TY - JOUR

T1 - Defining the Anthropocene tropical forest

T2 - Moving beyond ‘disturbance’ and ‘landscape domestication’ with concepts from African worldviews

AU - Fraser, James

AU - Cosiaux, Ariane

AU - Walters, Gretchen

AU - Asiyanbi, Adeniyi

AU - Osei-Wusu Adjei, Prince

AU - Addo-Fordjour, Patrick

AU - Fairhead, James

AU - Kialo, Paulin

AU - Engone Obiang, Nestor Laurier

AU - Oslisly, Richard

PY - 2024/2/1

Y1 - 2024/2/1

N2 - How natural and cultural forces shaping tropical forested landscapes are conceptualized is of vital importance to Anthropocene debates. We examine two concepts: disturbance and landscape domestication. From the perspective of disturbance, humans —whether ancient or modern— are a priori negative for tropical forests, outside of and alien to nature. From this view, the Anthropocene is a planetary scale aggregation of disturbance. A more just vision of tropical forests, accepting anthropogenic influence on biodiversity, would combine ‘disturbance’ with other concepts that capture human agency and intentionality. Landscape domestication proposes that humans can shape ecology and plant and animal population demographics, making the landscape more productive and congenial for humans, upgrading or degrading the biodiversity of tropical forests. Herein, forest peoples shape the Anthropocene itself through their ‘domestication’ of the forest. Yet this approach can overdetermine culture, ignoring non-human agency, whilst human impacts can be seen as the outcome of intentional modifications to increase landscape productivity, at worst a disavowed projection of ‘economic man’. Using the convivial scholarship of Nyamnjoh, we argue that these ideas give incomplete views of tropical forests in the Anthropocene and can be enriched by concepts derived from African worldviews with ‘relationality’ and ‘wholeness’ at their core. These are expressed in ohanife, deriving from Igbo language, ubuntu, from the Nguni language and ukama, a notion from Shona culture. Together these concepts evince an ‘eco-bio-communitarianism’ embracing humans, God, spirits, ancestors, animals, and inanimate beings in a ‘community of beings’ irreducible to the culture-nature divide (moving beyond disturbance) and allowing for the agency and personhood of non-humans (moving beyond historical ecology). This is consonant with Indigenous Amazonian worldviews, such as that of Kopenawa. Approaching human-nature relations from Nyamnjoh’s idea of conviviality, we elaborate a less incomplete and more just perspective on the cultural and natural shaping of Anthropocene tropical forests.

AB - How natural and cultural forces shaping tropical forested landscapes are conceptualized is of vital importance to Anthropocene debates. We examine two concepts: disturbance and landscape domestication. From the perspective of disturbance, humans —whether ancient or modern— are a priori negative for tropical forests, outside of and alien to nature. From this view, the Anthropocene is a planetary scale aggregation of disturbance. A more just vision of tropical forests, accepting anthropogenic influence on biodiversity, would combine ‘disturbance’ with other concepts that capture human agency and intentionality. Landscape domestication proposes that humans can shape ecology and plant and animal population demographics, making the landscape more productive and congenial for humans, upgrading or degrading the biodiversity of tropical forests. Herein, forest peoples shape the Anthropocene itself through their ‘domestication’ of the forest. Yet this approach can overdetermine culture, ignoring non-human agency, whilst human impacts can be seen as the outcome of intentional modifications to increase landscape productivity, at worst a disavowed projection of ‘economic man’. Using the convivial scholarship of Nyamnjoh, we argue that these ideas give incomplete views of tropical forests in the Anthropocene and can be enriched by concepts derived from African worldviews with ‘relationality’ and ‘wholeness’ at their core. These are expressed in ohanife, deriving from Igbo language, ubuntu, from the Nguni language and ukama, a notion from Shona culture. Together these concepts evince an ‘eco-bio-communitarianism’ embracing humans, God, spirits, ancestors, animals, and inanimate beings in a ‘community of beings’ irreducible to the culture-nature divide (moving beyond disturbance) and allowing for the agency and personhood of non-humans (moving beyond historical ecology). This is consonant with Indigenous Amazonian worldviews, such as that of Kopenawa. Approaching human-nature relations from Nyamnjoh’s idea of conviviality, we elaborate a less incomplete and more just perspective on the cultural and natural shaping of Anthropocene tropical forests.

U2 - 10.1177/20530196231226307

DO - 10.1177/20530196231226307

M3 - Journal article

JO - The Anthropocene Review

JF - The Anthropocene Review

SN - 2053-0196

ER -