The Politics of the Anthropocene: Temporality, Ecology, and Indigeneity

Abstract

The notion of the Anthropocene has become an instrumental backdrop against which post-foundational social theory and political research frame political action in a way that defies modern certainty and, somewhat paradoxically, anthropocentrism, under conditions of drastic ecological changes. But what exactly is the theoretical promise of the Anthropocene? This paper seeks to explore what the concept can offer to critical social science and, conversely, how these critical approaches define and locate the analytical and the political purchase of the Anthropocene, through the critical lens of Indigenous scholarship. The paper genealogically retraces the transition from a science-led, discontinuous-descriptive to a continuous-ontological conceptualization of the Anthropocene. It then unpacks how the notions of ecological relationality and non-human agency deployed in the latter closely parallel certain lines of argumentation in Indigenous thought and politics. Drawing on critical Indigenous studies, the paper formulates a critique of how relational perspectives enfold alternative ontologies and politics within an overarching Anthropocene ontology that is not only problematically universalizing, but also replaces the genuine engagement with differences and resistance.