Anthropocene, Androcene, or ‘Anthropo’cene? // Christina Seminar

ABSTRACT:
”This paper critically engages with the discourse of the Anthropocene, which has now achieved a degree of cultural normalisation in the context of debates around climate change. I argue that the critique of the Anthropocene from a political economy and anti-capitalist perspective, is a necessary, yet insufficient corrective.With a focus on the gender and species dimensions of climate change, I argue that climate change constitutes a multi-faceted crisis. All framings are crucial for how the emergences, responses to, and impacts of climate change are understood and represented. I argue that the sort of intersectional approach favoured by feminist, ecofeminist, and critical animal studies scholars potentially offers the most accurate account of the emergences and impacts of climate change and affords specific and radical proposals for responses. Finally, I argue that, whilst the discourse of the Anthropocene has become institutionalised, its scientism can be resisted, and an intersectional approach popularised, via the alternative writing of the epoch, as the ‘Anthropo’cene.”

BIO:
Dr Richard Twine is a Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences and Co-Director of the Centre for Human Animal Studies at Edge Hill University, UK. His research interests take place at the nexus of gender studies, human/animal relations, science studies and environmental sociology. Much current research focuses upon the issue of sustainable food transitions in the context of climate change.