After the Anthropocene

Johnson, Elizabeth; Morehouse, Harlan; Dalby, Simon; Lehman, Jessi; Nelson, Sara; Rowan, Rory; Wakefield, Stephanie; Yusoff, Kathryn

doi:10.1177/0309132513517065

Cited by 121 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…In the vein of this discourse, commentators often view the Anthropocene as a 'bridge' between disciplines (Nature 2011; Jahn, Hummel, and Schramm 2015;Brondizio et al 2016, p. 318). For many, the term promises deeper (Berkhout 2014;Johnson et al 2014;Castree 2017) and wider collaborations between different disciplines (Kotchen and Young 2007;Palsson et al 2013;Johnson et al 2014). Mirroring this hope, all three journals holding Anthropocene in their titles advocate and claim an interdisciplinary approach.…”

Section: Research Questionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Anthropocene Working Group and its (inter-)disciplinarity

Lundershausen

2018

Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy

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This article investigates the internal dynamics of the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG), an expert body tasked with evaluating the stratigraphic case of the Anthropocene. The investigation focuses on the role of interdisciplinarity and disciplinarity in the AWG. The article draws on surveys and interviews with AWG members to characterize interdisciplinary collaboration in the AWG and discusses the relationship of the AWG to the stratigraphic community. The results reveal that the exchanges between disciplines in the AWG are 'multidisciplinary' and of limited scope. While social scientists in the group take a non-scientific role, the involvement of natural scientists in research activities is guided by the objectives of stratigraphy. Moreover, a lack of communication and trust had shaped the relationship between the AWG and the stratigraphic community until they devised pragmatic working arrangements that led the AWG to adapt its research practice and rationale. Despite calls to reform stratigraphic practice, the disciplinarity of the AWG prevails over innovative research practices inspired by interdisciplinary exchanges. In terms of theory, the study confirms that disciplines continue to provide the context in which interdisciplinary endeavors need to position themselves. Notwithstanding the pull of interdisciplinarity, the AWG's main point of reference remains the stratigraphic community. ARTICLE HISTORY

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Section: Research Questionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Anthropocene Working Group and its (inter-)disciplinarity

Lundershausen

2018

Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy

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“…Akin to Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden, knowledge of human entanglement in nature here accompanies termination of the relatively benign conditions of our preceding epoch. This time, our expulsion signals the 'end of man' (Johnson and Morehouse, 2014).…”

Section: Ending the Anthropocenementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this understanding, Hamilton (2015) argues the Anthropocene is not a description of human impacts further spreading into landscapes and ecosystems, but constitutes a phase shift in Earth system function. The Anthropocene, Johnson and Morehouse (2014) argue, is a world where capacity to process and analyze social, political, and physical parameters cannot keep up with their pace of change. Hamilton (2015) argues that if the Anthropocene event is conceptualized as an extremely short period of two centuries, it would not follow the conditions of uniformitarianism, but rather present an example of catastrophism.…”

Section: The Tipping Pointmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indicating convergence on a midtwentieth century delineation of the Anthropocene, Waters et al (2016) declare this epoch is ''functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene" (2016:137). As new definitions of the 'right' Anthropocene narrative emerge, Johnson and Morehouse (2014) ask whether the geographical landscape the Anthropocene imagines erases difference by universalizing human significance and naturalizing human history. However the Anthropocene is described, Latour (2015) argues that avoiding cataclysmic change requires careful attentiveness to learn what this human epoch is and what it might become.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Scaling the Anthropocene: How the stories we tell matter

Veland

Lynch

2016

Geoforum

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Ongoing debates in the Earth, planetary, and social sciences examine the merits and implications of traces in the stratigraphic record that would indicate that humans are now one of the 'great forces of nature'. Candidates for key marker horizons in such a stratal section include noted changes in carbon and nitrogen concentrations, plastics, radionuclides, and metals. Candidates for determining calendar age, include the tipping point in land cover from wildlands to agriculture and the first nuclear detonation. Here we offer a critical review of recent literature contributing to delineating an Anthropogenic stratum, by exploring their interpretation as initiating, sustaining, or indeed ending an Anthropocene epoch. We also offer a reflection on the layer not representing a new period, any more than, for instance, iridium marks a 'meteoritic' epoch between the Cretaceous and Palaeogene. We examine temporal scales for their accord with geological methods of definition and delineation, and for the opportunities and constraints each presents for understanding and responding to transformations in the Earth system. Our thesis is that increasingly fortified stances on the 'right' definition of the Anthropocene epoch follow traditions of linear and authoritarian historical accounts, and prevent discovering epistemes of human-environment interactions that are open for coexistence. The coexistence of many key transitions will sustain ongoing and fruitful deliberations over human-environment interactions that the Anthropocene proposal has initiated, promoting research that can work with the many scales, discourses, and narratives of environmental change.

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“…A complex oscillation occurs between the destruction and the creation of the natural and human environments. The response similarly fluctuates from those who predict future ecological chaos and attendant international conflict to the 'hyper-modernizers' who would seek to ramp up human efforts to maintain and control the biophysical environment (Johnson et al 2014). Using technology as an opportunity to harness nature's generative capacities, emerging concepts such as those of cyborg landscapes and responsive technologies show potential to bridge the junction between the forces of nature and that created by man.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Outside In

McIntosh

Marques

Palmer

et al. 2019

ENQ

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Degradation of ecosystem services, scarcity of resources and the erosion of the planet’s capability to absorb waste is of immediate concern. This situation is novel in its speed, its global and local scale and its threat to the planet and its people. Inspired by the recent discourse of the Anthropocene, this paper explores the convergence of human and nature as they confront generative and destructive forces in two distinctly different settings. Using a case-study approach, this paper adopts the cyborg landscape as a conceptual framework to address the interconnectedness of systems, and scale and poetic brief to accommodate the environment while supporting the needs of our contemporary society. By using nature’s generative capacities as well as its destructive tendencies and by blurring the disciplinary boundaries between interior architecture and landscape architecture, this paper considers two different locations in New Zealand: a post-industrial site on Auckland’s urban waterfront and a remote active volcanic site located on White Island. It finds opportunity to examine intensified inhabitation through acts of immersion and extraction in the “new normal” where nature’s interrelated systems and the artifice of the Anthropocene create innovative and dynamic possibilities. It concludes that the creation of a link between natural processes and responsive technologies can provide solutions to address the complexity of climate change.

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After the Anthropocene

Cited by 121 publications

References 24 publications

The Anthropocene Working Group and its (inter-)disciplinarity

The Anthropocene Working Group and its (inter-)disciplinarity

Scaling the Anthropocene: How the stories we tell matter

The Outside In

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