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- Convenors:
-
Theodoros Pelekanidis
(Free University of Berlin)
Georg Gangl (University of Oulu, Finland)
Frank Zelko (University of Hawaii at Manoa)
Send message to Convenors
- Formats:
- Panel
- Streams:
- Deeper Histories, Diverse Sources, Different Narratives
- Location:
- Room 9
- Sessions:
- Monday 19 August, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
Our panel is a call to historians, historical theorists, and philosophers to discuss matters of historical time and agency in the Anthropocene. By challenging the established conceptions of time, the Anthropocene makes us reconsider our relation to the past and our expectations for the future.
Long Abstract:
Time for historians is like Indiana Jones for archaeologists: it is the adventurous “Other” of a usually unadventurous disciplinary routine. The Anthropocene, however, has unseated traditional understandings of time, just as Environmental History and more recently big and deep histories had shaken them up before. The Anthropocene challenges the idea of time as linear, progressive, and structurally defined and makes us reconsider the ways we understand and mediate the past.
In similar ways, this new proposed geological epoch has also called our understanding of historical agency into question. It forcefully makes us think about questions of a sustainable future – or at least a future that is not catastrophic. So, while we can talk about the “contraction of the present” (A. Assmann) as a challenge to temporality, we can also talk about the overdetermination of the present as a challenge to species agency, a challenge with eyes to the future.
Questions of agency, time, and temporality have been discussed in various ways by Environmental History for quite a while now and philosophers and theorists of history have recently begun discussing these issues too, especially in relation to the Anthropocene. Our proposed panel, therefore, is a call to (environmental) historians, historical theorists, and philosophers alike. We are interested in the concept, history, and potential future of the Anthropocene from the perspectives of both environmental history and philosophy, and we specifically welcome contributions to the three issues described above (time and temporality, human agency, and potential futures).
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Monday 19 August, 2024, -Paper short abstract:
The Anthropocene event is shifting temporal dynamics, refocusing the geologic time scale as causal factors in the trajectory of human civilization. This irruption alters our relationship with time while breaking away from a linear perspective.
Paper long abstract:
At the heart of my 10-year transdisciplinary research, the Anthropocene concept shifts theory in social sciences and humanities. From a philosophical perspective, the emergence of the Anthropocene repositions the human species on immense time scales, which are difficult to comprehend. The irruption of planetary history in the footsteps of human history points to a deep bifurcation away from our construct timeline developed within the frame of the human agency. To put it briefly, it embodies a fundamental break in the trajectory since the dawn of Homo sapiens.
Hence, the relationship to time between the human and geological scales needs to be rethinking. In light of this temporal disruption, my primary interest lies in the paradigmatic change implied by Earth’s trajectory in human history. It highlights unthinkable facts because the planet’s background is divergent from our fate and opens the debate on habitability. Given the rapidity of a massive transformation of planetary conditions, the human project is reprogramming the Earth System and the definition of conditions of its maintenance in the habitability zone. It questions our ability to rethink the narrative linking human and non-human species on the entangled planet.
At the end of the day, it is a matter of redesigning the timescales and incorporating the human adventure into a new narrative, that of a species integrated into the Earth’s history that does not dissociate itself from non-human agency. Engaging in this discussion is also a means to consider the post-Anthropocene era.
Paper short abstract:
Despite the Social Sciences and Humanities' engagement with the topic of the Anthropocene, much of this research has failed to grasp the magnitude of current planetary changes. This is particularly evident in the eight theses that dominate discussions about the topic today.
Paper long abstract:
Although the social sciences and humanities have engaged closely with the topic of the Anthropocene, much of this research has been conducted at a distance from the geosciences, which uphold a radically different understanding of the planetary crisis. More specifically, geological research into the Earth’s deep past has demonstrated that the magnitude of planetary changes entailed by the claim that the Earth is undergoing 'geologically epochal' transformations is much more dramatic than assumed by the human sciences.
This is particularly evident in the eight theses concerning the origins and trajectory of the Anthropocene that dominate discussions about the topic in these fields: 1) Non-Reflexive Anthropocene, 2) Metabolic Rift, 3) Fossil Capital, 4) World-Ecology, 5) Martial Anthropocene, 6) Black Anthropocenes, 7) Place-Less/Indigenous Anthropocene, and 8) Plantationocene.
By comparing these theses to geological research on intervals of geologic time and epochal transformations, I argue that the social sciences and humanities have not yet grasped the true magnitude of the planetary crisis and thus need to rethink their theoretical frameworks, conceptual repertoires, and ethico-onto-epistemological commitments accordingly. Indeed, if geological stratigraphers are correct (as I believe they are) in their claim that we are entering the Anthropocene epoch, we can expect to have to inhabit an unimaginably strange new world that is sure to render obsolete the conceptual repertoires that have dominated social and political imagination in the last few centuries.
Paper short abstract:
What is the usefulness to historians of the concept of the Anthropocene? The epoch will likely be defined by a spike of radiation in 1945 that will remain for tens of thousands of years? Does the concept help us understand the Great Deceleration of the next few decades?
Paper long abstract:
The Anthropocene concept, widely acknowledged, is anchored in the enduring aftermath of the 1945 nuclear radiation spike, stretching into a remote future. What is the practical use to historians of a concept for the next 20,000 years? More problematically, the Anthropocene concept may inadvertently obscure crucial lessons drawn from recent history on social transformation. The experience of the tobacco and HIV epidemics, ethnic, racial and gender equality, and changing food cultures demonstrate human capacity to change.
In contrast, the concept of the Great Acceleration, often intertwined with the Anthropocene, has a finite timespan, set to conclude within a few decades as exponential growth cannot be sustained. The concept is measurable and practical but again tends to occlude human potential for change.
In response to these considerations, we need a wider conceptualisation of the New Human Condition to comprehend the period of deceleration and dematerialisation that has already begun and will probably last towards 2050. This period will likely be defined by four interwoven dimensions:
- Human Planetary Agency in an age of of limits to growth
- Digital Revolution: Emphasizing the profound impact of digital technologies on both society and the environment as we transition from analog systems.
- Ascendance of Design over Tradition: the evolving role of design in shaping our interactions with the environment, influenced by post-modern, post-human, and denialist ideologies.
- Coalitions for Change: Recognizing the necessity of global collaboration in addressing environmental challenges, this component underscores the significance of collective efforts.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines an explicit temporal argument that was elaborated in environmentalist contexts from the 1960s and through the 1980s. The argument framed conservation as a matter of protecting the future of evolution through the safeguarding of biological variety yielded by evolutionary history.
Paper long abstract:
This paper seeks to develop Chakrabarty’s concept of the planetary as a contribution to discussion of the Anthropocene as a temporal crisis. In Chakrabarty’s rendering, the planetary refers to earthly processes such as evolution and the climate system. One of the distinguishing features of planetarity is its temporalities, which are generally on a different order of magnitude than those of political and social institutions. One way of approaching the Anthropocene temporal problem is to articulate planetary temporalities and their political potential, and this paper suggests that there are indeed intellectual traditions from the past to draw on in that endeavor. The paper thus examines an explicit temporal argument that was elaborated in different environmentalist contexts from the 1960s and through the 1980s. The argument framed conservation as a temporal issue where the protection of nature was a matter of protecting the future of evolution through the safeguarding of biological variety yielded by evolutionary history. This argument emerged among plant geneticists within the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in the 1960s, and later traveled into the field of conservation biology centered on concerns about the loss of diversity in wildlife. In the 1970s and 1980s, conservation biology became a field of increasingly publicly engaged scientists who cultivated new methods of outreach to gain attention from the general public and build political support. This paper explores this trajectory of the idea of protecting evolutionary time as a temporal idea with political implications, and discusses its relevancy for the Anthropocene discussion.
Paper short abstract:
From scrutinizing the temporality of nature underlying the concept of neobiota a historical theory emerges directing attention to: the synchronization of natural and human history; conveying agency rather than teleology; ending the presence rather than preventing the future of the Anthropocene.
Paper long abstract:
Ensuing from my dissertation concerned with the temporality of nature in the Anthropocene as inscribed in the discourse and practices around neobiota is an emerging historical theory.
The concept of the Anthropocene has unseated traditional understandings of time – both in the source materials of contemporary history and in historical research. In the former, the temporal unsettling is oftentimes presented as an acceleration of an "original" trajectory of natural history by interference of human history. The latter perceives of it as a potential for pluralizing temporalities. I argue that a synchronization of natural and human history is lacking in both and urgently needed.
Such a synchronization averts the anthropocentrism lurking in the concept of the Anthropocene. It is crucial, however, to beware of a teleology framing the upheavals of the present as a "natural" step of evolution. Contemporary history can contribute to this end: By uncovering the historical embeddedness of the Anthropocene, an awareness of human and nonhuman agency to bring about a sustainable future may be gained. Consequently, I theorize the Anthropocene not as a barely started geological epoch, but rather as an ongoing sixth mass extinction event.
This definition can shift efforts from preventing extinctions by preserving the "original" nature of the Holocene to ending them against the backdrop of the irreversible presence of the Anthropocene. Theorizing (neo-)biota forces us to address the different temporalities underlying frameworks of "preventing" an adverse future by conserving the past vis à vis "ending" an adverse present by creating a sustainable future.
Paper short abstract:
The catastrophe foreseen due to climate change causes an inevitable break in the sense of time. The main goal of my presentation is to show how the concept of the Anthropocene creates opportunities for new narratives and how a reconceptualization of historical time can enrich this procedure.
Paper long abstract:
The catastrophe foreseen due to climate change causes an inevitable break in time. As the future becomes more urgent, the space for predictions becomes narrower and expectations fade. The main goal of my presentation is to show how the concept of the Anthropocene challenges this “shortening” of the future time and how a reconceptualization of historical time can enrich this procedure.
The proclaiming of the Anthropocene as the successor of the Holocene causes an evident imbalance in the geologic time scale. Temporal disproportions of this type may raise questions for geologists and earth system scientists but are something common in the historical sciences. As can easily be observed, the closer a historical period is to the present, the shorter it is considered to be. This happens because of the density with which historical time is endowed as it makes the journey from the past to the present.
What is unique about the Anthropocene is that it has been proclaimed less as an epoch of the past and much more as an epoch of the future. The claim that the Anthropocene is here to stay is a daring prediction, which manages to create a promising counternarrative to the stories of upcoming Armageddons. Such a wholesale change of perception of the future needs a solid base which can only be offered by the past. It is thus a task for historians, philosophers and political theorists to reconfigure historical thinking in a way that can support the imagining of a utopic future.
Paper short abstract:
With Collingwood’s analysis of the difference between human history and natural sciences in mind I analyse distinct historical approaches of conceptualising mountains. These steps enable a historicised view upon various concepts of theoretical and epistemological relations between humans and nature.
Paper long abstract:
Based upon epistemological reasoning historians have developed the concept of ‘distance’, thereby underlining an ‘otherness’ of any past time when being researched – this otherness in return highlighting distinct hermeneutical aspects to be taken into account. Furthermore, it is a characteristic feature of historical research and writing that any historical account can, at any time, be rewritten – such procedures by no means presenting historiographies as instances of untrustable narratives, but rather emphasising the relational intertwinements of any present historical study and the respective past. – Having these two aspects of historical research and writing in mind (‘distance’ and ‘rewriting’), I shall turn to epistemological requirements of historical research in anthropocenic times, namely by referring to two separate aspects hereof. Firstly, I shall discuss Collingwood’s analysis of the difference between human history and natural sciences. This will then lead me to analyse distinct historical approaches of conceptualising mountains (as humans in previous centuries viewed them more as obstacle than being straightforwardly accessible). The resulting comparison of such approaches towards nature (focussing on examples of European and Japanese reflections on mountainous regions) will then enable a historicised view upon various concepts of theoretical and epistemological relations between humans and nature. – Accordingly, I shall conclude by reconsidering Collingwood’s distinctions and by discussing ways of how to change epistemological perspectives within historical research – in order to enhance an understanding of anthropocenic time, by means of reflection based upon and deriving from theory of history.
Paper short abstract:
Natural history is an old-fashioned genre characterized by variously conceived attempts at mixing human and non-human histories. This paper connects recent trends in environmental humanities that stress the importance of natural history with its long history and underlines its political potential.
Paper long abstract:
Natural history is an old-fashioned genre that carries with it both a dark colonial past and variously conceived attempts at mixing human and non-human histories. Recent anthropological and environmental humanities studies on the empirical features of the Anthropocene have insisted on the importance of “natural history” conceived as an “art of observation” that bypasses rigid boundaries between “nature” and “culture”, and between human and non-human pasts. In this paper I try to connect these recent trends (especially focusing on the work of Anna L. Tsing) with the history of natural history, a very old scientific and literary genre that – blooming in the early modern period but beginning with Pliny the Elder and continuing through 19th century ethnology, biology, and history – very often blurred such boundaries. I will try to describe a revival of natural history within a conception that emphasizes this side of the history of natural history and rejects its colonial side, in order to describe the political potential of such a tradition.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines whether historiography’s engagement with Anthropocene theory could be further through a rethinking of descriptions of historical evidence. Specifically, by describing evidence of change through time and hypotheses to explain these changes with probabilistic formalism.
Paper long abstract:
Human agency is at the core of the idea of the Anthropocene, as a man-made planetary change. Nevertheless, asserting this agency via temporal evidence has been somewhat delegated by historians to scientists. The literature of the past decades stressing the incompatibilities and/or limits of the modern historical imagination to grasp with climate change and the Anthropocene point to different reasons why historiography is ill-equipped vis-à-vis considering human beings as geological forces. In general, this literature accepts the scientific consensus on climate change and most of the Anthropocene thesis, by basically assuming that historians must follow the development of the sciences. This usually means refraining from directly engaging with the evidence that supports the scientific fact of climate change and the Anthropocene, evidence considered to be outside the domains of history. According to the historical sciences explanation of historiography (namely, in Carol E. Cleland, Adrian Currie, Aviezer Tucker), though, there should be no significant differences in the epistemological status of evidence in historiography compared to disciplines that deal with the history of the Earth. Since, in part, the historical sciences explanation resort to a formal definition of the hypothesis-evidence dynamics, assuming it to be describable in terms of Bayesian probability, it is the purpose of this work to discuss whether the use of formal language to speak of historical evidence could provide a bridge between historiography and sciences related to planetary change over time, thus increasing communicability between historians and scientists on the matter of human agency in planetary scale.
Paper short abstract:
Historical theorists have claimed that the Anthropocene has ushered in a fundamentally new historical condition. They base this claim on alleged ontological and epistemological characteristics of the Anthropocene. I critically examine this "novelty claim" and the philosophical reasons given for it.
Paper long abstract:
Historians and historical theorists such as Dipesh Chakrabarty and Zoltán Boldizsár Simon have in recent years argued that the Anthropocene has ushered in a radically novel historical condition. They base this claim on alleged ontological and epistemological characteristics of the Anthropocene such as its fundamental unprecedentedness and its attendant imperviousness to traditional historiographic understanding. Similarly, do they draw “formal” and disciplinary consequences from these characteristics, i.e. that narrative is unfit to represent the Anthropocene and that the matrix of scientific disciplines we are accustomed to is unable to deal with it.
This paper will assess all these claims from the standpoint of the philosophy of historiography and the philosophy of the historical sciences. The outcome of this examination is that the claims about the ontological and epistemological novelty are philosophically wanting and that therefore at least the formal consequence about narrative does not follow. I take this to be good news as it indicates that we already possess, at least partially, the intellectual resources to face the Anthropocene predicament.
Paper short abstract:
We all experience the Anthropocene in tangible ways. Public discussions around the Anthropocene, however, remain strangely detached from our personal experiences. By showing how the Anthropocene is made 'real' in academia and politics, I hope to find better ways of talking about the Anthropocene.
Paper long abstract:
Drawing on critical sociology and theories of decolonial epistemology, I hope to situate the questions around temporality and agency raised by the Anthropocene into a broader critique of contemporary forms of (western) knowledge production. We all, humans and non-humans alike, experience the Anthropocene in manifold small, personal ways. Societal and political negotiations around the Anthropocene-as-concept, however, are strangely detached from our experiences with the Anthropocene-as-phenomenon.
I argue that this detachment is a result of specific assumptions and requirements levied towards 'real' knowledge. In order to turn the vectors of experienced phenomena making up the Anthropocene into socially acknowledged 'facts', they are folded into singular, globally acting concepts. The validity of these concepts further requires an empirical substantiation at a planetary scale, provided by specialists and experts and approved by international institutions. To become 'real' in the institutional sense, the Anthropocene (or the phenomena making it up) must align with certain things already considered to be true. In this process, the Anthropocene is slotted into pre-existing teleologies and cast simultaneously as a threat to, a challenge for, or even the conclusion of, human superiority and the progression of life.
What emerges is an Anthropocene so overwhelming in scale that it contracts the present, paralyzes us and, ultimately, swallows the future. How can we as researchers, but also as people concerned with the deteriorating conditions of our home, deflate these teleologies and arrive at a concept of the Anthropocene that does not paralyze, but encourage agency?
Paper short abstract:
The concept and theory of Anthropocene has recently become a dominant theoretical model in environmental humanities and env. history. Capitalocene and Chthulucene are the most prominent critical alternatives to it. I criticise all tree from the points of environmental philosophy and env. history.
Paper long abstract:
I criticise the concepts of Anthropocene, Capitalocene and Chthulucene as theoretical positions to environmental history. I'm leaning on the older traditions of environmental philosophy and environmental history, which offer much more richer conceptual tools for understanding the complexity of environmental questions in general - and the special problems of environmental history.
The concept of Anthropocene originates from geology and does therefore not consider enough the social and ecological aspects of environmental history. In traditional environmental history, the key periods are formed from social and ecological transitions like the birth of agriculture, colonisation, industrialisation etc. The concept of Anthropocene does not add anything to this concrete basis for historical research. Also philosophically it is problematic because of its clear anthropocentrism. In environmental history, the agency of living nature must be equally important as human agency and therefore the theoretical position cannot be anthropocentric.
Capitalocene concentrates in the analysis of technological, economical and social changes and their environmental impacts in history. Leaning on Marxist ecology, it sees the roots of environmental problems in capitalistic mode of production. It seems to need some modification today: for example Fossil Capitalism and Green Capitalism are more nyanced concepts for environmental history.
Donna J. Haraway's Chthulucene is maybe the newest (2016) proposal to a 'Big Narrative' (Lyotard) for our time. It tries to formulate a more bio- or naturocentric position than A&C-cene. Leaning on old Gaia-mythology it stresses the symbiotic character of man/nature interaction (sympoiesis).