TY - JOUR

T1 - Understanding humans in the Anthropocene

T2 - finding answers in geoengineering and transition towns

AU - Martindale, Leigh

PY - 2015/10

Y1 - 2015/10

N2 - This paper argues that the approaches to global environmental change engendered by conventional environmental discourse have undermined the radical connotations of the Anthropocene. Taking direction from Clark’s (2013, Geoengineering and geologic politics. Environment and Planning A 45(12): 2825–2832; 2014, Geo-politics and the disaster of the Anthropocene. The Sociological Review 62: 19–37) concept of geological politics, this paper attempts to rescue the discourses surrounding geoengineering and Transition Towns from dated environmental understandings. By demonstrating how our understanding of a human being-in-the-world can change in the Anthropocene, this paper argues that an experimental and material form of politics needs to shape the agenda of social scientists. Using this experimental perspective, this paper offers the creative example of how Transition Towns may become concordant with local geoengineering practices. Using this example to highlight how environmental discourse in the Anthropocene needs to encompass cross-societal formation with the more-than-human elements of our planet, this paper argues for material experimentation that concerns community participation and socio-technical innovation.

AB - This paper argues that the approaches to global environmental change engendered by conventional environmental discourse have undermined the radical connotations of the Anthropocene. Taking direction from Clark’s (2013, Geoengineering and geologic politics. Environment and Planning A 45(12): 2825–2832; 2014, Geo-politics and the disaster of the Anthropocene. The Sociological Review 62: 19–37) concept of geological politics, this paper attempts to rescue the discourses surrounding geoengineering and Transition Towns from dated environmental understandings. By demonstrating how our understanding of a human being-in-the-world can change in the Anthropocene, this paper argues that an experimental and material form of politics needs to shape the agenda of social scientists. Using this experimental perspective, this paper offers the creative example of how Transition Towns may become concordant with local geoengineering practices. Using this example to highlight how environmental discourse in the Anthropocene needs to encompass cross-societal formation with the more-than-human elements of our planet, this paper argues for material experimentation that concerns community participation and socio-technical innovation.

KW - Anthropocene

KW - geoegineering

KW - transition towns

KW - geological politics

KW - material politics

KW - experimentation

U2 - 10.1177/0263775815604914

DO - 10.1177/0263775815604914

M3 - Journal article

VL - 33

SP - 907

EP - 924

JO - Environment and Planning D: Society and Space

JF - Environment and Planning D: Society and Space

SN - 0263-7758

IS - 5

ER -