Germinations

Abstract

The idea of the Anthropocene has spread far beyond its origins in geology, becoming common in contemporary activist and intellectual circles. But who is responsible for the mounting disasters associated with the age of anthropos, and who should be made to pay reparations? What if the onset of the Anthropocene was tenaciously resisted in various different historical moments and parts of the planet? This issue recuperates the alternative worlds, orientations, and subaltern environmental movements that constitute radical historical alternatives to the Anthropocene. We conceptualize these alternatives as seeds of ecological insurrection, sometimes lying long dormant but always ready to rise up again when the time is right. At a moment when elites have intransigently refused to decarbonize society, we must look back to histories of revolt to broaden the repertoire of militant tactics available to face the environmental emergency.