Indigenous Interruptions in the Anthropocene

Taylor, Melanie Benson

doi:10.1632/s0030812920000139

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…1-13) suggests that the Anthropocene should be pluralized. Accordingly, I provide an account and interpretation of the Anthropocene which should not be taken as univocal and final, especially considering challenges to the concept that point to its role in disavowing Indigenous lifeways (Taylor, 2021). This being said, the Anthropocene remains relevant to refer to deeply changing ecological circumstances faced by our species that are associated with human conduct and that trigger shared, though differentiated, political responsibilities, even if these circumstances have differently distributed causes and consequences (Sharp, 2020).…”

Section: The Age Of Manmentioning

confidence: 99%

For Those Who Will Follow; Earth Marred and Renewing Relationships

Allard‐Tremblay

2023

Constellations

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Wherever one is in North America, one is on Indigenous lands. Some Indigenous peoples may have been exterminated or removed to other locations, and their contemporary presence may not be highly visible, yet this remains Indigenous land. Nevertheless, rarely do non-Indigenous individuals and institutions consider the responsibilities that come with the fact of being on Indigenous lands (cf. Asch, 2014). To a large extent, this is because settlers regard the state they control as holding a legitimate claim to sovereign authority. Not only is this a claim that bars rightful relationships with Indigenous peoples, it also discloses contemporary settler societies' disconnection from their Earthboundedness (Asch et al., 2018;Borrows, 2018) because it extends both over peoples and lands.I propose to consider how, from the locality of some settler states such as Canada and the United States, an intimate connection between the settlers' claim to sovereignty, mastery and possession, and Modernity/Coloniality, is disclosed, which is significant for understanding the Anthropocene and for envisioning ways of acting otherwise that may help to remedy it. My claims regarding the Anthropocene and Modernity/Coloniality are thus perspectival; they do not pretend to offer complete and universal accounts of either, but rather hope to diagnose distinctive features of both, as experienced and disclosed from the underside of Modernity. I see the Anthropocene, or the Age of Man, as a symptom of contemporary settler societies' view of themselves as floating free from the land, to use Brian Burkhart's formulation (2019) and of their associated idea of Man. Man, in this context, does not refer to humanity as a whole, but rather to the Western white cis-gendered heteropatriarchal agent of Modernity/Coloniality (Mignolo, 2007(Mignolo, , 2011Yusoff, 2018) who is driven by a will to mastery and possession (Schulz, 2017;Singh, 2018). This Modern/Colonial Man presents himself as the universal subject, and thereby erases and disqualifies alternative ways of being human (Singh, 2018, Chapter Introduction).I engage with First Nation and Native American-hereafter Indigenous-political thought and movements to articulate an alternative to the un-earthbound political practices and associated subjectivity of the Man of the Anthropocene. I use Indigenous as a collective shorthand, but my focus is on the distinct political experiences, struggles, and traditions of some of the Indigenous peoples of the lands now claimed by Canada and the United States and the radical alternatives they disclose to dominant Modern/Colonial lifeways, the significance of which extends far beyondThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

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Section: The Age Of Manmentioning

confidence: 99%

For Those Who Will Follow; Earth Marred and Renewing Relationships

Allard‐Tremblay

2023

Constellations

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“…It is this combination of threats and opportunities, nightmares and dreams-that fuels social movement mobilization and social change" [30]. Similarly, Taylor (2021) emphasizes the necessity of "radical reworlding" through environmental storytelling from Indigenous communities [35]. Due to the exclusionary and colonialist legacies of academe, many of the urgent, nuanced, and critical articulations of these "alternative maps of the social world" emerge from environmental justice (EJ) communities and communication networks that exist beyond the boundaries of academic knowledge production [36,37].…”

Section: Environmental Communication: Theory Praxis Pedagogymentioning

confidence: 99%

Undisciplining Environmental Communication Pedagogy: Toward Environmental and Epistemic Justice in the Interdisciplinary Sustainability Classroom

2022

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This article moves beyond an understanding of environmental communication as merely the “translation” of scientific knowledge for the general public and advocates for environmental science and sustainability (ESS) educators to understand environmental communication as a critical practice with complex social, cultural, and political stakes. Due to the interconnectedness of environmental issues and social, political, and cultural contexts, environmental communication pedagogy is an important site of both environmental and epistemic justice. This article addresses the question: What forms of environmental communication pedagogy contribute to dynamic communication competencies for students while also promoting environmental and epistemic justice? The authors begin with a literature review of environmental communication and environmental justice research. Subsequently, they develop a theoretical argument advocating for an “undisciplining” of environmental communication pedagogy to promote critical thinking about the exclusionary politics of environmental knowledge production and communication. In doing so, the authors advocate for cultivating dynamic and ethically engaged real-world literacies for students through social and participatory media, including Wikipedia and podcasts. The article concludes with two sample assignments that instructors can adapt to their classrooms.

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“…This way of thinking about nature is so entrenched in modern culture that it can be difficult to see its strangeness, anthropologically. To facilitate this, it can be contrasted with indigenous cosmologies which understand humans and nonhumans as interconnected entities or kin, not within a singular 'nature' but within holistic living worlds imbued with agency, spirit and meaning, a perspective from which the Anthropocene's systems-thinking looks distinctly modern and dualist (Inoue and Moreira 2016;Taylor 2021). It also fails to capture the constitutive hybridity of a lifeworld in which we constantly eat, drink, inhale and absorb the products of our techno-industrial infrastructure, with potentially profound but ill-understood effects on our own biology or 'nature' (Alaimo 2010;Alaimo 2017).…”

Section: Managing the Biosphere?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Posthumanist Praxis and the Paradoxes of Agency, Responsibility, and Organization in the ‘Anthropocene’

Nimmo

2022

The Oxford Handbook of Animal Organization Studies

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Initially framed as a provocation intended to challenge the exclusion of human activity from studies of long-term physical changes in the earth system, the Anthropocene remains an essentially contested concept. Despite its increasing prevalence across multiple disciplines and fields, there is little consensus over its veracity either as a geological, socio-environmental or socio-historical hypothesis. But for anyone committed to thinking seriously about what used to be called society-environment relations, engagement with the Anthropocene is now inescapable. This chapter engages with the Anthropocene from the perspective of posthumanist thought, arguing that whilst the concept is riddled with contradictions, tensions, and potential flaws, these are also productive paradoxes which can contribute to our thinking, ethics, and politics in the context of the spiralling ecological crisis. The discussion undertakes a critical posthumanist reading of the Anthropocene, with particular attention to its central paradoxes around agency and responsibility, and the implications for various influential approaches to environmental politics and green social transition.

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Indigenous Interruptions in the Anthropocene

Cited by 6 publications

References 25 publications

For Those Who Will Follow; Earth Marred and Renewing Relationships

For Those Who Will Follow; Earth Marred and Renewing Relationships

Undisciplining Environmental Communication Pedagogy: Toward Environmental and Epistemic Justice in the Interdisciplinary Sustainability Classroom

Posthumanist Praxis and the Paradoxes of Agency, Responsibility, and Organization in the ‘Anthropocene’

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