Dr Madeleine Fagan, Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship
Contending Cultures of the Anthropocene: Prospects for Political Mobilisation
The Anthropocene concept — the idea that we have entered a new epoch in which humanity is remaking the geological structure of the planet — has been widely adopted in debates on climate change and environmental degradation.
However, political mobilisation on environmental issues appropriate to the scale of the challenges it describes has not occurred.
Dr Madeleine Fagan's Fellowship investigates the implications for political mobilisation of contending representations of the Anthropocene across various academic disciplines, popular culture, media reporting and artistic and cultural production.
Drawing on these resources, the project will develop a new account of community and responsibility to address this mobilisation gap.
The key aim of the Fellowship is to explore, harness and develop the ethical and political potential of the Anthropocene concept for mobilising political action - both theoretically and empirically.
The Anthropocene is proposed as a new geological epoch in which humans have impacted on the geology of the planet.
The Fellowship will explore the potential of the Anthropocene for mobilising political action.
The theoretical focus of the research is the relationship between different approaches to the human/nature relationship and the ethical and political implications of those approaches.
Firstly, the project will diagnose a contradictory narrative around the Anthropocene that is a barrier for political mobilisation.
On the one hand, this narrative proclaims the ‘end’ of the human/nature distinction in order to demonstrate the scale of the challenges posed by the Anthropocene. On the other hand, there remains a reliance upon that very distinction in the imaginations of political community and responsibility that underpin calls for collective action.
Secondly, it will develop an account of ethical-political responsibility and community that responds to these challenges.
The project will focus on three areas in which Anthropocene cultures are produced:
- Popular cultural representations of the Anthropocene
- Scientific debates
- Artistic representations of the Anthropocene.
The research will identify points of convergence as well as challenges posed by these different representations in order to spark new engagement between the disparate approaches to the Anthropocene and responses to the ‘mobilisation problem’, as well as develop a new account of ethical-political community and responsibility in the Anthropocene with which to address the ‘mobilisation problem’.