Gods of the Anthropocene: Geo-Spiritual Formations in the Earth’s New Epoch

Szerszynski, Bronislaw

doi:10.1177/0263276417691102

Cited by 43 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…The creative practices introduced in the following section are community-led interventions that seek to push back against the inevitability of growth-inspired DSM framed as 'sustainable' or not. Inspired by a particular geo-spiritual formation (Szerszynski 2017), the artistic practices described are a political means of performing a counter narrative to blue growth.…”

Section: From the 'Blue Growth' To The 'Degrowth' Of Deep-sea Mining mentioning

confidence: 99%

Performing ‘blue degrowth’: critiquing seabed mining in Papua New Guinea through creative practice

Childs

2019

Sustain Sci

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Scripted as a sustainable alternative to terrestrial mining, the licence for the world's first commercial deep-sea mining (DSM) site was issued in Papua New Guinea in 2011 to extract copper and gold from a deposit situated 1600 m below the surface of the Bismarck Sea. Whilst DSM's proponents locate it as emergent part of a blue economy narrative, its critics point to the ecological and economic uncertainty that characterises the proposed practice. Yet, due its extreme geography, DSM is also profoundly elusive to direct human experience and thus presents a challenge to forms of resistance against an industry extolled as having 'no human impact'. Against this background, this paper analyses the ways in which 'blue degrowth'-as a distinct form of counter-narrative-might be 'performed', and which imagined (and alternative) geographies are invoked accordingly. To do this it critically reflects upon 2 years of participatory research in the Duke of York Islands focusing on three, community-developed methods of resisting DSM. Practices of counter mapping, sculpture and participatory drama all sought to 'perform' the deep-ocean environment imagined as relational whilst simultaneously questioning the very notion of 'economy' central to the discourse of 'blue growth'.

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Section: From the 'Blue Growth' To The 'Degrowth' Of Deep-sea Mining mentioning

confidence: 99%

Performing ‘blue degrowth’: critiquing seabed mining in Papua New Guinea through creative practice

Childs

2019

Sustain Sci

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“…11 In this sense, geoengineering appears as a practice that not only functions as a potential response to climate change, but produces its own worlds beyond the separation of nature and society (cf. Szerszynksi, 2010, 2017b).…”

Section: Planetary Experiments: Geoengineered Control Of the Earth Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Practices of sustainability and the enactment of their natures/cultures: Ecosystem services, rights of nature, and geoengineering

Adloff

Hilbrich

2021

Social Science Information

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Possible trajectories of sustainability are based on different concepts of nature. The article starts out from three trajectories of sustainability (modernization, transformation and control) and reconstructs one characteristic practice for each path with its specific conceptions of nature. The notion that nature provides human societies with relevant ecosystem services is typical of the path of modernization. Nature is reified and monetarized here, with regard to its utility for human societies. Practices of transformation, in contrast, emphasize the intrinsic ethical value of nature. This becomes particularly apparent in discourses on the rights of nature, whose starting point can be found in Latin American indigenous discourses, among others. Control practices such as geoengineering are based on earth-systemic conceptions of nature, in which no distinction is made between natural and social systems. The aim is to control the earth system as a whole in order for human societies to remain viable. Practices of sustainability thus show different ontological understandings of nature (dualistic or monistic) on the one hand and (implicit) ethics and sacralizations (anthropocentric or biocentric) on the other. The three reconstructed natures/cultures have different ontological and ethical affinities and conflict with each other. They are linked to very different knowledge cultures and life-worlds, which answer very differently to the question of what is of value in a society and in nature and how these values ought to be protected.

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“…Vejo outros desdobramentos além da imperiosa necessidade de pensar tecnociências descentradas construindo radicalmente seus objetosa terra capturada pelo contrato social talvez se solte, se desgarre da propriedade e possa ser retomada, como está sendo, pelas ciências da terra junto com aquelas da vida; igualmente, a comunicação entre entes factícios e resistentes, nos obriga abandonar concepções triviais do mental rumo às três ecologiaspsíquica, ecológica e operária. Caberá doravante convocar práticas de povos não-ocidentais, que muitas vezes são conhecidas somente por seus etnógrafos dada a complexidade e o escândalo de negociar conhecimentos com espíritos, sistemas animistas, mortos e mundos secretos de animais selvagens e estranhos (Szerszynski, 2017). Em suma, os teóricos do antropoceno estudam Gaia e os "comuns": terra, ar e água compartilhados pelos viventes, inclusive aqueles que não se interessam muito pelo contrato social.…”

Section: Entrando Ou Saindo Do Antropocenounclassified

O suicídio indígena Guarani-Kaiowá no antropoceno: solastalgia e schlammbugrismo

Estellita-Lins

2021

nupem

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From the anthropocene discussion as a starting point, the work seeks to present a contemporary panorama of suicide prevention, highlighting traditional societies, especially the Guarani-Kaiowá. The enormous pressure, confrontation and struggle with the Western European culture is constitutive of the situation. Both Michel Serres' philosophy about the natural contract and concepts such as solastalgia allow the enlargement of mental health understanding towards objects and animals. The ethnological contribution has foremost importance considering new aspects in the study of suicide in indigenous societies, especially concerning translation of experiences. Two aspects are explored: the sense of belonging to the land and the cosmological space of the village and the house, where we can situate contemporary ecological issues; and the relationship with white people, in its range of political issues, including science. Both of which make the indigenous experience special and promising from shamanism and amerindian perspectivism.

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Gods of the Anthropocene: Geo-Spiritual Formations in the Earth’s New Epoch

Cited by 43 publications

References 56 publications

Performing ‘blue degrowth’: critiquing seabed mining in Papua New Guinea through creative practice

Performing ‘blue degrowth’: critiquing seabed mining in Papua New Guinea through creative practice

Practices of sustainability and the enactment of their natures/cultures: Ecosystem services, rights of nature, and geoengineering

O suicídio indígena Guarani-Kaiowá no antropoceno: solastalgia e schlammbugrismo

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