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Accepted Paper:
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?
The Anthropocene as a Challenge to History and Historical Theory
Session 2 Monday 19 August, 2024, -