Creating Better Anthropocenes
"...a collaboration of scholars working on Anthropocene-related questions from the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities."
We were brought together as Anthropocene scholars by the historical momentum of the Covid-19 pandemic. A product of the ecological and socio-cultural conditions that have been analyzed by Anthropocene scholars during the past 20 years, the pandemic has brought into sharp focus the urgency of adequate responses to the socio-ecological crisis that forms our human condition today. Anthropocene research has consistently shown that present-time industrialism is on a self-destructive course by disrupting the metabolism of the biosphere and interfering with other Earth systems such as the atmosphere, pedosphere, and hydrosphere.
Human civilization's attempt to live outside the biosphere will come at an exorbitantly high cost that is consistently buck-passed onto future generations. So far, the only response has been a technocratic focus on sustainability; yet, what is being 'sustained' more often than not is the relentless dynamism of productivism and consumerism. We are convinced that without a substantial change in our habitual consumerist practices and a radical reorientation in our relation to the web of life that makes human life possible, we will not be able to bring about the transformations necessary to face up to the challenges ahead of us.
"A joint venture of Newcastle University, Leicester University, Exeter University, Indiana University (Indianapolis and Bloomington)"
The initiative "Creating Better Anthropocenes" is a collaborative research project that explores the history of specific cultural practices that we now associate with the Anthropocene (mobility, dwelling in concrete plasticity, consuming products of global supply chains, infiltrating ecosystems with myriads of artificial substances whose chemical interaction is not known, clothing ourselves in microplastic textiles, etc., etc.). We are seeking to collaborate with academic and non-academic partners to devise responses and solutions to how these global issues manifest themselves locally and to raise awareness of the precarious conditions we are inhabiting and of the high risks involved in carrying on with 'business as usual'.