Managing the Anthropocene: Sustainability for the Future

Resumo / Abstract: The concept of the Anthropocene is now well established in both mainstream natural and social sciences (Biermann, Bai, Bondre, Broadgate, Chen, Dube, Erisman, Glaser, van der Hel, Lemos, Seitzinger and Seto, 2016; Hamilton, Bonneuil, and Gemenne, 2015; Latour, 2015). In 2000, Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen and Eugene F. Stoermer proposed that the impact of human beings’ organized activities on Earth is so significant that the current geological epoch can be called the Anthropocene: the age of humans (Crutzen and Stoermer, 2000). The challenges of the human-induced global environmental change have been extensively debated for decades (e.g., Carson, 1962; Meadows et al., 1972; Georgescu-Roegen, 1975) but the scale of human agency on Earth systems and related processes are now more evident and quantifiable (Andonova and Mitchell, 2010; Liu et al., 2015). The concept of the Anthropocene universalizes social, material, ecological and geological realities into one common environment: planet Earth. While the notion of the Anthropocene may be typical of totalizing narratives (see Lyotard, 1979; Parker, 1995), it plays the significant discursive role of promoting global awareness and collective responsibility for unfolding multi-scalar ecological crises. In addition, the notion spurs reflection on contemporary axiologies, ontologies, and epistemologies (Cunha et al., 2008; Hoffman and Jennings, 2015; Heikkurinen et al., 2016). Latour (2014a), for example, argues for consideration of the so-called metamorphic zone in which natural and material forces amalgamate and act, including Earth itself. From this perspective, all forms of agency inhabit a flat ontology in which human actors and the networks of activities in which they are engaged have no a priori theoretical privilege as actors per se (Pickering, 1995; Latour, 1999a and 1999b; Collinge, 2006; Latour, 2009). Given this context, the paper reflects on what is to be done.

Outros seminários / Other seminars: Programa completo / Full programme.