The jury is still out – quite literally – on whether or not we are living in a new epoch called “the Anthropocene.” Even so, for many social scientists and humanities scholars, the Anthropocene is very much upon us, and this has consequences. Key among them is that it’s time for disciplinary revitalisation and relevance: the human sciences must rethink what we know, how we know it and reconfigure our quotidian knowledge practices to capture and productively engage with our new and rapidly-changing world. Yet, what precisely this means for different scholars in the human sciences – even for those within the same discipline – differs and leads in many, sometimes contradictory directions. This article explores some of the ways anthropologists are engaging with the Anthropocene, and considers the prospects for an “Anthropocene Anthropology” in light of what sometimes seems an incorrigibly Holocene world.
Read the full article here.
Sanders, T. and E.F. Hall 2015. ‘Is there hope for an Anthropocene Anthropology?’ Anthropologies: A Collaborative Online Project, 21 (August). Special issue on Anthropology and Climate Change. Hosted by Savage Minds: Notes and Queries in Anthropology.