How do we leave behind the idea of the Anthropocene? In search of a name for the new geohistorical era
No. 11 (2025-02-10)Author(s)
-
Leonardo Ordóñez DíazUniversidad del Rosario (Colombia)ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0152-5557
Abstract
As we move into the third millennium, anxiety over the growing imbalance in the planet’s climate patterns continues to increase. In parallel, the suspicion that the concomitant ecosocial aftermath marks the passage into a new geohistorical era is reflected in the search for a name for the current times (and, thus, for an appropriate perspective from which to understand what is happening). Among such names, “Anthropocene” enjoys wide currency in the scientific community. However, as many authors have warned, this name is problematic and highly biased. Against such a backdrop, this article evaluates ten of the alternative names proposed in recent decades to designate the new era—and their implications when assessing current planetary ecosocial tensions. Methodologically, the paper is based on a critical comparison (with no equivalent so far in the state of the art) of these names and a review of their plausibility as an alternative to the Anthropocene. The review of the meaning and theoretical assumptions of the proposals shows that (i) although the effort to baptize our epoch has been mainly oriented by approaches from the Global North that criticize the nature/culture division, in the end, most of them give primacy to the naturalistic vision, turning their backs partially or totally on the developments of political ecology; (ii) from the perspective of the Global South, if we want to obtain an accurate picture of the current planetary situation, it is urgent to correct this bias and take more seriously the socio-historical dimension of environmental problems.
References
Altvater, E. (2016). The Capitalocene, or, Geoenginneering against Capitalism’s Planetary Boundaries. En J. Moore, Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism, 138-152. Oakland: PM Press.
Araiza, V. (2022) Las humanidades del Antropoceno desde la mirada de Donna Haraway y Rosi Braidotti. Tabula Rasa, 41, 201-223. https://doi.org/10.25058/20112742.n41.09
Asafu-Adjaye, J., Blomqvist, L., Brand, S., Brook, B., DeFries, R., Ellis, E., Foreman, C., Keith, D., Lewis, M., Lynas, M., Nordhaus, T., Pielke, R., Pritzker, R., Roy, J., Sagoff, M., Shellenberger, M., Stone, R., y Teague, P. (2015). An ecomodernist manifesto. Recuperado de https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5515d9f9e4b04d5c3198b7bb/t/552d37bbe4b07a7dd69fcdbb/1429026747046/An+Ecomodernist+Manifesto.pdf
Bergson, H. (1986). L’évolution créatrice. Paris : Presses Universitaires de France.
Bonneuil, Ch. y J.B. Fressoz. (2016). L’Événement Anthropocène. La Terre, l’histoire et nous. Paris : Éditions du Seuil.
Caluya, G. (2014). “Fragments for a Postcolonial Critique of the Anthropocene”. En J. Frawley y I. McCalman, Rethinking Invasion Ecologies from the Environmental Humanities, 31-44. Oxon: Routledge.
Cera, A. (2017). The Technocene or Technology as (Neo)environment. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 21(2-3), 243-281. https://doi.org/10.5840/techne201710472
Christ, E. (2013). On the Poverty of Our Nomenclature. Environmental Humanities, 3, 129-147. https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-3611266
Costa, F. (2021). Tecnoceno. Algoritmos, biohackers y nuevas formas de vida. Buenos Aires: Taurus.
Crawford, K. (2021). Atlas of AI. Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Crutzen, P. (2002). Geology of Mankind. Nature, 415, 23. https://doi.org/10.1038/415023a
Escobar, A. (2014). Sentipensar con la tierra. Nuevas lecturas sobre desarrollo, territorio y diferencia. Medellín: Ediciones UNAULA.
Greco, L. (2022). Movimientos animistas no colonialoceno. Agama Fo como proposta de pesquisa em antropologia. Antropología Experimental, 22, 233-247.
Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the Trouble. Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham: Duke University Press.
Haraway, D. (2015). Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin. Environmental Humanities 6: 159-165. https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-3615934
Hartley, D. (2016). Anthropocene, Capitalocene, and the Problem of Culture. En J. Moore, Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism, 154-165. Oakland: PM Press.
Hornborg, A. (2015). The political ecology of the Technocene: uncovering ecologically unequal exchange in the world-system. En C. Hamilton, Ch. Bonneuil y F. Gemene, The Anthropocene and the Global Environmental Crisis, 57-69. Oxon: Routledge.
LaDanta LasCanta (2017). El Faloceno: Redefinir el Antropoceno desde una mirada ecofeminista. Ecología Política, 53, 26-33. https://www.ecologiapolitica.info/el-faloceno-redefinir-el-antropoceno-desde-una-mirada-ecofeminista/
Latour, B. y Schultz, N. (2022). Mémo sur la nouvelle classe écologique. Paris : Éditions La Découverte.
López, O. y Magallanes, G. (2020). It Is Not an Anthropocene; It Is Really the Technocene: Names Matter in Decision Making Under Planetary Crisis”. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 8, 1-5. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2020.00214
Lovelock, J. (2019). Novaceno. The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence. London: Allan Lane.
Malm, A. (2017). L’anthropocène contre l’histoire. Le réchauffement climatique à l’ère du capital. Paris: La Fabrique Éditions.
McBrien, J. (2016). Accumulating Extinction. Planetary Catastrophism in the Necrocene. En J. Moore, Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism, 116-137. Oakland: PM Press.
McGuire, B. (2012). Waking the Giant: How a Changing Climate Triggers Earthquakes, Tsunamis, and Volcanoes. Oxford University Press.
Moore, J. (ed) (2016). Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism. Oakland: PM Press.
Moore, J. (2015). Capitalism in the Web of Life. Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital. London: Verso.
Parikka, J. (2015). A Geology of Media. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Scheffer, M., et al. (2009). A safe operating space for humanity. Nature, 461, 472-475. https://doi.org/10.1038/461472a
Santos, B. (2014). Epistemologies of the South: justice against epistemicide. Boulder: Paradigm.
Schwägerl, Ch. (2013). Neurogeology: The Anthropocene’s Inspirational Power. En H. Trischler, Anthropocene. Envisioning the Future of the Age of Humans, 29-37. Munich: Rachel Carson Center.
Serratos, F. (2021). El Capitaloceno. Una historia radical de la crisis climática. México: UNAM.
Sharp, H. (2020). Not all Humans: Radical Criticism of the Anthropocene Narrative. Environmental Humanities, 17(1), 143-158. https://doi.org/10.5840/envirophil20202793
Steffen, W., Grinevald, J., Crutzen, P. y McNeill, J. (2011). The Anthropocene: conceptual and historical perspectives. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 369(1938), 842-867. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2010.0327
Stiegler, B. (2015). Sortir de l’Anthropocène. Multitudes, 3(60), 137-146. https://doi.org/10.3917/mult.060.0137
Svampa, M. (2018). Imágenes del fin. Narrativas de la crisis socioecológica en el Antropoceno. Nueva Sociedad, 278, 151-164. https://nuso.org/articulo/svampa-crisis-ecologica-antropoceno-calentamiento-global/
Toledo, V. (2019). Los civilizionarios. Repensar la modernidad desde la ecología política. México: Juan Pablos Editor.
Trischler, H. (ed.) (2013). Anthropocene. Envisioning the Future of the Age of Humans. Munich: Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society.
Ulloa, A. (2017). Dinámicas ambientales y extractivas en el siglo XXI: ¿es la época del Antropoceno o del Capitaloceno en Latinoamérica?. Desacatos, 54, 58-73. https://doi.org/10.29340/54.1740
Wilson, E. (2016). Half Earth. Our Planet’s Fight for Life. New York: W.W. Norton.
Wilson, E. (2006). The Creation. An Appeal to Save Life on Earth. New York: W.W. Norton.
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Leonardo Ordóñez Díaz
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.