Paper short abstract:

This paper is an initial concept note that juxtaposes two arenas for reckoning with the Anthropocene’s implications: the U.S. climate justice movement and critical scholarship in the (post-)humanities. We explore how ‘Anthropocene-reckonings’ are imbued with self-other relations of responsibility.

Paper long abstract:

At the heart of the Anthropocene is the thesis that humans are a telluric force affecting the world from the nanoscopic to the climatic and beyond. Originating in the geosciences, the Anthropocene has become an organizing and polarizing idea in the humanities and social sciences, raising as it does fundamental questions about the binaries, structural arrangements, and epistemologies constitutive of modernity. Such perspectives include critical engagement with the Anthropocene concept itself as scholars problematize the study of “the human” and interrogate the political-economic underpinnings of planetary (and unraveling) social-environmental crises.

Academic scholarship, though, is not the only arena for reckoning with the implications signaled by the Anthropocene as a problem, proposal, and provocation. Social movements across the globe are demanding systemic social transformation, demands that draw on political-moral imaginaries of what the world can be and should become. One influential example is the Just Transition Framework, a proposal within the U.S. climate justice movement for just and democratic transitions from fossil fuels. Using this as a case study, the paper is an initial concept note that begins to investigate what it means to juxtapose social movement perspectives with critical literature on the Anthropocene in the (post-)humanities. In so doing, we explore how such ‘Anthropocene-reckonings’ are imbued with self-other relations of responsibility with, to, or for different types of actor and entity. Taking this focus offers new perspectives on the critical question of who – or, perhaps, what – speaks for the Earth’s pasts, presents, and futures (Lövbrand et al 2015).

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on ongoing fieldwork with Extinction Rebellion (XR) in London this paper explores XR’s aim to build a ‘regenerative culture’, examining what praxes are considered ‘regenerative’, when and with whom these praxes are considered inappropriate, and the relationships and ontology they produce.

Paper long abstract:

Despite mobilising to ‘halt mass extinction’ resulting from climate breakdown, Extinction Rebellion (XR) do not identify as an environmental movement. They distinguish themselves from other direct-action movements addressing environmental breakdown through their unique foundational aim to build a ‘regenerative culture’.

XR define ‘regenerative culture’ in loose terms as based on an ethic of interlinking selfcare, interpersonal care, and care for the Earth. In practice, ‘regenerative culture’ is enacted through activities such as reading ‘regen reminders’ during meetings and taking breaks to avoid ‘burnout’. XR activists often refer to ‘regenerative culture’ to praise or condemn certain communication styles or behaviours, and tensions within the movement are frequently attributed to insufficient ‘regenerative culture’.

Drawing on ongoing ethnographic fieldwork with XR London, this paper explores why XR London activists consider ‘regenerative culture’ missing in some aspects of XR activism, yet inappropriate when engaging with the state through direct-action. I examine how XR London activists’ behaviours and communication differs during direct-action compared with during practices considered ‘regenerative’, and what this indicates about how these activists distinguish their relationships with the state from their relationships with people and non-human life. I investigate how these distinctions relate to tensions in XR over whether direct-action or building ‘regenerative culture’ should be prioritised, and to power inequalities, both internal and external to XR.

Effective climate crisis mitigation requires replacing the modernist nature/humanity dichotomy. XR’s ‘regenerative culture’ appears to be attempting this on a transnational scale, therefore I hope this research may assist the ontological shift climate breakdown demands.

Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I demonstrate based on my fieldwork in Mexico how responsibility for anthropogenic environmental change is contested, distributed and negotiated among different actors on the ground, including more-than-human actors.

Paper long abstract:

In the Anthropocene, coastal tourist paradises are under immense pressure in light of anthropogenic environmental change. This also holds true for the Mexican Riviera Maya, where Sargasso algae arrives in vast amounts. The algae color the water brown, cover the sandy beaches and contribute to environmental degradation. At times, Sargasso is viewed to be a natural phenomenon, at times to be a human-made natural disaster and at times as being both. Why the algae massively reproduce and why Sargasso beaches with increasing frequency is still contested among natural scientists. In a situation where the causes of the phenomenon remain unclear, different actors – hoteliers, politicians and tourists, among others – simultaneously negotiate who or what is responsible for Sargasso arrivals and its management along coastal zones. With reference to my ethnographic fieldwork in Mexico, I demonstrate how the notion of ‘responsibility’ is mobilized in multiple ways. I argue that responsibility in the Anthropocene must be viewed as contingent and situated as it is produced, distributed, and rejected among different actors. Phenomena such as harmful algae bloom that question the dichotomy of nature and culture help advance the debate on responsibility further in a way to grasp responsibility-making not solely as a human question.

Paper short abstract:

This paper considers the tensions and intersections between various visions of sustainability transformation guiding climate change adaptation in the Mekong Delta, as differently situated actors seek to translate their knowledge and interests into planning and practice.

Paper long abstract:

In recent years, as the Mekong Delta of Vietnam has attracted increasing attention as a hotspot of vulnerability to global climate change, a transnational, multilevel governance apparatus has emerged to facilitate a transformation to sustainable, climate-resilient development. Within this, differently situated actors attempt to translate their visions of sustainability into policy and practice. International partner-led visions embedded in documents such as the Mekong Delta Plan (2013) and the World Bank’s Integrated Climate Resilience and Sustainable Livelihoods Project (2016) exist in uneasy alliance with the Vietnamese state’s vision of “building socialism” through “industrialization and modernization,” while local scientists and extensionists further their own visions of sustainability as a public good, and farmers pursue a more dynamic form of resilience, constantly transforming the muddy landscape with their shifting livelihood and land use practices. Based on multi-sited fieldwork in the Netherlands and Vietnam with international development consultants and Vietnamese government officials, scientific experts, provincial bureaucrats, agricultural extension agents, and farmers, this paper explores the intersections and tensions between various imaginaries of resilience embodied in adaptation planning and practice. In particular, it examines the historical, political, economic, and infrastructural constraints shaping adaptation and development in the present, and the interpretive or translational agency of differently situated actors as they attempt to steer a path towards a more sustainable future. Finally, it reflects on differing conceptions of human-environment relations at the heart of these visions, and considers opportunities for achieving a more responsive, equitable, and just transformation.