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- Thinking the Anthropocene
Authors: Robert Hafner, Martin Coy
Pages: 133 - 137
Abstract: This editorial gives a short introduction to the different strands of the Anthropocene and ties together the contributions of this Special Issue.
PubDate: 2022-09-30
DOI: 10.12854/erde-2022-638
Issue No: Vol. 153, No. 3 (2022)
- Anthropocene – humankind as global actor: Insights into historic and
current perspectives
Authors: Franziska Allerberger, Johann Stötter
Pages: 138 - 148
Abstract: By proclaiming a new geological epoch in which humankind has become a dominant global driver and force of Earth system processes, Crutzen and Stoermer have triggered heated and unexpected debates among the scientific community in 2000. Yet, limiting the Anthropocene to a geological-stratigraphically defined time unit is highly questionable – if not absurd – as already in the 19th century scientists have dealt with the interaction of mind and matter with respect to the actions of humans and their impacts on the environment. Against this background, the article firstly provides an overview of historical concepts addressing humankind as global actor, whereby the differentiation and interplay between mind and matter is explicitly considered. Secondly, several characteristics of the Anthropocene are outlined but without claiming completeness. These considerations lead us to questions regarding the consequences of the Anthropocene as a “diagnosis of present times [Gegenwartsdiagnose]” (Horn and Bergthaller 2019: 12) for science itself, which are discussed in more detail in our second contribution in this Special Issue.
PubDate: 2022-09-30
DOI: 10.12854/erde-2022-631
Issue No: Vol. 153, No. 3 (2022)
- The Anthropocene: Thought styles, controversies and their expansions. A
review
Authors: Robert Hafner
Pages: 149 - 161
Abstract: This review article uses the 2000 appearance of the Anthropocene as a conceptual anchor to further explore and embed thought styles on human-environment relations. In so doing, three main points are made: First, the Anthropocene is nothing new. Pre-ideas of a proto-Anthropocene, i.e. the importance of humans in human-environment relation have been previously explored. Second, while the first half of the 2000s was predominantly of stratigraphic concerns, the second half showed controversies between normative embeddings of good, bad and alternative thought styles on the Anthropocene. Third, with a scientific lag of approximate 15 years, multiplicities of alternative wordings have made their way as thought style expansions on the Anthropocene, re-framing and -branding existing thought styles (in e.g. ecomodernist, critical feminist, political ecologist fashion) in an attempt to achieve virality with other, more concrete wordings of the Anthropocene.
PubDate: 2022-08-24
DOI: 10.12854/erde-2022-619
Issue No: Vol. 153, No. 3 (2022)
- America(n)-Nature, conquestual habitus and the origins of the
“Anthropocene”. Mine, Plantation and their geological (and
anthropological) impacts
Authors: Horacio Machado Aráoz
Pages: 162 - 177
Abstract: Since its irruption, the “Anthropocene” voice has provoked a profound epistemic and political upheaval, revealing the critical radicality of the threats to life on Earth. By placing as a horizon of intellection the devastating balance that the predominant course of human events has printed on the Planet, said concept designates more than a discussion on the nature of the present geological age. It has opened a new dimension in the understanding of the interlinkages between the ecological and the political; a new problematization on the nature of the affections between the anthropological and the geological. On this plane, from our previous research, this article aims to highlight the excluding centrality of America(n)-Nature as the historical-geographical origin and constituent epistemic-political principle of this new Era. After a review of the critical reception that the concept has given rise to in the field of the Social Sciences, the paper invites us to review the “Anthropocene” on the basis of an elementary shift of gaze: from “nature” to history; from the species to social formations; from substances (carbon, uranium, plastics) to practices, ways of life and power relations. By investigating its genealogy from the decolonial critical materialism of the Political Ecology of the South, the environment of the “conquest of America” is explored as a geological-political turning point that gave rise to the emergence of a new geo-sociometabolic regime. This approach visualises the Conquestnot only in terms of its immediate catastrophic impact (Pico Orbis), but also as a geo-historical ground where a new matrix of relationships (conquestual habitus) between humans and non-humans, between the biological and the political, was forged, which would end up disrupting the dynamics of flows and sociometabolic cycles of terrestrial life. It aims to highlight the ontological effects (geological, anthropological and socio-political) of those original practices of extractivist occupation/appropriation of territories and populations. It is postulated that these practices - configured and sedimented through the establishment, expansion and generalization of the Mine and Plantation forms as technologies of power and new means of conception and production of human and terrestrial existence in general – would have most probably been the triggers of the geosocial emergence in which the human species has now become gravely involved.
PubDate: 2022-09-30
DOI: 10.12854/erde-2022-609
Issue No: Vol. 153, No. 3 (2022)
- Anthropocene – Perspectives from the Environmental Humanities
Authors: Matthias Schmidt, Jens Soentgen, Hubert Zapf
Pages: 178 - 187
Abstract: Originating from the geosciences, the concept of the Anthropocene is also the subject of lively and often controversial discussions in the humanities and social sciences. The aim of this paper is to present particular perspectives on the recently established Environmental Humanities on the Anthropocene, in order to outline the background behind the establishment of the Environmental Humanities, and to explain the central features and intentions of this inter- and transdisciplinary field. The emerging Environmental Humanities can be seen as the humanities seeking to contribute to the study, understanding and management of the ongoing global environmental crisis, i.e. a theme that has long been – and still is – dominated by the natural sciences. Drawing on concepts, theories and methods from not only the humanities, but also from social sciences, Environmental Humanities address “ fundamental questions of meaning, value, responsibility and purpose” (Rose et al. 2012: 1) in relation to the environment and environmental crises in a time of accelerating change. In doing so, environmental problems are seen as inseparable from social, cultural and human factors. At the same time, the Environmental Humanities pursue a normative claim to advance a responsible approach to the environment, in order to preserve a liveable world. Against this backdrop, broader questions open up on the concept of the Anthropocene, which not only go far beyond the question of the beginning and quantifiable extent of human influence on the geosphere, but also include questions on the causes, consequences, perceptions and interpretations, as well as responsibilities and outcomes, of the environmental crisis.
PubDate: 2022-08-30
DOI: 10.12854/erde-2022-618
Issue No: Vol. 153, No. 3 (2022)
- The Anthropocene as a challenge for sociological thinking in planetary
dimensions
Authors: Katharina Block
Pages: 188 - 197
Abstract: In this article, I argue for the relevance of integrating the planetary dimension, which is at the heart of the Anthropocene debate, into sociological thinking. The argumentation takes place in two steps: first, by sounding out the Anthropocene debate in search of the few sociological considerations that explicitly treat the significance of the Anthropocene for the architecture of sociological theory and theory formation, highlighting the associated desideratum within sociology which concerns the planetary dimension of the Anthropocene and the question of integrating it in sociological thinking; second, by following Dipesh Chakrabarty in outlining initial thoughts on why the planetary dimension should be integrated into sociology as a constitutive of the social and thus as a fundamental category of social theory. For this, I will also refer to Gesa Lindemann’s conceptualization of social theory, which clarifies the systematic function of social theory in the architecture of sociological thinking. The aim of the article is also to sensitize for the possibility of interdisciplinary collaborations of knowledge creation in light of the awareness for the planetary dimension of social life.
PubDate: 2022-08-12
DOI: 10.12854/erde-2022-603
Issue No: Vol. 153, No. 3 (2022)
- The Anthropocene beyond stratigraphy – towards a normative imperative
for science and universities
Authors: Franziska Allerberger, Johann Stötter
Pages: 198 - 215
Abstract: The Anthropocene, regardless of which interpretation of content and time one follows, is characterised by the fact that humans have become one, if not the global driver and creator. The increasingly intensive interventions in the Earth system result in global challenges that increasingly call the future of all humankind into question. A way out of this crisis situation only seems possible by means of a comprehensive socio-ecological transformation. In the context of this dualism between challenges and solution options, science is expected and demanded to take on a central role in overcoming the existential crisis. In order to fulfil this social responsibility, the science system must transform itself and overcome inherent lock-ins that have so far prevented significant impacts beyond the academic world. In the sense of a ‘normative imperative for science in general and universities in particular’ (also see Allerberger and Stötter 2022, this issue), we aim to provide starting points for such a self-transformation in relation to four different fields of action of universities. These include transdisciplinary and transformative research, among others, to fulfil the Third Mission, overcoming excellence fetishism, teaching that empowers students to deal with challenges in a solution-oriented way, and a completely different attitude towards the governance of universities, including changes in the dimensions of culture, structure, communication and cooperation.
PubDate: 2022-09-30
DOI: 10.12854/erde-2022-632
Issue No: Vol. 153, No. 3 (2022)
- Amazon deforestation restrictions likely to be circumvented
Authors: Ricardo da Silva Ribeiro, Ricardo Eduardo Vicente, Solange Arrolho, Philip M. Fearnside
Pages: 216 - 217
Abstract: Brazil’s state of Mato Grosso is part of the “Legal Amazon” region where deforestation is limited by a requirement in the country’s Forest Code, which specifies that 80% of each property must be maintained in native vegetation in areas that were originally Amazon Forest and 35% in areas that were originally Cerrado (central Brazilian savanna). A new bill (PL 377/2022) that is rapidly advancing in the National Congress would remove Mato Grosso from the Legal Amazon, reducing this requirement to 20% in both cases.
PubDate: 2022-09-16
DOI: 10.12854/erde-2022-621
Issue No: Vol. 153, No. 3 (2022)
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