliberately mystifying narrative that suggests that the major changes at play were practically unknown until recent decades. In doing so, they highlight the conflicts between asymmetric forces and interests and call for a repoliticisation of the history of this era.
PERSPECTIVES IN THE ANTHROPOCENE: Beyond Nature and Culture?
Itinerari: LIX, 2020
The contributions collected in this volume compare the views of phi- losophers, literary and cultural theorists, and political philosophers, con- cerning what in recent years has become a much discussed issue: the Anthropocene. Although there are no longer any doubts about the reality of this new era, understood as the epoch of signi cant human impacts on the planet, a wide and controversial debate has developed around the use of this term and on the de nition to be given to it. The Anthropocene cannot only be understood as the perpetuation of an anthropogenic and anthropocentric perspective, it can also give rise to a critical paradigm of inquiry into a series of problems such as climate and geological changes produced by humans. The complexity of the notion of Anthropocene can also be defined as a semi-empty signifer, which is once of the most interesting and stimulating aspects of the Anthropocene, one that invites and stimulates us, sometimes even provocatively, to imagine different scenarios and ho- rizons as alternatives to the present. The contributions collected here speak to this richness and breadth, and also to the “irritating” nature of this term, Anthropocene.
Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology, 2019
‘The Anthropocene’ is a term that is increasingly used to define a new planetary epoch: one in which humans have become the dominant force shaping Earth’s bio-geophysical composition and processes. Although it originated in the Earth Sciences, it has since been widely adopted across academia and the public sphere as a catch-all description for the overwhelming impact of human activity on the planet. This entry examines how anthropologists have engaged with the Anthropocene, both as a set of phenomena (e.g. climate change, mass extinction) and as a politically and morally loaded concept. It identifies four main anthropological approaches to the Anthropocene, those that: 1) take the Anthropocene as a context for or backdrop to ethnographic inquiry; 2) interrogate ‘the Anthropocene’ as a socially and politically constructed idea; 3) treat the Anthropocene as an opportunity for creativity and hopeful speculation; and 4) view the Anthropocene as the outcome of long-standing global political and socio-economic inequalities. Such approaches entail distinct methods, analytical frameworks, concepts, and ethico-political programmes. Collectively, they form a large and still-evolving body of work that destabilizes divisions between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ and ‘humans’ and ‘non-humans’, as well as the scholarly disciplines traditionally built around them. In this capacity, they are also pushing anthropologists to ask what distinctive methodological, analytical, and ethico-political contributions their discipline can make to the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of Anthropocene studies.
Perspectives on the Anthropocene
Academic Quarter | Akademisk kvarter
This article falls into two sections. First, the Anthropocene is outlined in terms of a fundamental and unique shock to the imagination. Secondly, the article sketches out a range of responses and attitudes to the Anthropocene shock, including apathy, activism, and intervention.
Interrogating the Anthropocene: Truth and Fallacy
Great Transition Initiative , 2021
The Anthropocene proposition has rippled far from its scientific discourse to jolt the larger cultural zeitgeist. The idea that human activity has catapulted Earth into a new geological epoch has sparked reconsideration of who we are, where we are going, and how we must act. If we care about building a decent future, how should we think about the Anthropocene? What are the resonances and dissonances with the cultural and political project of a “great transition” to a viable civilization?
Unpacking the Anthropocene: The Good, the Evil and the Critical Reading
Graz Law Working Paper Series, 2023
Regular heat waves and draughts in the Mediterranean, hurricanes near coasts, frequent floods worldwide, drastic temperature increases in the Arctic, melting ice on the polar caps, dwindling glaciers, dying coral reefs, mass extinction of animal and plant species, acidified oceans, polluted groundwater and, in the end, the threat of the annihilation of the human species – all these catastrophic events and scenarios are related to the concept of the Anthropocene: the age of humans has begun with their extinction on the horizon. This paper gives a brief systematic overview of the very diverse and lively discourse surrounding the emphatic term Anthropocene and seeks to outline its roots and understanding in some detail. In doing so, this text presents three possible readings of Anthropocene: Good, Evil, and Critical Anthropocene.
Review: Jeremy Davies, Birth of the Anthropocene
World History Connected , 2017
There remains little doubt that the last few centuries of human activity have profoundly altered the earth. The exponential growth of our species combined with our ever-increasing capacity to bend nature to our will have initiated a cascade of changes within the complex biological and climatological systems of this planet. These changes (which certainly include global warming, rising sea levels, declining biodiversity, loss of polar ice, and much else besides) could be of such profound scale that they may collectively qualify as the beginnings of a new epoch in the history of the earth. The environmental changes associated with this new "Anthropocene" may ultimately even threaten the viability of our modern ways of life, if not the entire human species. It should therefore be plain to see the dire need for all scholars, not just those of the earth sciences, to come to grips with the possibility of a dawning Anthropocene epoch. Jeremy Davies' concise, erudite and highly-engaging book, The Birth of the Anthropocene, will, I am sure, soon be regarded as one of the best introductions to this new and rapidly evolving field. Davies unpacks the many debates and complexities surrounding this new human era of global history and champions the Anthropocene as a common framework for scholars of the sciences and humanities to engage with the causes and consequences the current ecological crisis.