Anthropocene as Political Geology: Current Debates over how to Tell Time

Swanson, Heather Anne

doi:10.1080/09505431.2015.1074465

Cited by 26 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…The above analysis elucidates that stratigraphic publications on the “Orbis hypothesis” move between appealing to and expelling (the concerns of) non‐stratigraphers from the territory of stratigraphy's epistemic authority. Hence, I would question Heather Swanson's statement that “the Anthropocene concept is proving politicising, not depoliticising [for stratigraphers] – providing ways for them to bring power, colonial histories, and human inequalities” into their analysis (Swanson, , p. 161). The authors of the analysed publications advocate an in‐depth study of the Anthropocene not just to attract public interest and influence political processes.…”

Section: Drawing the Boundaries Of Value‐free Anthropocene Stratigraphymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent debates over Anthropocene science demonstrate how our ability to think about the Anthropocene is shaped by specific scientific practices (Castree, 2014b; Cook et al, ; Lövbrand et al, ) and the connections between ways of thinking and ways of governing nature and society (Cook et al., ; Lövbrand et al., ; Wissenburg, ). Related studies explore how stratigraphy and the geological designation of the Anthropocene affect environmental thinking and practice (Braje, ; Swanson, ; Szerszynski, ). Human geographers have strongly indicated the political ramifications of studying Anthropocene strata (Clark, ; Rickards, 2015b; Yusoff, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Marking the boundaries of stratigraphy: Is stratigraphy able and willing to define, describe and explain the Anthropocene?

Lundershausen¹

2018

Geography and Environment

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This paper investigates the involvement of the stratigraphic community in the endeavour of defining the Anthropocene. Although much of the debate about the Anthropocene takes place outside of stratigraphy, the concept of the Anthropocene derives its distinctiveness and popularity from its geological dimension. In this context, the epistemic authority of stratigraphy is extended from ratifying geological epochs to verifying the Anthropocene more generally. The paper conceptualises this authority and examines the published stratigraphic literature to determine to what extent the stratigraphic community is able and willing to assume it. In doing so, the paper demonstrates how stratigraphy co‐produces its epistemic authority in regards to the Anthropocene.

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Section: Drawing the Boundaries Of Value‐free Anthropocene Stratigraphymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Marking the boundaries of stratigraphy: Is stratigraphy able and willing to define, describe and explain the Anthropocene?

Lundershausen¹

2018

Geography and Environment

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“…Stratigraphy is particularly important in this regard because its research on the Anthropocene is replicated in many academic and public discourses. Accordingly, observers of the Anthropocene discourse have reflected on stratigraphic research related to the Anthropocene (Szerszynski 2012;Braje 2015;Monastersky 2015;Rickards 2015;Swanson 2016;Clark 2017;Warde, Robin, and S€ orlin 2017). But the group that drives Anthropocene research in stratigraphy, the so-called Anthropocene Working Group (AWG), has not yet been studied in depth.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

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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“…There is little disagreement that tractors and bulldozers currently reshape landforms more than rivers and glaciers, that species are being extinguished at 100 to 1,000 times the background rate (Barnosky et al 2011), or that synthetic fertilizers have so altered the nitrogen cycle that the only comparable nutrient event was 2.5 billion years ago (Lewis and Maslin 2015). The debate is about when humans became the most significant geological actors on the planet (Swanson 2016). While this is an important question for those interested in defining the Anthropocene as a formal stratigraphic unit, the fixation on identifying a particular date redirects attention from the more important issue-understanding the process of change that led to the Anthropocene's existence.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

An Environmental Sociology for the Anthropocene

Bowden

2017

Canadian Review of Sociology

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Attention to the relationship between nature and society has been a defining feature of environmental sociology since its inception. Early research, incorporating insights from ecology, argued for the need to (1) theorize the causal connections between nature and society and (2) contextualize those connections in terms of biophysical limits resulting from resource scarcity. Over the past two decades, partly in response to new forms of existential threat such as climate change, the treatment of nature and society as distinct entities has given way to a focus on socio-natural assemblages. Using the Anthropocene as a lens to explore this emerging view, it is argued (1) that current theorizing on the socio-natural assemblage needs to pay more attention to the issues of temporality and complexity, (2) that taking these factors into account reconceptualizes the nature-society relationship as a complex, evolving socio-natural assemblage, (3) that this evolutionary process needs to be understood in the context of cosmic evolution and the tension between entropy and the emergence of local complexity, and (4) that constraints on human development arise from the tension between these two tendencies, not from resource scarcity. An environmental sociology for the Anthropocene, one based on assumptions about the nature of causal dynamics and context consistent with our understanding of current earth system science, is proposed. L'attention portée à la relation entre la nature et la société a été un trait caractéristique de la sociologie de l'environnement depuis sa création. La recherche initiale, intégrant les connaissances de l'écologie, a soutenu la nécessité de (1) théoriser les liens causaux entre la nature et la société et (2) contextualiser ces connexions en termes de limites biophysiques résultant de la pénurie de ressources. Au cours des deux derniéres décennies, en partie en réponse à de nouvelles formes de menace existentielle telles que le changement climatique, le traitement de la nature et de la société en tant qu'entités distinctes a fait place à un accent sur les assemblages socio-naturels. En utilisant l'anthropocéne comme une lentille pour explorer ce point de vue émergeant, on fait valoir (1) que la théorisation actuelle sur l'assemblage socio-naturel doit accorder plus d'attention aux questions de temporalité et de complexité, (2) que prendre ces facteurs en compte reconceptualise la relation entre la nature et la société en tant qu'assemblage socio-naturel complexe et en évolution, (3) que ce processus évolutif doit être compris dans le contexte de l'évolution cosmique et de la tension entre entropie et émergence de la complexité locale, et (4) sur le développement humain découlent de la tension entre ces deux tendances, et non de la pénurie de ressources. Une sociologie de l'environnement pour l'anthropocéne, fondée sur des hypothéses sur la nature de la dynamique causale et du contexte compatible avec notre compréhension de la science actuelle du systéme terrestre, est proposée.

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Anthropocene as Political Geology: Current Debates over how to Tell Time

Cited by 26 publications

References 11 publications

Marking the boundaries of stratigraphy: Is stratigraphy able and willing to define, describe and explain the Anthropocene?

Marking the boundaries of stratigraphy: Is stratigraphy able and willing to define, describe and explain the Anthropocene?

The Anthropocene Working Group and its (inter-)disciplinarity

An Environmental Sociology for the Anthropocene

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