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  • EarthingAnthropos2016 EJST_FINAL

    Rights statement: The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, European Journal of Social Theory, 20 (1), 2017, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2017 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the European Journal of Social Theory page: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/est on SAGE Journals Online: http://journals.sagepub.com/

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Earthing the Anthropos: from ‘socializing the Anthropocene’ to geologizing the social

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>1/02/2017
<mark>Journal</mark>European Journal of Social Theory
Issue number1
Volume20
Number of pages18
Pages (from-to)146-163
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date10/08/16
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

Responding to claims of Anthropocene geoscience that humans are now geological agents, social scientists are calling for renewed attention to the social, cultural, political and historical differentiation of the Anthropos. But does this leave critical social thought’s own key concepts and categories unperturbed by the Anthropocene provocation to think through dynamic earth processes? Can we ‘socialize the Anthropocene’ without also opening ‘the social’ to climate, geology and earth system change? Revisiting the earth science behind the Anthropocene thesis and drawing on social research that is using climatology and earth systems thinking to help understand socio-historical change, this article explores some of the possibilities for ‘geologizing’ social thought. While critical social thought’s attention to justice and exclusion remains vital, it suggests that responding to Anthropocene conditions also calls for a kind of ‘geo-social’ thinking that relates human diversity and social difference to the potentiality and multiplicity of the earth itself.

Bibliographic note

The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, European Journal of Social Theory, 20 (1), 2017, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2017 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the European Journal of Social Theory page: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/est on SAGE Journals Online: http://journals.sagepub.com/