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Copyright of Social Anthropology / Anthropologie Sociale is the property of Berghahn Books and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The ethnographic focus of this paper is a group of sourdough bakers based in Finland, with a specific view on a fermentation workshop in 2019. In this workshop, emerging human-microbe relations were drawn, bringing attention to a post-antibiotic world. Studying bread making necessitates a more-than-human analysis that foregrounds microbes as central characters situated in the political climate of increasing populism and the Anthropocene. In this paper I describe bakers, termed microbiohackers, putting forward critiques of capitalism that link ecological extraction, political oppression, and industrial food production. Crafting an alternative to the dominant public health narrative of microbes as a threat and antimicrobial resistance, I use the notion of diffraction to discuss the complex entanglements of the microbial/material and social/political. In the hands of the bakers, fermentation, sourdough, and antimicrobial resistance present an opportunity to question dualisms of how microbes are thought about and to create emergent post-antibiotic futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cuadernos Geograficos is the property of Cuadernos Geograficos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The International Geological Congress has yet formally to adopt the Anthropocene. It is still, to that extent, an imagined epoch. The term 'Anthropocene' refers us to the deep time of geological epochs, but alternate terms for what we can expect to experience have a more specifically anthropological focus: the Capitalocene, Chthulucene and Misanthropocene. Only Entropocene breaks with the humanistic tradition. Comparing Tsui Hark's 2014 The Taking of Tiger Mountain (Zhiqu weihu shan), the second adaptation of Qu Bo's adventure novel of the People's Liberation Army, with the 1970 film of the Peking Opera version directed by Xie Tieli, demonstrates the stakes in imaginations of mountains separated by 45 years. This paper argues that the later film evolves from the failure of the Cultural Revolution's imagination to encompass the landscape of its setting. The increased incoherence of the later film derives from its increased engagement in technical mediations, which in turn enable a complex interaction between utopian Revolution and dystopian Anthropocene imaginaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the socio‐legal and everyday moral geographies of human cohabitation with free‐living dogs in India to think through what is implicated in living with nonhuman difference on a planet where the social and the natural are inextricably entangled. It investigates the contours of canine cosmopolitanism in Chennai city and theorises street dogs as unintentional natures to problematise dominant ideas about valued and pestilent nonhuman life, drawing out implications for biodiversity conservation and other more‐than‐humanisms. Through these analyses, the paper transgresses the silos of domestic/wild and biodiversity conservation/animal protection to advance scholarship on the politics of (non)dualism and offers thought experiments on making and maintaining more‐than‐human society in contemporary times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers whether the twenty-first-century resurgence of H. P. Lovecraft and weird fiction can be read as a conceptual parallel to the Anthropocene epoch, taking Carl H. Sederholm and Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock's The Age of Lovecraft as a starting-point. The assumption is that the two 'ages' are historically and thematically linked through the 'monsters' that inhabit them; monsters that include-- but are not limited to--extensions, reproductions, and evolutions of Lovecraft's writings. Preoccupied with environmental issues such as global climate change, the twenty-first-century imaginary has conjured monsters that appear to have much in common with early twentieth-century cosmic horror stories. Considering the renewed interest in Lovecraft and the weird, such developments raise the question: what can (weird) monsters tell us about the Anthropocene moment? This paper maps the 'monstrous' in the discourses emerging from the Anthropocene epoch and 'The Age of Lovecraft' by considering (new) weird narratives from contemporary literature, graphic novels, film, TV, and video games. Mindful of on-going discussions within ecocriticism, philosophy, and critical theory, the paper discusses a handful of unconventional texts to investigate the potential of the weird for expressing Anthropocene anxieties and for approaching nonhuman realities from new angles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of neoliberal environmentalism was to unleash the market to protect the environment; but as it turns out, things are getting worse on our way to catastrophe. Despite persistent failures, neoliberal environmentalism remains prevalent—and apparently without alternative. This paper directs focus on an often-overlooked dimension of this apparent stasis: the nexus of self and society in advanced capitalism, as shown in the linkage between neoliberal environmentalism and the autonomous ecoconsumer. Marcuse's concept of repressive desublimation is engaged to better understand how environmentalist desire is currently being thwarted in ways that inhibit movement toward socioecological emancipation. The paper provides an illustrative example of desublimated environmentalist desire in the current recycling crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to analyse how breathing, illustrated and expanded by Samuel Beckett's selected works, might be reconsidered as a conceptual category and corporeal phenomenon in the Anthropocene. The paper discusses three instances in Beckett's corpus where breathing resurfaces as neither exclusively human nor nourishing. It is argued that breathing forms an intricate web of relationships with other human and nonhuman actants. Consequently – and this is especially important in the Anthropocene and the times of environmental degradation – breathing makes collective experience and coexistence deeper and more apparent; yet, this collective dimension also signifies inherent vulnerability rooted in the body's porosity, as respiration is always threatened with contamination, which might make it frail. In this light, the article includes textual analyses of Breath and Not I, two works that conjoin the deterioration of the world with respiratory crises. The analyses of Beckett's works are juxtaposed with selected concepts derived from new materialism, object-oriented ontology, and deconstruction. As I argue, reading Beckett and breath in the context of the Anthropocene should draw our utmost attention since it might help us radically alter our thinking as we face possible, if not inevitable, catastrophes that challenge the binary of finitude and continuity and that of life and death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Singer-songwriter Jack Johnson is known for his laid back, inoffensive and seemingly uncontroversial music; however (perhaps paradoxically), he is also known for his environmental activism and accountability measures, measures that may seem at odds with his relaxed personality and musical output. In the 2016 short documentary film The Smog of the Sea, Johnson partakes as a citizen scientist in an expedition to the Sargasso Sea. Here he comes to the realization that the ocean is no longer this pristine wilderness; instead, the effects of human action (in the form of plastic) can be seen everywhere. In this short film, we see the coming together of Johnson's laid-back aesthetic with a keen and urgent message to effect positive environmental change, amounting to what some commentators have referred to as a kind of 'quiet activism.' In this paper we critically explore the role and value of quiet activism in contradistinction to other modes typically associated with ecomedia, especially the trope of the apocalypse. We argue that the hope associated with such quiet activism may be an effective approach to environmental politics in the epoch of the anthropocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the value of the magical girl (mahō shōjo) anime in the Anthropocene through three selected works: Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011), Yuki Yuna Is a Hero (2014), and Wonder Egg Priority (2021). By reading them against the history of the magical girl genre and the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, this paper highlights how each presents a gendered system that both sustains and threatens the world, and how science is intertwined with magic and affects in the (de-)construction of the system. These works thus enrich the imagination of science when the world is increasingly entangled with humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plastics, as supermodern artefacts of the Anthropocene, form a significant part of waste landscapes. But they also pollute landscapes - cultural and natural, marine and terrestrial - across the globe, including in the most isolated of places. The material's resilience means that plastic pollution is one of the biggest global challenges facing contemporary society. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, this paper demonstrates how archaeological methods can help address the issue of plastic pollution in Galapagos, which is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its "Outstanding Universal Value" to humanity. Studied archaeologically, plastics are artefacts that through careful observation can yield precious information about their journey to this archipelago. As objects of story writing and the focus of object itineraries, they can also be used as a window into perceptions of plastic litter locally, as well as providing an opportunity to engage students in the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of History Education & Culture is the property of Wochenschau Verlag GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper presents an integrated study on the effects of human activity, climate change and crustal movement on the changes of the middle reaches of the Tarim River in China. Remote sensing images and rainfall data from 38 stations from 1970 to 2021 were used for the research. The precise point positioning (PPP) approach was applied to ascertain the crustal movement of the study area using 256 Global Positioning System (GPS) station data of the recent 20 years. The results show that in the past 50 years the studied reaches of the river has moved north at maximum 2940 m or 57.9 m on average, and human activity may have played a dominant role in this change though extreme events of climate may have also taken a part in it. However, before the Anthropocene, its northeast migration is likely associated with crustal movement as the basin bottom inclines to northeast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anxieties around the relationship between livestock agriculture and the environmental crisis are driving sustained discussions about the place of beef and dairy farming in a sustainable food system. Proposed solutions range from 'clean‐cow' sustainable intensification to 'no‐cow', animal free futures, both of which encourage a disruptive break with past practice. This paper reviews the alternative proposition of regenerative agriculture that naturalises beef and dairy production by invoking the past to justify future, nature‐based solutions. Drawing on fieldwork in the UK, it first introduces two of the most prominent strands to this green rebranding of cattle: the naturalisation of ruminant methane emissions and the optimisation of soil carbon sequestration via the use of ruminant grazing animals. Subsequent thematic analysis outlines the three political strategies of post‐pastoral storytelling, political ecological baselining and a probiotic model of bovine biopolitics that perform this naturalisation. The conclusion assesses the potential and the risks of this approach to grounding the geographies and the temporalities of agricultural transition in the Anthropocene: an epoch in which time is out of joint and natures are multiple and non‐analogue, such that they provide slippery and contested grounds for political solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central question in this paper is whether anthropogenic mass extinction is ethically problematic above and beyond the sum of extinctions involved. The point of asking this question is not to determine the ethical status of anthropogenic massive extinction, which is clearly ethical horrendous. It is to see if - as is the case with interrogating the wrongness and badness of extinction - answering it illuminates something about the value of what is being lost and sharpens the considerations that substantiate the view; and, if so, whether that might be useful in the context of evaluating mooted approaches to mitigating or adapting to it. The view defended is that massive extinction driven by undermining the conditions that make life forms possible for diverse and higher taxonomic groups constitutes a planetary shift, a phase change, different in kind from merely accelerated anthropogenic change. Justified partiality to the current assemblages of species and biomes is grounded in human relationships, dependencies, histories, and connections with this particular planetary state. This partiality warrants recognizing the loss of this state of the planet - these biospheric conditions, species assemblages, and biomes - as bad, above and beyond the individual harms and species losses involved. This account explains and substantiates why a mass extinction is worse than an equal number of extinctions spread over multiple systems or planets, all other things being equal. This account also provides reason not to embrace the anthropocene or embark on a synthetic age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its inception, science education has been the focus of a great many reform attempts. In general, the aim has been to improve science understanding and/or make science study more interesting and/or relevant to a wider range of students. However, these reform attempts have had limited success. This paper argues that this is in part because science education as a discipline has some 'blind spots', some unacknowledged assumptions that obstruct its development and make it immune to change. While this has long been a problem, the paper argues that, in the new, 'postnormal' conditions of the twenty-first century, it is now imperative that we see these blind spots and think differently about what science education is for. School science as we now know it (along with the other school subjects) developed as part of, and in parallel with, modern economies/societies, which in turn depended on the burning of fossil fuels. However, because this period of 'carbonised modernity' is now coming to an end, many of the assumptions it was built on must be re-examined. This has (or should have) major implications for science education. Via an exploration of three very different 'orientations to the future', the paper aims to provoke discussion of how science education could be reconceptualised to support our transition into the post-carbon, Anthropocene era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

David Claerbout is a contemporary artist working in the field of photography, film and digital animation, employing a range of aesthetic strategies to address shifting ideologies of vision: attention to light and time; the erasure of narrative in cinematic representation. This paper considers the political import of such strategies from an Australian perspective, in light of recent environmental catastrophe and extinction in the Anthropocene, whereby the depiction of worlds without humans occupies a space in the collective imagination signifying ruination. The paper examines Claerbout's recent works, Olympia (the Real-Time Disintegration into Ruins of the Berlin Olympic Stadium over the Course of a Thousand Years) (2016) and The pure necessity (2016). It argues for the relevance of his work to posthumanist writings on extinction; for instance, Claire Colebrook and Joanna Zylinska, whereby the human desire to visualize 'the world without us' is problematized as an overtly anthropocentric celebration of human vision. I argue that Claerbout's expanded photo-filmic practice reveals how artistic production might tackle the problem of responsibly providing frameworks to consider the world outside of an anthropocentric viewpoint. Considering his work from such a framework, I ask, what does it take to represent the world without us? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Anthropocene is a multifaceted phenomenon. One aspect that is often overlooked is that it constitutes a heritage. Heritage is itself a complex notion that manifests in different ways depending on subjective and/or ideological positions taken towards it. The picture is further complicated if we attempt to take non-, pre- or post-human perspectives into account. This paper attempts to unravel various aspects of Anthropocene heritage through a case study of a small area of Sydney's inner harbour. The area concerned is one explored and experienced on a daily basis by the author as a resident engaged in auto-ethnographic contemplation of the locale and aware of the contradictions of living in such an urban space whilst advocating and campaigning for various Green concerns. The paper thereby addresses the entanglement of human and nonhuman, urban and ecological ways of living, and various senses and perceptions of space in a particular terrestrial/marine interzone. More particularly, it examines the manner in which mangroves are an active agent and key marker of space within this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current epoch is often described by cultural theorists as facing an ontological turn with regard to the question of nature. In the Anthropocene, 'Mother Nature' makes space for 'Gaia', a nature that is inseparably related to culture. In turn, Gaia has vehemently been criticized as a harmonious figure of whole-ism. Utilizing a psychoanalytic framework, this paper traces the shift from Nature to Gaia through Jacques Lacan's 'formulas of sexuation'. From a Lacanian standpoint, sexual difference paves the way towards two different ways of relating nature and culture. Addressing the case of ruination, the author engages with the two underlying ontologies taking place in debates on nature: the narrative of Mother Nature based on a 'masculine' ontology, and the notion of Gaia as following a 'feminine' ontology. The paper concludes by outlining a feminine reading of the Anthropocene that captures nature and culture as ruined and immanently out of joint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a summary of the Editorial of the 25th Anniversary Special Issue of European Planning Studies. The editorial summarizes three representative articles from planners and economic policy actors published in 1993, the first year of publication of the journal. These write of threats and possibilities from privatized planning, from the European Single Market and the prospects for regional innovation policy. In the second part, nine papers are summarized. These range from an exegesis of the Anthropocene, the rise of populism and the transition in neoliberalist planning, and migration as a city planning issue in European cities. Other papers then analyse aspects of evolutionary change upon city and region policy and process dynamics. Finally a group of papers explore the rise of creative cities, 4.0 era industry and services and the role of 'starchitects' in city renewal as well as 4.0 digital settlements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current and continuing climate change in the Anthropocene epoch requires sustainable agricultural practices. Additionally, due to changing consumer preferences, organic approaches to cultivation are gaining popularity. The global market for organic grapes, grape products, and wine is growing. Biostimulant and biocontrol products are often applied in organic vineyards and can reduce the synthetic fertilizer, pesticide, and fungicide requirements of a vineyard. Plant growth promotion following application is also observed under a variety of challenging conditions associated with global warming. This paper reviews different groups of biostimulants and their effects on viticulture, including microorganisms, protein hydrolysates, humic acids, pyrogenic materials, and seaweed extracts. Of special interest are biostimulants with utility in protecting plants against the effects of climate change, including drought and heat stress. While many beneficial effects have been reported following the application of these materials, most studies lack a mechanistic explanation, and important parameters are often undefined (e.g., soil characteristics and nutrient availability). We recommend an increased study of the underlying mechanisms of these products to enable the selection of proper biostimulants, application methods, and dosage in viticulture. A detailed understanding of processes dictating beneficial effects in vineyards following application may allow for biostimulants with increased efficacy, uptake, and sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human activity is affecting and transforming the natural environment, changing the ecosystem mosaic and natural biogeochemical processes in urban-industrial landscapes. Among the anthropogenic ecosystems, there are many present features of Novel Ecosystems (NE), e.g., the de novo created habitats on post-mineral excavation sites. The biological nature of the functional mechanisms of Novel Ecosystems is mostly unknown. In natural and semi-natural ecosystems, biodiversity is considered as the primary element influencing ecosystem processes and functioning. The preliminary studies conducted on post-mineral excavation sites have shown that, in poor oligotrophic habitats, the species composition of the assembled vascular plants is non-analogous, distinctive, and not found in natural and semi-natural habitats. This paper aims to present the gaps between scientific identification of the biological mechanisms driving ecosystem processes and functioning (including the expanding areas of Novel Ecosystems created de novo). Among the identified gaps, the following issues should be listed. The detailed identification and understanding of the processes and biodiversity-dependent functioning of Novel Ecosystems is crucial for proper environmental management, particularly when facing the challenges of ecological constraints and of global change. The ecology of Novel Ecosystems is a social and economic issue because of the relationships with densely populated urban-industrial areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes use of feminist posthumanism to outline how a range of heritage policies, practices and strategies, partly through their base in social constructivism have a clear anthropocentric focus. Not only do they risk downplaying materiality, but also a number of human and non-human others, driving a wedge between nature and culture. This may in turn be an obstacle for the use of heritage in sustainable development as it deals with range of naturalized others as if they have no agency and leaves the stage open for appropriation and exploitation. This paper probes into what heritage could be in the wake of current climate and environmental challenges if approached differently. It explores how a selection of feminist posthumanisms challenge the distinction between nature:culture in a way that could shift the approach to sustainability in heritage making from a negative to an affirmative framing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the long-term development of human geography we can observe a tendency to combine ideas from an intradisciplinary debate and those imported from outside the discipline. It is profoundly influenced by a number of impulses from the rapidly changing world. This paper provides a brief survey of challenges for human geography setting them within the context of paradigmatic development and economic, social, cultural, environmental, political, and technological changes. It briefly focuses on the debates of human geographers what their discipline could or should study in the near future and how it could be done. Part of the paper is devoted to a few reflections of authors from the Visegrad Four countries concentrating attention to further direction of human geography. Human geography is unlikely to be characterised by a mono-paradigm dominance in the next few decades, but a discussion on how to find a common base for the integration of paradigms in geography is likely to continue. Changing hierarchical structures, significant modernization processes, as well as local, regional and global changes influencing space-time behavioural patterns of humans can be expected among the main sources of inspiration for the human geographic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theories of a new phase of earth history, the Anthropocene, position human world-making activity as a bio-geological force. Social interventions into earth systems have been extensive and malignant, altering the earth's surface, atmosphere, oceans, and systems of nutrient cycling. To adapt and respond to emerging planetary dangers requires the collaboration of scholars from many different disciplines. In this paper, I argue that a coalition of the arts and sciences might draw upon György Márkus's extensive studies of the topography of 'high' culture. I reconstruct Márkus's conceptual map of the arts and sciences as regions of 'high' cultural activity, each with their own criteria of value yet subject to an integral unity and shared ambition. Both regions of 'high' culture aim to create original works of significance for an engaged public. I then examine the implications of Márkus's claim that the classical vocation of robust, public-oriented culture has run aground. The field of problems that this paper traverses are not the ecological crises of the Anthropocene per se. I attend rather to Márkus's account of the neoliberal erosion of cultural infrastructure where democratic publics might engage with such problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the collective effect of the ever-growing human population, deterioration of water quality, increased pollution, climate change, the changing water cycle, increased water scarcity, and intense competition for freshwater resources, it is predicted that wars in the future will be fought over freshwater instead of oil. A race to construct mega water-storage projects has already begun among co-riparian states, including between Pakistan and India and between India and China, to gain more control over their transboundary shared freshwater. Such contests are already giving birth to political turmoil and international disputes, which can evolve into wars among riparian states. The narrative that states will engage in future wars over freshwater is called the "water wars thesis." However, a counternarrative has also been emerging that argues that, instead of water wars, empirical data suggests that water cooperation in the form of bilateral or multilateral agreements and treaties will prevail over resort to armed conflict. Likewise, water scarcity can be effectively managed by sustainably developing and preserving freshwater resources, by controlling the human population, and by increasing the trade of virtual waters. Therefore, this paper seeks to strike a balance in this battle of narratives by exploring the key arguments of both factions to answer whether there will be fullfledged water wars taking place in the future. If so, which factors will instigate them? If not, then what will prevent them? The paper will also discuss the role of water cooperation, which is essential for dissipating the possibility of future wars among states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nature's imagination has been conceived in an allegorical or humanist fashion. This paper argues for a natural imagination in actuality as a radical counterpoint to status-quo concepts of sustainability. The self-hood of non-human beings and the necessity of connection in the natural world are addressed and related to a philosophy of becoming. This paper insists on a material semiotics constituted through the willful aspect and imaginative capacity of all life forms. Maintaining the primacy of relationship, terra-consciousness may provide an imaginative antidote to our all-too-human alienation from non-human entanglement in the Anthropocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a philosophy of STEAM education in the current moment, the Anthropocene. Whereas many proponents of STEAM focus on outcomes related to cultivating a more creative and competitive generation of STEM workers, it is, more importantly, an approach to education that can foster spaces for transdisciplinary conversations surrounding critical issues of the Anthropocene – those of ethics, sustainability, and relationality. Thus, the question arises, How might we understand/practice STEAM education differently? This philosophy of STEAM in the Anthropocene is inspired by the guiding notions of Braidotti's affirmative ethics as well as Stengers and Ulmer's conceptions of slow(ing). These perspectives challenge the ideologies and practices that have created and sustained divisions between the arts and sciences, while also promoting different ways of engaging in/with the world. Entangled in this conceptual framework are three concepts that might guide STEAM education moving forward: transdisciplinarity, relationality, and responsibility. With these notions as inspiration, this paper asserts a philosophical vision that takes seriously the realities of our Anthropocenic present and considers how educators might move with, rather than push against, the challenges that continue to present themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the implications of global emissions budget distribution between three large geographical areas (China, OECD countries, and the rest of the world) in the context of Anthropocene and the structural crisis of the capitalist world system. Two plausible emissions distribution principles are considered. Under neither the inertia principle nor the equity principle, can continuing economic growth be made compatible with requirements of climate stabilization in all three regions. This conclusion does not change significantly when plausible acceleration of emissions intensity reduction in the future is taken into account. To limit global warming to not more than 2 degrees Celsius by the end of this century, at least two of the three large regions need to reorganize their economies to operate with zero or negative growth. Such a reorganization cannot be achieved under a capitalist economic system given the inherent tendency of capitalism towards endless accumulation. Neither is it likely to be achieved under any conceivable economic system dominated by market relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In The Fifth Season (2015), N.K. Jemisin depicts speculative seismological and volcanic events to defamiliarize the outcomes of slavery from their American instantiations, making them starkly visible again and again. I argue that analyzing how The Fifth Season articulates this understanding requires a geological or, more precisely, a tectonic lens. In this paper I focus on The Fifth Season specifically for its tripartite narrative stratification, which reproduces the geological mechanisms of building and destroying mountains in the space of a human lifetime. Jemisin uses volcanos, tectonic plates, slip strikes, and especially earthquakes to parallel, echo, amplify, and foreshadow her characters' responses and actions. This is a tectonic tactic, not only for negotiating the violent ruptures of the novel's ironically named world of "The Stillness" but also for tracing slavery's historical arc, requiring multifaceted transnational analyses across centuries to track its devastating trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to contribute to the debate on the origins of Anthropocene, this paper analyzes the transformations of the Basin-Valley of Mexico during the 16th and 17th centuries as an early instance of the changes produced in the Anthropocene period. More specifically, this case is studied as an example of the impact of the Iberian colonization of the Americas on local environments by focusing on the geohydrological alterations caused by natural and cultural innovations introduced by the Europeans into the basin. It shows how the confrontation between different ways of living and understanding the city, the lakes, and their relationship originated different proposals for water management. Transforming the basin into a valley was close to geological process rather than a mere outcome of political decisions; therefore, this occurred much slowly than the urban elites intended. While this was a problem for the city, it allowed the indigenous way of life, linked to the lakes, to persist and continue for a longer period of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This and two companion papers (Geography and the Anthropocene II: Current Contributions and The Anthropocene and Geography III: Future Directions) consider the relevance of 'the Anthropocene' to present and future research in Geography. Along with the concept of 'planetary boundaries', the idea that humanity has entered a new geological epoch of its own making is currently attracting considerable attention - both within and beyond the world of Earth surface science from whence both notions originate. This paper summarises the origins and evolution of the scientific discourse since the Anthropocene idea was first proposed in 2000. It ends by outlining the potential relevance of the Anthropocene and planetary boundaries ideas to Geography - potential because both concepts have only recently received serious attention in the discipline. The next paper, following on from this, then reviews these early geographical interpretations of the two scientific buzzwords. The subsequent paper looks ahead to future options should these terms really begin to catch-on outside Geography. If they become societal keywords, then geographers should be participants in, rather than mere observers of, the unfolding discussion. As we will discover, some geographers are well-placed to shape future discourse and practice, but there is considerable potential for many others to join the fray. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This and two companion papers (The Anthropocene and Geography I: The back story and The Anthropocene and Geography III: Future Directions) consider the relevance of 'the Anthropocene' to present and future research in Geography. Along with the concept of 'planetary boundaries', the idea that humanity has entered a new geological epoch of its own making is currently attracting considerable attention - both within and beyond the world of Earth surface science from whence both notions originate. This paper's predecessor detailed the invention and evolution of the two scientific neologisms, ending with a general discussion of their potential relevance to Geography. The present essay examines how that relevance is being actualised in practice. Though the Anthropocene and planetary boundaries concepts are the progeny of certain biophysical scientists, some human geographers are already going beyond the science to explore their socio-ecological implications. Accordingly, the paper describes how various physical, environmental and human geographers have thus far examined the (supposed) end of the Holocene. By detailing the full range of geographers' discussions of the two ideas, it comprehensively maps intellectual territory that a (so-far select) group of geographers have been exploring independently of each other, albeit layered on previous research into global environmental change. Its successor (The Anthropocene and geography III: Future directions) speculates about the future directions geographers' discussions of the Anthropocene and planetary boundaries might take. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the 'Anthroposcenic' as a geographical contribution to debates around the Anthropocene, deploying the insights of cultural and historical geography to ask how thinking through landscape and time might shape understanding. The paper begins by elaborating on the term 'Anthroposcenic', foregrounding the ways in which landscape becomes emblematic of environmental transformation, and reflects further on geological wordplay in science and the humanities. The role of historical enquiry in addressing the times of the Anthropocene is considered, in terms of the dating of a proposed Anthropocene epoch, and the resonance of past geological debate. The possibilities of the Anthroposcenic are then demonstrated through studies of eroding coastal landscapes, drawing on contemporary and historical material from the English coast. Landscape here becomes emblematic of the Anthropocene, and shows how processes of environmental change are articulated through different geographical scales. Coastal studies also show past landscape achieving present resonance, and thereby how the Anthroposcenic may encompass historical material anticipatory of current debate. The paper reflects too on the ways in which questions of inheritance may frame Anthroposcenic enquiry. A specific Anthroposcene serves to open and close the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of American Anthropologist is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

As the impacts of the anthropocene intensifies, there is an increasing need to understand how these changes affect both daily and sub‐daily stream flow variability, timing and flow quantities, as these are some of the most influential drivers of spatial and temporal dynamics of stream biota. In this paper, long‐term changes in flow patterns of a strategic water source area (Luvuvhu catchment) in an arid region of southern Africa were quantified, focusing on the relation between daily and sub‐daily flow and its potential impact on fish biota of the catchment. Long‐term temporal trends in stream flow were modelled using generalized least squares (GLS), while sub‐daily and daily mean flow of the same stations were compared using a suite of metrics. Periods of similar stream flow patterns were identified using K‐means cluster analysis. A spreadsheet rule‐based model was developed linking fish communities to streamflow patterns, providing a predictive framework for fish assemblage responses to stream flow classes. Long‐term reduction in flow in the Luvuvhu catchment has a strong seasonal component, with significant decreases during the wet season, not linked to long‐term rainfall patterns. The flow regime of the Luvuvhu river system has become more variable over time. Several sub‐daily flow metrics were positively related to daily flow metrics. Oscillating flow conditions and the loss of intermediate‐flow states may permanently exclude certain fish flow guilds. However, temporal partitioning is only evident when sub‐daily metrics are considered, highlighting their importance for assessing ecological resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is growingly accepted that the Planet has entered into a new geological era, the Anthropocene. Even if it is controversial to assess the changes in the Earth System brought by this geological transformation, it seems clear that the increasing exchange between society and its biophysical support gives as a result a global ecosocial network of astonishing complexity. Consequently, it has been concluded that the Anthropocene would be a more unstable geological period compared with the Holocene, with escalating plausibility of nonlinear disruptive events. International institutions and governments of states continue to produce environmental regulations, inspired in a constitutional framing of the global environmental crisis. This approach is largely based in the concept of sustainable development, which implies a negation of planetary change and ignores the growing uncertainty of planetary processes, according to the complexity of interactions of human agency and planetary evolution in the Anthropocene. The occurrence of nonlinear events is at odds with a political and legal vision which is essentially static, because of the confidence in some kind of technological fix of global environmental crisis. This paper is focused on the inability of sustainability to capture the implications of the narrative of planetary transformation, and explores the concept of resilience as alternative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we offer a childist reading of school strikes for climate in an overheated world. We argue that school strikes can be understood as offering a dynamic counterweight to formal education, by providing opportunities for children to self-educate, and for others, especially adults, to learn from them. We suggest that taking school strikes seriously as sites of political appearance—which highlight interdependencies and vulnerabilities in the face of crises in Anthropocene neoliberalism requires rethinking the boundaries of democratic participation and education. In particular, we highlight that school strikes for climate serve as an invitation for adults to let children contribute to their own ongoing formation. A childist philosophical attitude that emphasises mutual teaching—i.e. the adult capacity to see and hear what children show and say—can expand through an engagement with, rather than against school strikes. Children's political appearance on streets to influence political priorities from an intergenerational global justice point of view is a gift for adults and adultist structures. It is a passage to grasp deep interdependence and to assume appropriate responsibility. If 'education' is a beacon of hope in times of overheated despair, then the hope is in educational philosophies that have room for mutual teaching. The philosophical assumption that it is adults who must always, and necessarily, teach children to prepare them for a better future would have to be discarded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers recent studies of global environmental change and their impact on the deltas, social and ecological patches that epitomize an Anthropocene environmental dynamism. Looking into these delta studies, we explore an emerging imagination about human-planet relations. Specifically, we indicate that the relationship between the changing Earth and human activities depicted in these studies is comparable to the kind of affective relations to which the anthropology of science has recently brought attention. While affective relations as anthropologically described depend on the capacity of the body to be affected by other entities, global change research on deltas asks the public to imagine collective life, including infrastructure, land use, resource consumption, and companion species, as composite bodies affected by the changing planet. This imagination is made possible by analogies developed in the vicinity of the notion of resilience, a term that originated in mathematical ecology and complex adaptive systems in computer science. In exploring this interdisciplinary traffic of ideas and models, we elucidate an analogical imagination that crosses the border of machines and organisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Susan Sontag, within 'The Imagination of Disaster', argued that sf films reflect worldwide anxieties (44), specifically those of nuclear threat. This article will investigate how contemporary sf cinema speaks to the twenty-first-century anxieties surrounding the Anthropocene. Through a comparative analysis of the Star Wars saga's various Death Stars, this paper will demonstrate environmentally informed representational changes in the film series' contemporary iterations. This will be followed by a theoretically informed analysis of After Earth (Shyamalan 2013), unveiling the means by which sf cinema's disaster imaginary in the twenty-first century can, and often does, shape itself around the ecocritical intricacies of the Anthropocene epoch. In the hitherto unlikely bringing together of Star Wars and After Earth this paper unveils sf cinema's relationship with the disaster imaginary of the Anthropocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Karoo is an arid to semi-arid area across the western third of South Africa, comprising the Succulent Karoo and Nama-Karoo biomes. Its environment and people have experienced considerable changes, and now face new challenges as the Anthropocene unfolds. This Karoo Special Issue (KSI) brings together new information in 20 papers, a mixture of reviews, research articles and commentaries, significantly adding to previous syntheses of Karoo knowledge. The KSI comprises several sections focusing on different aspects of change, namely a lead article that provides an overview of social and environmental changes, followed by papers concerning changes over time from deep history to contemporary conditions (Xhaeruh to Karoo), insights from long-term studies at several sites across the area, different perspectives of ecosystem processes, and ending with a set of reflections and proposals for research priorities. We end this introduction by dedicating the KSI to two outstanding scholars of the Karoo: Dr Suzanne J Milton and Dr W Richard J Dean. These KSI papers, many of which were written by their colleagues, friends and former students, represents a Festschrift that celebrates and honours their research as well as the inspiration and leadership they gave to a generation of scientists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Environmental Education is the property of Canadian Journal of Environmental Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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Reconceiving relations with the more-than-human is a central concern of scholarship in the Anthropocene. In documentary film, entanglements with the more-than-human are expressed through cinematic relationships with subjects such as bees, freeways, Antarctic science, abandoned military bunkers, and emergency firefighting operations. Several recent documentary films use their soundtracks to anchor these engagements. This paper examines the construction of these soundtracks through a comparison between documentary film and phonography. Phonography – broadly defined as creative practices of recording, editing, and listening to sonic environments – foregrounds the material/cultural processes of all sound recording by attending to specific uses of microphones and studio editing techniques. I situate these sonic practices in relation to the foundational poles of soundscape and objet sonore established by R. Murray Schafer and Pierre Schaeffer, work by contemporary practitioners, and recent theorizations in sound studies. Interweaving an account of recent documentary soundtracks with theories and practices of phonography highlights the conceptual implications of specific sound recording techniques and attends to the ethics of sound recording practices. These sonic practices pose new questions about the work performed through documentary film soundtracks' engagements with the more-than-human. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including praxis innovations in the Anthropocene, ecosystem approaches to health and well being, and practice of systemic change for acknowledging social complexity in project management.

In the midst of the “sixth extinction” and declarations of the so-called Anthropocene, scientists and conservationists are debating the nature of planetary limits. They are also rethinking the very goal of nature conservation in a postnatural direction that is less oriented on saving pristine nature. To shed light on this contemporary debate, this paper looks back to examine three “circuits of power and knowledge” where biodiversity loss is constituted as an ecological crisis with humanity in its crosshairs and later as a more flexible problem of trade-offs. The paper contributes a grounded, empirical examination of the production of, and changing nature of “global biodiversity limits,” showing how they emerge through articulations between power laden and elite ecological-economic knowledge and frameworks, global biopolitical and ethical concerns, state-capital accumulative logics, and national security interests. Reaffirming a critical stance on limits and tracing a persistent ontology of scarcity in global biodiversity science and policy, the paper draws from the story of global biodiversity limits to inform the current discussion of the postnatural turn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The abandonment of urban areas in anticipation of climate change constitutes a kind of ghosting: a veil is drawn that divides spaces of being (that are valued and preserved) from spaces of non-being (that are deemed expendable and 'dead'). These spaces of non-being can be understood as the 'sacrifice zones' of a capitalist worldview that orders the world through simplified dualistic categories. Opposed to this sacrificial logic, David Farrier has proposed a relational way of thinking that haunts the dualisms of capitalist modernity via spectres of human-nonhuman entanglement. Building on existing work from decolonial and Black studies, this paper extends understandings of such entanglements by exposing how they are tied up with racial and colonial logics. It does so by focusing on two Anthropocene imaginaries that 'open up' the city as a place haunted by complex relationality. First, my reading of Jan van Aken's 'Proximale Falanx' (2019) shows how its portrayal of a submerged Amsterdam can be read as an Anthropocene imaginary of relationality but is also haunted by colonial paradigms. Second, my reading of Teju Cole's Open City (2011) expands this narrow understanding of the climate crisis by articulating decolonial ways of being in New York City. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Social & Cultural Geography is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Bonhoeffer's Creation and Fall guides readers through a "theological" exegesis of Genesis chapters 1–3 and was an early manifestation of the "German Church Struggle" (Kirchenkampf) against National Socialism. In this paper, I propose a re-reading of Creation and Fall attentive to contemporary environmental and political conditions. Drawing on the work of William E. Connolly, I outline points of affirmation, critique, and supplementation. Just as Bonhoeffer recognized the need for a "crisis theology" in the face of Nazism, so now global warming and the rise of "aspirational fascism" demands analogous efforts. I argue that Bonhoeffer's focus on biblical myth as a counter to fascist myth, his articulation of a relational ontology and embrace of "incarnational humanism," are all relevant to the task of Christian political theology today. There is a need, however, to transcend Bonhoeffer's anthropocentric bias, supplementing his readings of Eden's mythic symbols to encourage forms of "entangled humanism" that are essential to Creation's defence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the hypothesis that human landscape modifications involving early agriculture contributed to greenhouse gas emissions in preindustrial times, a proposal that has significant implications for the timing of the Anthropocene era. In synthesizing recent papers that both advocate and challenge this hypothesis, we identify a major bias in the ongoing debate, which focuses on the land clearance practices of agrarian people, with insufficient consideration of a diverse range of hunter-gatherer societies who regularly utilized landscape-scale burning for various purposes. Employing California as a case study, we examine how the exclusion of hunter-gatherers from this debate may have shortchanged estimates of human biomass burning in preindustrial times. We also suggest that human population size may be a poor proxy for the degree of land clearance and anthropogenic burning, and we describe how previous approaches to these questions may have underplayed the importance of variation in the timing and magnitude of depopulation in different regions of the Americas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]