Manifesto for Living in the Anthropocene
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
MANIFESTO FOR LIVING IN THE ANTHROPOCENE MANIFESTO FOR LIVING IN THE ANTHROPOCENE Katherine Gibson, Deborah Bird Rose, and Ruth Fincher, editors punctum books ¬ brooklyn, ny MANIFESTO FOR LIVING IN THE ANTHROPOCENE © Katherine Gibson, Deborah Bird Rose, and Ruth Fincher, 2015. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ This work carries a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 International license, which means that you are free to copy and redistribute the material in any me- dium or format, and you may also remix, transform and build upon the material, as long as you clearly attribute the work to the authors (but not in a way that suggests the authors or punctum endorses you and your work), you do not use this work for com- mercial gain in any form whatsoever, and that for any remixing and transformation, you distribute your “build” under the same license. First published in 2015 by punctum books Brooklyn, New York http://punctumbooks.com punctum books is an independent, open-access pub- lisher dedicated to radically creative modes of intel- lectual inquiry and writing across a whimsical para- humanities assemblage. We solicit and pimp quixot- ic, sagely mad engagements with textual thought- bodies, and provide shelters for intellectual vaga- bonds. ISBN-13: 978-0988234062 ISBN-10: 0988234068 Before you start to read this book, take this moment to think about making a donation to punctum books, an independent non-profit press, @ http://punctumbooks.com/about/ If you’re reading the e-book, you can click on the image below to go directly to our donations site. Any amount, no matter the size, is appreciated and will help us to keep our ship of fools afloat. Contributions from dedicated readers will also help us to keep our commons open and to cultivate new work that can’t find a welcoming port elsewhere. Our ad/venture is not possible with- out your support. Vive la open-access. Fig. 1. Hieronymus Bosch, Ship of Fools (1490-1500) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS C The editors would like to acknowledge with gratitude the financial assistance offered by the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia that allowed us to organize the workshop where many of the ideas contained in this book were aired and refined. Freya Mathews’s essay, “Strategia: Thinking with or Accom- modationg the World,” is extracted and adapted from her chapter “Why Has the West Failed to Embrace Panpsychism?” in Mind That Abides: Panpsychism in the New Millennium, ed. David Skrbina (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Ben- jamins, 2009), 341–260. The projects on which Margaret Somerville’s essay is based were funded by the Australian Research Council. TABLE OF CONTENTS V Manifesto for Living in the Anthropocene :: i Preface :: v SECTION I. THINKING WITH OTHERS 1: The Ecological Humanities :: 1 Deborah Bird Rose 2: Economy as Ecological Livelihood :: 7 J.K. Gibson-Graham and Ethan Miller 3: Lives in Connection :: 17 Jessica K. Weir 4: Conviviality as an Ethic of Care in the City :: 23 Ruth Fincher and Kurt Iveson 5: Risking Attachment in the Anthropocene :: 29 Lesley Instone 6: Strategia: Thinking with or Accommodating the World :: 37 Freya Mathews 7: Contact Improvisation: Dance with the Earth Body You Have :: 43 Kate Rigby SECTION II. STORIES SHARED 8: Vulture Stories: Narrative and Conservation :: 51 Thom van Dooren 9: Learning to be Affected by Earth Others :: 57 Gerda Roelvink 10: The Waterhole Project: Locating Resilience :: 63 George Main 11: Food Conect(s) :: 71 Jenny Cameron and Robert Pekin 12: Graffiti is Life :: 77 Kurt Iveson 13: Flying Foxes in Sydney :: 83 Deborah Bird Rose 14: Earth as Ethic :: 91 Freya Mathews SECTION III. RESEARCHING DIFFERENTLY 15: On Experimentation :: 99 Jenny Cameron 16: Reading for Difference :: 103 J.K. Gibson-Graham 17: Listening: Research as an Act of Mindfulness :: 111 Kumi Kato 18: Deep Mapping Connections to Country :: 117 Margaret Somerville 19: The Human Condition in the Anthropocene :: 123 Anna Yeatman 20: Dialogue :: 127 Deborah Bird Rose 21: Walking as Respectful Wayfinding in an Uncertain Age :: 133 Lesley Instone References :: 139 About the Authors :: 151 G MANIFESTO FOR LIVING IN THE ANTHROPOCENE PREAMBLE Humanity’s actions have become a new planetary force with accelerating effects on the biosphere. This new era, known as the Anthropocene, calls for new ways of thinking and know- ing, and for innovative forms of action. We are a group of concerned social scientists and creative scholars who are moved to address the unique qualities of our contemporary world. In the Anthropocene, we are sum- moned to expand our understandings of ways to conjoin nature and culture, economy and ecology, and natural and social sciences. Already, thinkers among us are exploring ways of dismantling traditional separations. We aim to fur- ther and expand this work, identifying multiple pathways toward alternative futures. Research for the Anthropocene must and will harness the creativity of human potential to reduce harm and promote a flourishing biosphere. THINKING We want to engage in life and the living world in an uncon- strained and expansive way. Our thinking needs to be in the service of life—and so does our language. This means giving up preconceptions, and instead listening to the world. This ii MANIFESTO means giving up delusions of mastery and control, and in- stead seeing the world as uncertain and yet unfolding. So our thinking needs to be— • Curious; • Experimental; • Open; • Adaptive; • Imaginative; • Responsive; and • Responsible. We are committed to thinking with the community of life and contributing to healing. STORIES Stories are important for understanding and communicating the significance of our times. We aim to tell stories that— • Enact connectivity, entangling us in the lives of oth- ers; • Have the capacity to reach beyond abstractions and move us to concern and action; • Are rich sources of reflection; and • Enliven moral imagination, drawing us into deeper understandings of responsibilities, reparative possi- bilities, and alternative futures. RESEARCHING While we continue our traditions of critical analysis, we are forging new research practices to excavate, encounter and extend reparative possibilities for alternative futures. We look and listen for life-giving potentialities (past and present) by charting connections, re-mapping the familiar and open- ing ourselves to what can be learned from what already is MANIFESTO FOR LIVING IN THE ANTHROPOCENE iii happening in the world. As participants in a changing world, we advocate— • Developing new languages for our changing world; • Stepping into the unknown; • Making risky attachments; and • Joining and supporting concerned others. COLLEAGUES, WHEREVER YOU MAY BE, PUT YOUR RESEARCH TO WORK AND TAKE A STAND FOR LIFE! Scholars Concerned for Life in the Anthropocene, Georges River, 8 February, 2010: Kay Anderson, Jenny Cameron, Thom van Dooren, Kelly Dombroski, Ruth Fincher, Kathe- rine Gibson, Julie Graham, Lesley Instone, Kurt Iveson, Ku- mi Kato, Freya Mathews, Jacqui Poltera, Kate Rigby, Gerda Roelvink, Deborah Bird Rose, Margaret Somerville, Simon Wearne, Jessica Weir, Anna Yeatman. “Sydney apple,” Georges River, 2010. Photograph by Katherine Gibson. T PREFACE KATHERINE GIBSON, DEBORAH BIRD ROSE, AND RUTH FINCHER In the moist heat of a Sydney February a group of concerned scholars gathered on the banks of the Georges River close to the University of Western Sydney, Bankstown. Amongst us there were key thinkers from the fields of Anthropology, Ed- ucation, Human Geography, Philosophy, Science and Tech- nology Studies, Sociology, Political Theory, Communications and Film. We gathered to consider an ethics for living in this new era of human driven climate change called the “Anthro- pocene.” We wrote the Manifesto above. A butterfly dropped the germ of the idea for this gather- ing onto fertile ground as it flitted over the heads of two of us some time ago in another beautiful bushland setting. Then we were gathered to farewell and bury feminist, ecologist, philosopher, Val Plumwood, our friend and colleague. As Val’s eco-coffin was carefully lowered into the soil on her beloved Plumwood Mountain a white butterfly joined us. It hovered hesitatingly here and there over the crowd and then off it went into the forest. It left something beautiful—an energy and a courage to go on. We resolved to strengthen the tentative connections between Ecological Humanities and Community Economies scholars. Inspired by Val’s life and practice our February gathering was held in a setting that invited the bush, rocks, birds and river to be part of a creative vi PREFACE conversation. It was generously supported by the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. As we sat and reflected, walked and talked, and subse- quently wrote and read to prepare this book it was the chal- lenge Val posed, soon before her death, that has been upper- most in our minds. Val wrote: If our species does not survive the ecological crisis, it will probably be due to our failure to imagine and work out new ways to live with the earth, to rework ourselves and our high energy, high consumption, and hyper-instru- mental societies adaptively … . We will go onwards in a different mode of humanity, or not at all. (Plumwood 2007, 1) That we need to go on in a “different mode of humanity” is not, for the authors collected here, at question. As a group we accept the premise that we live in an era of unprecedented and rapid environmental and social change. The recent 10,000 year history of climatic stability on Earth that enabled the rise of agriculture and domestication, the growth of cities, numerous technological revolutions, and the emergence of modernity is now over. We accept that in the latest phase of this era, modernity is unmaking the stability that enabled its emergence. Over the 21st century, severe and numerous weather disasters, scarcity of key resources, major changes in environments, enormous rates of extinction, and other forces that threaten life are set to increase.