Paper short abstract:

Based on critical reflections on sustainable livelihoods within multi-species assemblages, this paper discusses a conceptual framework for researching post-fossil futures, expertise practices and climate advocacy within ecologies of planetary care while referring to ethnographic examples.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the future orientations and environmental care practices of climate advocates in Singapore. Based on critical reflections on sustainable livelihoods within multi-species assemblages, this paper proposes a theoretical perspective for researching post-fossil futures, expertise practices and climate advocacy within ecologies of planetary care. Local cosmologies shape the manifold relationships between humans, technologies and nature. A theoretical point of departure is the concept of landscape. Mountains, valleys, rivers, plants, technologies, oceans, humans and animals are central sub-components of rural and urban landscapes (Povinelli, 2021). Ecological approaches to expertise practices foreground the design of environments and landscapes within translocal regimes of truth-making (e.g., Tsing, 2015). The undoing and redoing of knowledge on ongoing planetary crises and environmental preservation is embedded in far-reaching expert systems and ethical regimes (Ong, 2005; Mody, 2020). The researched Singaporean landscape experts are entangled in various interconnected publics. Extreme weather and environmental devastation have accelerated the circulation of anthropogenic imaginaries which primarily describe how the Anthropocene is discursively produced while perpetuating forms of ecological inclusion and exclusion (Mostafanezhad & Norum, 2019). While the researched communities of practice envision future environmental disasters, their main orientations towards urban futures include anticipation, expectation, speculation, potentiality, hope and destiny (Bryant & Knight, 2019). Future orientations manifest themselves in narratives about climate change scenarios that shape the present everyday life. Assessing future orientations illuminates the expertise cultures of landscape experts who cope with increased uncertainty about the future of urban greening.