Elisa Randazzo (University of Hertfordshire) will be presenting a paper ‘Decolonising the Anthropocene: The Politics of Ecology and Indigeneity’.
This paper argues that a theoretical encounter between Western ecological scholarship and Indigenous scholarship sheds light on the problematically depoliticising effects of the holistic Anthropocene meta-narrative which prevail in critical approaches to Anthropocene thought in social sciences. The paper suggests that arguments developed in a strand of Anthropocene literature identified as ‘continuous’, parallel Indigenous knowledges and cosmologies in terms of a relational understanding of Being, a conception of agency which is open to non-humans and networks of different actors and an ecological shaping power which cannot be fully controlled by human communities and thus calls for a governance which is responsive, local and adaptive. Drawing on Critical Indigenous Studies, the paper then formulates a critique of how ‘continuous’ relational perspectives to the Anthropocene enfold alternative ontologies and politics within an overarching Anthropocene ontology which is not only problematically universalising, but also replaces the genuine engagement with differences and resistance.
The seminar will take place online. Register for this event on Eventbrite.
The Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD) is based in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Westminster. The centre undertakes research across a range of critical social and political challenges, promoting an interdisciplinary environment that embraces colleagues from politics, international relations, sociology and criminology.
