The Politics of the Anthropocene: Temporality, Ecology, and Indigeneity

Abstract

The notion of the Anthropocene has become an instrumental backdrop against which post-foundational social theory and political research frame political action in a way that defies modern certainty and, somewhat paradoxically, anthropocentrism, under conditions of drastic ecological changes. But what exactly is the theoretical promise of the Anthropocene? This paper seeks to explore what the concept can offer to critical social science and, conversely, how these critical approaches define and locate the analytical and the political purchase of the Anthropocene, through the critical lens of Indigenous scholarship. The paper genealogically retraces the transition from a science-led, discontinuous-descriptive to a continuous-ontological conceptualization of the Anthropocene. It then unpacks how the notions of ecological relationality and non-human agency deployed in the latter closely parallel certain lines of argumentation in Indigenous thought and politics. Drawing on critical Indigenous studies, the paper formulates a critique of how relational perspectives enfold alternative ontologies and politics within an overarching Anthropocene ontology that is not only problematically universalizing, but also replaces the genuine engagement with differences and resistance.

For Those Who Will Follow; Earth Marred and Renewing Relationships

“…Significantly, however, I refuse the positions associated with this last perspective, according to which recognizing our embeddedness in natural contexts diminishes the significance of human agency and that the point of the Anthropocene would not be “about deferring catastrophes but about enduring them, and building structures to address injustice as we do so” (Mentz, 2019, p. 10). Rather, and similar to the Indigenous perspective discussed by Elisa Randazzo and Hannah Richter, I remain “unapologetically insistent that directed human agency is possible” (2021, p. 11). Indeed, while Indigenous worldviews often recognize the precarious balance of ecosystems, they also assert the importance of acting responsibly to sustain this balance, precisely by thinking about human agency in relation to natural contexts; as James Tully reports, the Haida “have a mantra to remind themselves of the tipping‐point feature inherent in all living systems.…”

“…The concept of the Anthropocene first gained grounds in “geo‐ and environmental sciences” about 20 years ago (Randazzo & Richter, 2021, p. 2), but today the literature on the topic has diversified and increased multifold. This fruitfulness has led scholars familiar with the literature, such as Steve Mentz, to recognize that “readers and scholars may be forgiven for a certain befuddled or baffled attitude” to this multiplicity of discourses (2019, p. 1), especially if they expect a unified account of the Anthropocene.…”

“…This natural embeddedness informs how human agency should be conceptualized; specifically, the relationships in which human societies stand with the rest of Creation entail responsibilities (Asch et al., 2018; Sioui, 1992, p. 9). In that sense, I adopt elements of the “discontinuous‐descriptive” perspective about the Anthropocene which sees it as “a radical break with the Holocene” with “potentially fatal” consequences that call for remedial human actions (Randazzo & Richter, 2021, pp. 4‐5).…”

“…4‐5). Yet, I also adopt elements of the “continuous‐ontological” perspective, according to which the Anthropocene offers “a theoretical opportunity to adopt a broader and more complex understanding of the shaping power that constitutes both human life and its environment as necessarily intertwined, and does not primarily reside in human reason” (Randazzo & Richter, 2021, pp. 5‐6).…”

Courage in the Anthropocene: Towards a philosophical anthropology of the present

“…Indigenous peoples never bought into human exceptionalism, the argument goes, and their cultures entail entirely different notions and practice of politics, which do not depend on assumptions of or projections towards human dominance. In social and political theory too, this way of seeing Indigeneity, as a resource of alternative forms of knowledge in the Anthropocene, compatible with the new aims of western approaches to politics and power, has come to hold sway (Randazzo & Richter, 2021).…”