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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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Earthing the Anthropos
T2 - from ‘socializing the Anthropocene’ to geologizing the social
AU - Clark, Nigel Halcomb
AU - Gunaratnam, Yasmin
N1 - 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/
PY - 2017/2/1
Y1 - 2017/2/1
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Anthropocene
KW - climate change
KW - deep time
KW - earth science
KW - geology
KW - geo-social futures
KW - Holocene
KW - social difference
U2 - 10.1177/1368431016661337
DO - 10.1177/1368431016661337
M3 - Journal article
VL - 20
SP - 146
EP - 163
JO - European Journal of Social Theory
JF - European Journal of Social Theory
SN - 1368-4310
IS - 1
ER -