The Anthropocene as a regime of visibility: the posthumanist paradox between domination and liberation

Abstract

The discourse of the ‘Anthropocene’ has quickly become pervasive, cross-cutting different fields of knowledge. However, it is also a deeply contested category. In the critical light shed by political ecology, we reflect on the conceptual blindspots that mark its narrative, identifying it as a symptom of a broader impasse of the neoliberal governmentality of nature and of the ecological crisis today. On the one hand, the Anthropocene narrative proposes a post-humanist vision, which potentially de-centres anthropocentrism. On the other hand, this same vision becomes an alibi for ever deeper and less reflective interventions of human beings on the biosphere, in particular through technoscientific developments. This paradox responds to a specific need for capitalist valorization of ‘Nature’ and, at the same time, does not seem capable to elaborate solutions to the ecological crisis as a whole. However, if the Anthropocene becomes visible only in the present historical contingency and due to specific kinds of knowledge, we suggest that reflecting on epistemological issues is key to the search for more ecological ways of situating in the world. Which forms of knowledge allow us to understand the emancipatory potential of post-humanism within the Anthropocene while avoiding new predatory effects on the biosphere?

Keywords

• Anthropocene
• posthumanism
• neoliberalism
• value
• knowledge