{"id":11838,"date":"2021-05-18T21:42:37","date_gmt":"2021-05-19T02:42:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=11838"},"modified":"2021-05-18T21:45:32","modified_gmt":"2021-05-19T02:45:32","slug":"manthropocene-vs-the-pluriverse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2021\/05\/18\/manthropocene-vs-the-pluriverse\/","title":{"rendered":"(M)anthropocene vs. the pluriverse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Those interested in the Anthropo(S)cene thread<\/a> (technically, a “category”) of this blog may be interested in the call for proposals for a special issue of Radical History Review<\/a> on Alternatives to the Anthropocene<\/a>. (Hat tip to Jeremy Schmidt at The Anthropo.Scene<\/a>.) The call reads, in part:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

By \u201calternatives to the Anthropocene,\u201d we invite discussion of at least three connected topics: the Anthropocene as a technocratic, scientific designation of our current epoch; the limits of this approach to periodizing the last 500 years; and the social movements that have challenged the extractive capitalism essential to this epoch. The issue thus presumes that the Anthropocene resulted not simply from world-changing technological innovations like the steam engine. Rather, it resulted from multiple political defeats that consolidated capitalist and colonialist modernity<\/em> [emphasis added]. We invite contributions that highlight struggles for environmental, social, and technological alternatives to the forces that produced the Anthropocene. Essays should examine these histories of resistance that might construct fruitful genealogies for the present environmental crisis and produce a more open and political reading of environmental history.<\/p>

We seek submissions that offer new insights into what Joan Martinez Alier and Ramachandra Guha call \u201cthe environmentalism of the poor,\u201d which has resisted the colonial, capitalist histories that have wrought epochal environmental destruction. How would environmental history transform if we centered the environmentalism of the poor? What are the cultural and political expressions of such environmentalisms in diverse historical and geographic circumstances? What continuities link movements across time and space?  We welcome contributions on any time period. We particularly seek work that contests dominant readings of the Anthropocene as a post-1800 phenomenon and centers environmental history that examines the beginning of the era of European colonial expansion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The full call is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I emphasized the line about “multiple political defeats” because I find this to be a novel way of discussing the emergence of “capitalist and colonialist modernity.” The latter is one of a series of acceptable variations for describing the “system<\/a>” responsible for the the “Orbis spike” (1610) version<\/a> of the Anthropocene, but that system is more often considered victorious due to its own inherent characteristics — furiously competing maritime empires, an immunologically invasive “portmanteau biota<\/a>,” advantageous weaponry, and so on — than due to the failures of those who resisted it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By identifying “environmental, social, and technological alternatives to the forces that produced the Anthropocene” with Martinez Alier’s and Guha’s “environmentalism of the poor<\/a>,” we get, on the one hand, a (dramatically) oversimplified account of history but, on the other, a useful framework for considering the scope and strength of alternatives available today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s oversimplified because, of course, the “resistance” to “capitalist and colonialist modernity” was neither unified nor particularly coherent when that constellation of forces was spreading most rapidly around the world. But it’s useful if it helps us reimagine the scope of alternatives and ways forward today, and I think the journal call intends to do exactly that. Instead of Marxist class analysis or some overarching world-systems analysis, we have “modes of resistance of diverse ‘environmentalisms of the poor,'” the “excavation” of “overlooked popular environmentalisms” and “alternative modes of production,” and multiple other “resistance movements” with their “alternative genealogies.” (Next stop: Pluriverse<\/a>, with all the decolonial<\/a> threads growing into and out of that set of discourses<\/a>.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I take this call as an indication of how the framing of “alternatives” is changing (and how the Foucauldian poststructuralist language of genealogies, resistance movements, and alternative modernities has become part of the air we breathe). Remember how recently Fredric Jameson is said to have said<\/a>, or heard, that it was easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism<\/a>? We are, I think, in the midst of an epistemic shift that would make it easier, even if we’re not sure yet what will come out the other end. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Those interested in the Anthropo(S)cene thread (technically, a “category”) of this blog may be interested in the call for proposals for a special issue of Radical History Review on Alternatives to the Anthropocene. (Hat tip to Jeremy Schmidt at The Anthropo.Scene.) The call reads, in part:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[688615],"tags":[660391,123667,660385,660389,660390,660393,16781,660387,660395,628417,123607,660388,660392,660386],"class_list":["post-11838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropo_scene","tag-alfred-crosby","tag-anthropocene","tag-calls-for-proposals","tag-columbian-invasion","tag-ecological-imperialism","tag-environmentalism-of-the-poor","tag-foucault","tag-manthropocene","tag-martinez-alier","tag-multiple-modernities","tag-orbis-spike","tag-planthropocene","tag-pluriverse","tag-radical-history-review"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-34W","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12803,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2022\/08\/04\/after-the-anthropocene-the-deluge\/","url_meta":{"origin":11838,"position":0},"title":"After the Anthropocene, the deluge?","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"August 4, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"On the Ecocene, the Chthulucene, the Ecozoic, and other Holocene successor terms The term \"Anthropocene\" has come to be accepted among many intellectuals as the best, or perhaps least worst, name for the geological present, when human activities have come to dominate the planet. It's still debated among geologists, with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthropocene"","block_context":{"text":"Anthropocene","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/anthropo_scene\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2022\/07\/1_yKN9ZnquOlc3qgKjhDKRjQ.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2022\/07\/1_yKN9ZnquOlc3qgKjhDKRjQ.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2022\/07\/1_yKN9ZnquOlc3qgKjhDKRjQ.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2022\/07\/1_yKN9ZnquOlc3qgKjhDKRjQ.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2022\/07\/1_yKN9ZnquOlc3qgKjhDKRjQ.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2022\/07\/1_yKN9ZnquOlc3qgKjhDKRjQ.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8265,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2015\/07\/21\/bandwagocene\/","url_meta":{"origin":11838,"position":1},"title":"Bandwagocene","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"July 21, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"These days, it takes a course release for an academic to keep up with the avalanche of books\u00a0being published with titles that feature the word \"Anthropocene.\" To read them would take a sabbatical. Doing anything approximating a \"slow read\" would require, well, retirement. But that's no reason not to try.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthropocene"","block_context":{"text":"Anthropocene","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/anthropo_scene\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7645,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2014\/06\/12\/on-naming-the-anthropocene\/","url_meta":{"origin":11838,"position":2},"title":"On naming the Anthropocene","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 12, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The following are the comments I prepared for the roundtable \"The Arts and Humanities Respond to the Anthropocene.\" They follow in the line of critical thinking on the Anthropocene initiated by\u00a0gatherings like the Anthropocene Project (see here, here, and here, and some of the posts\u00a0at A(S)CENE) and journals like Environmental\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthropocene"","block_context":{"text":"Anthropocene","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/anthropo_scene\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"HABITUS-9-medium-1024x682","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2014\/06\/HABITUS-9-medium-1024x682-275x183.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9811,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2018\/08\/12\/welcome-to-the-meghalayan\/","url_meta":{"origin":11838,"position":3},"title":"Welcome to the… Meghalayan?","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"August 12, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Geology watchers were more than a little surprised last month to learn that we are living in a new age called the Meghalayan, which apparently began about 4200 years ago. After all the\u00a0excitement\u00a0over the\u00a0Anthropocene, it seems that a rival group of geological stratigraphers -- one tasked with naming the sub-parts\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthropocene"","block_context":{"text":"Anthropocene","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/anthropo_scene\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7754,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2014\/08\/18\/anthropocene-too-serious-for-postmodern-games\/","url_meta":{"origin":11838,"position":4},"title":"Anthropocene: Too serious for postmodern games","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"August 18, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The following is a guest post by Clive Hamilton, professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University in Canberra, Australia. It continues the Immanence series \"Debating the Anthropocene.\" See here,\u00a0here, and here for previous articles in the series. (And note that some lengthy comments have been added to the previous\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthropocene"","block_context":{"text":"Anthropocene","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/anthropo_scene\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"040325_hmed_iceberg_1130a.grid-6x2","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2014\/08\/040325_hmed_iceberg_1130a.grid-6x2-275x163.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13530,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2024\/03\/05\/white-smoke\/","url_meta":{"origin":11838,"position":5},"title":"White smoke","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"March 5, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Everyone sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for geologists to finally decide whether or not we have entered the Anthropocene epoch can now breath a sigh of relief. They've sent up their white smoke signal to indicate that yes, they've decided. (Oh, maybe I'm mixing it up with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthropocene"","block_context":{"text":"Anthropocene","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/anthropo_scene\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2024\/03\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2024\/03\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2024\/03\/image.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2024\/03\/image.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2024\/03\/image.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11838"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11842,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11838\/revisions\/11842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}