Reformulating emancipation in the Anthropocene: From didactic apocalypse to planetary subjectivities

Abstract

The ideal of emancipation has been traditionally grounded on the premise that human activity is not restrained by external boundaries. Thus the realisation of values such as autonomy or recognition has been facilitated by economic growth and material expansion. Yet there is mounting evidence that the human impact on natural systems at the planetary level, a novelty captured by the concept of the Anthropocene, endangers the Earth’s habitability. If human development is to be limited for the sake of global sustainability, can emancipation be kept as a mobilising ideal? As opposed to alternative views such as that of degrowth, this article argues that it can. The key lies in the ability of the Anthropocene to produce planetary subjectivities. By recognising the bounded quality of human embeddedness, the possibility of a different emancipation is opened up. The latter does not give up material well-being, yet it makes sure that the latter does not endanger planetary habitability.

Anthropocene: Does the New Geological Age push towards a Metamorphosis of the World

“…The Anthropocene poses a new epistemology. This places us in an argument far from the one that insists on the natural limits of growth, to find a new emancipatory scheme (Arias-Maldonado, 2021). Philosophy needs to be ashamed of the imagination not based on reason.…”

Fear of a Black planet: Climate apocalypse, Anthropocene futures and Black social thought

“…So, Carl Cassega ˚rd and Ha ˚kan Tho ¨rn (2018, p. 562) suggest that the dominant tenor of the contemporary environmental movement is 'future-oriented pessimism'. By raising fears about the coming catastrophe, it is hoped that governments and peoples will take action in the present to prevent future disaster (Arias-Maldonado, 2021).…”

Politicization after the ‘end of nature’: The prospect of ecomodernism

“…It has been suggested that the introduction of the Anthropocene concept, which has been described as ‘spelling the end of nature’ (Arias-Maldonado, 2015), might offer an escape from the traditional society–nature dualism and facilitate the politicization of environmental discourses. Dobson (2022, p. 8), for example, has argued that ‘(t)he apparently settles ontological understanding of the relationship between humanity and nature (…) is being unraveled by the Anthropocene’ (see also Arias-Maldonado, 2022; Hamilton, 2017; Latour & Lenton, 2019; Swyngedouw, 2011a). The ‘end of nature’ opens up for politicization of environmental discourses, as it calls for the re-conceptualization of the relationship between society and nature.…”

“…Scholars have discussed the implications of the ‘end of nature’ when it comes to emancipation (Arias-Maldonado, 2022; Dobson, 2022), freedom (Latour & Lenton, 2019), agency (Latour, 2014; Hamilton, 2017) and to underline the presence of a post-political consensus (Swyngedouw, 2010, 2011a). However, research is still lacking on the relationship between the ‘end of nature’ and processes of (re-)politicization.…”

“…Ecomodernists offer one of the most elaborated and widespread visions of how the ‘end of nature’ might transform the political sphere. Having recently been promoted as representing ‘an alternative to those political discourses that insist on the impossibility and/or undesirability of human emancipation in a climatically disturbed planet’ (Arias-Maldonado, 2022, p. 15), ecomodernism shows potential when it comes to politicization. Ecomodernists present the view that we could be facing a ‘Good Anthropocene’ (Asafu-Adjaye et al, 2015), welcoming it as ‘the beginning of a new geological era ripe with human-directed opportunity’ (Ellis, 2011, p. 43).…”