Changes and Endings: Dynamics of the Anthropocene From Earth System Sciences to Critical International Relations

Abstract

This dissertation attempts to critically analyze the mobilization of the concept of the Anthropocene by Critical International Relations literature. It does so with a particular focus on the origins of the concept within Earth System Sciences (ESS), and within a more general discussion over the scientific authority of modern science and its connections to practices of world-making -discussed specifically in terms of scientific cosmologies -and propositions over international politics. As such, the discussion explores the construction of ESS and the formulation of the Anthropocene as related to the political commitments of the discipline and proposes the use of the Foucauldian problematization to analyze the political solutions stemming from the discipline. Then, the dissertation connects Earth System Sciences to other scientific endeavors, in a different historical context in order to move a more generalized discussion on the power of scientific authority to inform international politics through world-making practices. With that, the discussion lays out two possible worlds and political implications stemming from interpretations of the Anthropocene. Finally, within IR literature the dissertation assesses how the appropriation of the Anthropocene is conducted, paying particular attention to the call for an ontological shift within the discipline and to the specific relationship between theory and political action present in the literature, both elements connected to ESS. At last, the notion of problematization is brought back in order to analyze the intellectual and political solutions brought forth by Critical IR in their mobilization of the Anthropocene.