Anthropologists Are Talking - About the Anthropocene

TLDR: The Anthropocene is emerging as an inescapable word for the current moment as mentioned in this paper, and it has been widely used as a metaphor for the future of the human race and its relationships with nature.

Abstract: Love it or hate it, the Anthropocene is emerging as an inescapable word for (and of) the current moment. Popularized by Eugene Stoermer and Paul Crutzen, Anthropocene names an age in which human in...

Full text

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College
Works Works
Biology Faculty Works Biology
11-5-2015
Anthropologists Are Talking – About The Anthropocene Anthropologists Are Talking – About The Anthropocene
D. Haraway
N. Ishikawa
Scott F. Gilbert
Swarthmore College
, sgilber1@swarthmore.edu
K. Olwig
A. L. Tsing
See next page for additional authors
Follow this and additional works at: https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-biology
Part of the Biology Commons
Let us know how access to these works bene>ts you
Recommended Citation Recommended Citation
D. Haraway, N. Ishikawa, Scott F. Gilbert, K. Olwig, A. L. Tsing, and N. Bubandt. (2015). "Anthropologists
Are Talking – About The Anthropocene".
Ethnos
. DOI: 10.1080/00141844.2015.1105838
https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-biology/451
This work is brought to you for free by Swarthmore College Libraries' Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in
Biology Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact
myworks@swarthmore.edu.

Authors Authors
D. Haraway, N. Ishikawa, Scott F. Gilbert, K. Olwig, A. L. Tsing, and N. Bubandt
This article is available at Works: https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-biology/451

For Peer Review Only
Anthropologists Are Talking About th
e Anthropocene
Journal:
Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology
Manuscript ID:
Draft
Manuscript Type:
Anthropologists Are Talking/Round Table Discussion
Keywords:
Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Extinction, Plantationocene,
Transdisciplinarity
URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/retn
Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology

For Peer Review Only
1
Anthropologists are Talking – about the Anthropocene.
Love it or hate it, the Anthropocene is emerging as an inescapable word for (and of)
the current moment. Popularized by Eugene Stoermer and Paul Crutzen,
Anthropocene names an age in which human industry has come to equal or even
surpass the processes of geology, and in which humans in their attempt to conquer it
have inadvertently become a destructive force of nature (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000;
Steffen et al. 2011). This is the tragedy of the Anthropocene. But this tragedy also
holds an odd, even schizophrenic, promise; namely the promise of scientific renewal
and insight. For in the Anthropocene, nature is no longer what conventional science
imagined it to be. And if the notion of a pure nature-an-Sich has died in the
Anthropocene and been replaced by natural worlds that are inextricable from the
worlds of humans, then humans themselves can no longer be what classical
anthropology and human sciences thought they were. Arguably, the Anthropocene
challenges us all to radically rethink what nature, humans and the political and
historical relationship between them might be at the end of the world, peppering its
message of environmental doom with the promise of scientific renewal (and global
survival) through trans-disciplinary collaboration. This bipolar message of a new
science and a new politics is exhilarating for some, and seems to come at an
opportune moment. Certainly, the notion that human lives and politics are producers
of/produced by natural worlds gels with a growing attention within anthropology and
neighboring disciplines to the diverse multispecies worlds that humans and non-
humans co-inhabit. And yet the Anthropocene may still be, as Bruno Latour puts it in
his Distinguished Lecture to the AAA in December 2014, “a poisonous gift” to the
world in general and to anthropology in particular (Latour 2014). The potential gift of
the Anthropocene is its push to radically rethink the “anthropos” that is the object of
the discipline and thereby to force anthropology to become relevant, in a novel and
crucial way, to understanding a world faced with unprecedented human-induced
environmental disaster (Ceballos et al 2015; Pimm et al 2014). The potential poison
of the Anthropocene is that it may end up either dissolving the human altogether or,
perhaps even worse, fetishizing it (when others begin to take it too seriously).
Page 1 of 32
URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/retn
Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60

For Peer Review Only
2
This conversation was held in October 2014 in Aarhus to discuss the still inchoate
concept of Anthropocene. Does the Anthropocene entail an important call for a new
kind of politics and understanding or is it a political buzzword? Does Anthropocene
scholarship signal the prospect of genuine cross-disciplinary collaboration or does it
sustain conventional hierarchies of knowledge and power? What, in short, are the
pitfalls and possibilities of the Anthropocene? Editor Nils Bubandt invited four
scholars from different disciplines and backgrounds to discuss these questions.
1
The
participants are:
ANNA L
.
TSING
. Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz
as well as Niels Bohr Professor of Anthropology at Aarhus University where she
directs the research project AURA (Aarhus University Research on the
Anthropocene). Anna’s diverse and exquisite analyses of the entanglement between
forms of life and forms of power have resulted in a wealth of remarkable publications
including In the Realm of the Diamond Queen (1994), Nature in the Global South:
Environmental Projects in South and Southeast Asia. (co-edited with P. Greenough)
(2003) and Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection (2005). Anna has two
forthcoming books about the Anthropocene: The Mushroom at the End of the World
and Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Stories from the Anthropocene (co-edited
with Nils Bubandt, Elaine Gan, and Heather Anne Swanson).
D
ONNA
H
ARAWAY
. Distinguished Professor Emerita of the History of Consciousness
Department and the Feminist Studies Department at the University of California,
Santa Cruz. A leading and highly influential scholar within the field of science and
technology studies for several decades, Donna’s work is suffused by a truly trans-
disciplinary curiosity that spans feminism, primatology, ecology, science-fiction,
developmental biology, and literary theory. Donna’s work is unique in that it
combines this broad-ranging curiosity with intellectual acuity and a strong political
commitment that encompasses humans and non-humans. Donna’s publications
include: When Species Meet (2007); The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs,
People, and Significant Otherness (2003);
Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan©_Meets_Oncomouse™ (1996);
1
The taped conversation was transcribed by Mathilde Højrup and edited by Nils
Page 2 of 32
URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/retn
Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What is the structure of the humanosphere?

In other words, the structure of the Humanosphere is defined by such factors as material and water flows, biological activities in common lands, rivers and seas as well as their complex interactions. 

Q2. What is the name for the project of phallic man?

Including the necessity of tragic domination of the secular project of phallic man, which The authorthink the Anthropocene is a name for. 

Q3. What is the meaning of the plantationocene?

The Plantationocene makes one pay attention to the historical relocations of the substances of living and dying around the Earth as a necessary prerequisite to their extraction (see also Lewis and Maslin 2015). 

Q4. What is the meaning of the word anthropocene?

The potential gift of the Anthropocene is its push to radically rethink the “anthropos” that is the object of the discipline and thereby to force anthropology to become relevant, in a novel and crucial way, to understanding a world faced with unprecedented human-induced environmental disaster (Ceballos et al 2015; Pimm et al 2014). 

Q5. What is the meaning of shinra bansho?

In Japanese shinra bansho (森羅万象) refers to“all things in the universe” or “all the creation between heaven and earth”, of which the authors humans are occupy only a small part. 

Q6. What is the meaning of the term anthropocene?

Popularized by Eugene Stoermer and Paul Crutzen, Anthropocene names an age in which human industry has come to equal or even surpass the processes of geology, and in which humans in their attempt to conquer it have inadvertently become a destructive force of nature (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000; Steffen et al. 2011). 

Q7. What is the point of the post?

Your point about bringing in people from outside as to the slaves themselves in the West Indies because they did not reproduce, they had to keep bringing in new supplies. 

Q8. Who is the author of the book Anthropogenic Tropical Forests?

His forthcoming book Anthropogenic Tropical Forests: Resilience of Post-Development Nature and Society studies the transformation of a high biomass society in Sarawak (co-edited with R. Soda). 

Q9. What is the potential poison of the Anthropocene?

The potential poison of the Anthropocene is that it may end up either dissolving the human altogether or, perhaps even worse, fetishizing it (when others begin to take it too seriously). 

Q10. Who is the author of the forthcoming books?

Anna has two forthcoming books about the Anthropocene: The Mushroom at the End of the World and Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Stories from the Anthropocene (co-edited with Nils Bubandt, Elaine Gan, and Heather Anne Swanson). 

Q11. What is the way to describe the relationship between social scientists and scientists?

Particularly those forms of experiments in which social scientists naively adopt the scientific form, reducing questions to tautologies that you can test a hypothesis and quantify everything. 

Q12. What is the main reason why AURA is so successful?

I think – and it is in the main thanks to Anna – that in AURA, a transdisciplinary project about the Anthropocene at Aarhus University that involves both anthropologists and biologists, some of the most fruitful moments have come, not when the authors have epistemological discussions, but when the authors are in the field together talking about concrete findings. 

Q13. What is the importance of long distance investors in creating an abstract relationship between investment and property?

What thinking through capital means for knowing the Anthropocene might be to consider the importance of long- distance investors in creating an abstract relationship between investment and property. 

Q14. What are the recent publications of Anna’s?

Anna’s diverse and exquisite analyses of the entanglement between forms of life and forms of power have resulted in a wealth of remarkable publications including