un/predictable environments
A space for conversation, analysis, and inquiry following the Un/Predictable Environments Conference, May 20-21, 2021
As a follow-up to Paper Session 4, Embodied Knowledges and Multiple Cosmopolitical Approaches to Environmental Change with Jorge P. Legoas, Heather Alberro, and Jim Igoe (May 20, 2021, 9:30-10:40 PDT), I would like to posit a question: As part of her paper, Heather Alberro explained why she prefers the term Capitalocene to the term Anthropocene, a stance I sympathize with. As critics have noted the universal figure of the human implied by the “Anthropo”-cene is dangerous given its tendency to ignore the disproportional impact certain peoples have on the current climate crisis and who will bear the brunt of climate change impacts. In part because of such discrepancies Baskin (2015) argues the Anthropocene is “paradigm dressed as epoch” – that it is less a geological era collectively brought about and experienced by humankind than an ideology that underpins a particular (white capitalist) view of the world. He writes that in the Anthropocene, “Humanity is [wrongly] made one with modern enlightenment man, the man for whom ‘progress’, ‘growth’, and ‘development’ are the dominant goals” (16). It’s along this line Moore (2015) advocates for the Capitalocene, a title that names capitalism – not the human “species” – as responsible for the current climate crisis (see also Haraway 2016), and Mirzoeff (2016) advocates for naming it the White Supremacy Scene since the universal human implied by the Anthropocene really turns out to be “our old friend the (imperialist) white male” (123). These critiques are important, and true. (click read more to continue) At the same time we respect the lessons brought to us by critiques of the Anthropocene, however, science tells us that something new is, in fact, happening – or better said, something old is happening on a new scale (Whyte 2017) – and that some portion of the human species is, in fact, responsible for it. Chakrabarty (2009) writes that even while certain people are disproportionately responsible for carbon emissions and we must take that into account, there is something about climate change that affects the “boundary parameters” (218) of human existence at a scale never before seen. Ghosh (2016) observes climate change involves, “forces of unthinkable magnitude that create unbearably intimate connections over vast gaps in time and space” (63) – that “the waters that are invading the Sundarbans are also invading Miami Beach; deserts are advancing in China as well as Peru; wildfires are intensifying in Australia as well as Texas and Canada” (62). The ethics compound: we must be leery of species thinking, while not avoiding it altogether. Though scholars need to be careful with terms like “the Anthropocene,” as they imply a homogenous and exclusionary characterization of “the human,” responding to global climate change requires a responsible kind of species thinking that acknowledges historical (and racialized) power differentials while simultaneously acknowledging our shared status as humans on an imperiled planet. In my work, I look to critical race theorists for inspiration in this. The exploitation of bodies and land required by capitalism itself requires an exclusive and hierarchical figuration of what bodies and land matter in the first place. Because of this, certain peoples and lands have been rendered disposable as a necessary condition of capitalism, and by extension, the current climate crisis. Mbembe (2018:182) writes, “the desire for the fullness of humanity is what we all share,” arguing “the durability of the world depends on our capacity to reanimate beings and things that seem lifeless” (ibid:181). This is why anti-racist work is climate change activism: because extending true personhood to racialized peoples models the reanimation of ‘lifeless’ peoples and lands needed to counter unchecked resource exploitation and responsibly mitigate the impacts of climate change. Wynter (1995) argues that while we have not yet realized empathy for humans as a species – that we have chosen to respond empathetically only to certain sections of humanity, according to power and culture – we have an innate ability to extend our empathy pathways. She asks, “Can we put forward a new world view…from the perspective of the species?” and answers, “My central thesis is that we can” (8). I agree with her. Perhaps the key is to hold human difference and commonality together in their complexity even if “how differences are to be adjudicated and by whom remain crucial questions” (Collard et al. 2014:326). How might we adjudicate differences to imagine a more inclusive humanism? In the context of our un/predictable futures, does it matter?
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