Big is a Thing of the Past: Climate Change and Methodology in the History of Ideas

Abstract

The climate crisis has raised questions about the proper scale of historical analysis in the Anthropocene. After explaining how this methodological crisis differs from an earlier stand-off between proponents of microhistory and total history, this paper suggests a role for intellectual history in moving us beyond the current debate. What is needed is a history of "scaling"; that is, we need to historicize the process of mediating between different frameworks of measurement, even those that might at first appear incommensurable. Historical examples are explored in which such a process of commensuration has allowed for a pluralism of perceptions of space and time.

The moral geography of the Earth system

“…Chakrabarty's assertion of temporal rifts in Anthropocene time is not easy to defend. Coen claims accepting incommensurability leaves us “paralyzed in the face of ethical questions that cannot be put off” and also doesn't account for the contingent, social aspects of spatial and temporal imaginations, which imply that there is no “fixed meaning to the ‘human scale’ that could be set in opposition to ‘the planetary’” (, p. 308). In addition, Chakrabarty does not examine the configuration of time within Earth system science itself.…”

The scales of experience: Introduction to the special issue Experiencing the global environment

“…This is not to denigrate e and even less to censure e the value and significance of these disciplines and their experiential strategies, but to acknowledge that the scales of their analyses are historically produced and contingent on their context. Deborah Coen has recently called for a history of "scaling" attentive to the work behind applying different levels of analysis and making them commensurable (Coen, 2016; see also ;Reid, Berkes, Wilbanks, & Capistrano, 2006;Beck, Esguerra, and Görg, 2014;Oreskes, 2014). We thus have to examine each formulation of the global environment in its own context and allow for a complex and non-linear narrative of the scaling up (and often of the scaling back down) of the scientific vision (Fleming, Jankovic, & Coen, 2006).…”

“…On the importance of images of the earth for the environmental movement, see also: Helmreich, 2011. 3 On the notion of "scaling," seeCoen, 2016.This text was published on page 3 of the article "The scales of experience: Introduction to the special issue Experiencing the global environment. ".…”

Prekäre Natur – Schauplätze ökologischen Erzählens zwischen 1840 und 1915. Eine Forschungsskizze.

“…Skalierung ist insofern das schwierigste Verfahren, als bereits ein scheinbar simpler Verweis auf die ‚ganze Welt' oder die ‚Naturgeschichte' raumzeitliche Größenordnungen aufrufen kann, die eine Erzählung potenziell sprengen -insofern sie bspw. völlig unplausibel oder unverständlich wird -, werden sie nicht erfolgreich eingehegt (Clark 2012;Coen 2016;Braungart 2007). Praktiken der Einhegung sind ein integraler Bestandteil des Verfahrens der Skalierung.…”