Ethics and Politics of Space for the Anthropocene 9781839108709, 9781839108693

Table of contents :
Front Matter
Copyright
Contents
Contributors
1. Introduction: reimagining ways of talking about the Anthropocene
PART I Reimaginations
2. Imagining place and politics in the Anthropocene
3. Walking with rocks - with care
4. On scientific fabulation: storytelling in the more-than-human world
PART II Stories from marginalized communities
5. Rethinking knowledge, power, agency: learning from displaced and slum communities in Bangladesh
6. Spaces of climate justice: towards an ethical politics of intervention in the Anthropocene
7. Between extractivism and sacredness: the struggle for environmental in heritances by the Adivasi communities of India
PART III Law and technology
8. Beyond the Capitalocene: an ecocentric perspective for the energy transition
9. Temporality, technology and justice in Hannah Arendt: a critical approach
10. The Anthropocene and climate change in the post-Paris Agreement debate
PART IV Conclusive part
11. The role of imagination, marginalized communities, law and technology in building an ethical approach to the Anthropocene
Index

Citation preview

Ethics and Politics of Space for the Anthropocene

Ethics and Politics of Space for the Anthropocene Edited by

Anu Valtonen Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Lapland, Finland

Outi Rantala Associate Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Lapland, Finland

Paolo Davide Farah Associate Professor, West Virginia University, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, John D. Rockefeller IV School of Policy and Politics, Department of Public Administration, USA and Founder, President and Director, gLAWcal – Global Law Initiatives for Sustainable Development, UK

Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA

© Anu Valtonen, Outi Rantala and Paolo Davide Farah 2020 Chapter 10: © Paolo Davide Farah and Marek Prityi 2020; Chapter 11: © Paolo Davide Farah 2020 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Published by Edward Elgar Publishing Limited The Lypiatts 15 Lansdown Road Cheltenham Glos GL50 2JA UK Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc. William Pratt House 9 Dewey Court Northampton Massachusetts 01060 USA

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Control Number: 2020944131 This book is available electronically in the Social and Political Science subject collection http://dx.doi.org/10.4337/9781839108709

ISBN 978 1 83910 869 3 (cased) ISBN 978 1 83910 870 9 (eBook)

Contents List of contributorsvii 1

Introduction: reimagining ways of talking about the Anthropocene Anu Valtonen and Outi Rantala

PART I

1

REIMAGINATIONS

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Imagining place and politics in the Anthropocene Forrest Clingerman

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Walking with rocks – with care Outi Rantala, Anu Valtonen and Tarja Salmela

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On scientific fabulation: storytelling in the more-than-human world Emily Höckert

PART II

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STORIES FROM MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES

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Rethinking knowledge, power, agency: learning from displaced and slum communities in Bangladesh Afroja Khanam and Tiina Seppälä

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Spaces of climate justice: towards an ethical politics of intervention in the Anthropocene Paul Routledge

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Between extractivism and sacredness: the struggle for environmental inheritances by the Adivasi communities of India Arpita Bisht

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PART III LAW AND TECHNOLOGY 8

Beyond the Capitalocene: an ecocentric perspective for the energy transition Giovanni Frigo v

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Ethics and politics of space for the Anthropocene

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Temporality, technology and justice in Hannah Arendt: a critical approach Jana Lozanoska

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The Anthropocene and climate change in the post-Paris Agreement debate Paolo Davide Farah and Marek Prityi

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PART IV CONCLUSIVE PART 11

The role of imagination, marginalized communities, law and technology in building an ethical approach to the Anthropocene211 Paolo Davide Farah

Index217

Contributors Arpita Bisht is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow under the LEaDing Fellows Postdoctoral Programme at Erasmus University Rotterdam’s International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Netherlands. She has obtained her PhD from TERI School of Advanced Studies, New Delhi. Her research is centred on ecological distribution conflicts, and lies at the intersection of political ecology, ecological economics, cultural and social anthropology, human geography, conflict studies, and post-growth economics. Her chapter has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 707404. The opinions expressed in the chapter reflect only the author’s view. The European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. Forrest Clingerman is Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Ohio Northern University, USA. His research focuses on environmental hermeneutics, particularly around issues of place, climate change, and environment. He is co-editor of Interpreting Nature: The Emerging Field of Environmental Hermeneutics (Fordham University Press, 2014) and Theological and Ethical Responses to Climate Engineering (Lexington, 2016). Paolo Davide Farah is Associate Professor at West Virginia University, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, John D. Rockefeller IV School of Policy and Politics, Department of Public Administration. He is Founder, President, Director and Principal Investigator at gLAWcal – Global Law Initiatives for Sustainable Development (UK). He is also “Internationally Renowned Professor/Distinguished Professor of Law” (Full Professor level) at Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU), Law School, Beijing, China. He holds a dual PhD in International Law from Aix-Marseille University (France) and the University of Milan (Italy), a LLM in European Legal Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges (Belgium) and a Maitrise (J.D.) in International and European Law from Paris Ouest La Defense Nanterre University (France). He is Editor-in-Chief for the Book Series “Transnational Law and Governance” and for the Book Series of “Global Law and Sustainable Development” published by Routledge (New York/London). Giovanni Frigo is a postdoctoral researcher in the Institute for Technology vii

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Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany. Born and raised in the Italian Alps, he pursued his BA and MA at the University of Verona, Italy and at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, France. In 2018, Giovanni received his PhD in Environmental Ethics from the University of North Texas, USA, and then taught at Northern Michigan University (NMU), USA. His interdisciplinary research focuses on the links between ethics and energy. Emily Höckert is a postdoctoral researcher at the Multidimensional Tourism Institute of University of Lapland, Finland. She has written Negotiating Hospitality (Routledge, 2018) and co-authored Disruptive Tourism and Its Untidy Guests (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), which both focus on exploring relational ethics in tourism settings. Today, she is a proud member of the research and development teams Culturally Sensitive Tourism in Arctic (ARCTISEN) and Envisioning Proximity Tourism with New Materialism (Academy of Finland, 324493). Afroja Khanam is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Lapland, Finland, and Assistant Professor in Political Science, Jagannath University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. She has Master’s degrees in Governance and Development (2016) and Political Science (2005), and an LLB (2008). Her ongoing research deals with internal displacement and slum communities in Bangladesh. Her research interests include migration, trafficking, internally displaced persons (IDPs), development and human rights. Jana Lozanoska is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Human Rights and Head of Human Rights Program at Al-Quds Bard College, Al-Quds University, Palestine. She obtained her doctoral degree from the United Nations University for Peace in San Jose, Costa Rica. Her doctoral thesis has focused on the political principle of human dignity that was proposed by 20th-century political thinker Hannah Arendt. She holds an LLM degree in International Humanitarian Law from the University of Geneva and Graduate Institute for International Studies, Switzerland. Her research interests are in the intersection of transitional justice, justice, ethics and technology. Marek Prityi is in the Ministry of Environment, Directorate for Environmental Policy, EU and International Relations, Department of International Relations (Slovak Republic) & Research Associate at gLAWcal – Global Law Initiatives for Sustainable Development (United Kingdom). He holds a PhD and LLM from the University of Cologne, Germany and a J.D. from Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. Outi Rantala is Associate Professor of Responsible Arctic Tourism, University of Lapland, Faculty of Social Sciences, Finland. In her research, she applies

Contributors

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environmental social science approaches to tourism contexts. Currently, she is an active member of several research networks, such as the UArctic Thematic Network on Northern Tourism, the Sustainable Change Research Network, and the Adventure Tourism Research Association. For the editing work of this book, she has utilized funding from the Academy of Finland (no. 326348). Paul Routledge is Professor of Contentious Politics and Social Change in the School of Geography, University of Leeds, UK. His research interests include critical geopolitics, climate change, social justice, the environment, and social movements. His work involves politically engaged and committed research that is practice-based and conducted in horizontal collaboration with social movements. He is author of Space Invaders: Radical Geographies of Protest (Pluto Press, 2017). Tarja Salmela (D. Soc.Sci, University of Lapland) is an organizational scholar working at the intersection of organization studies, critical animal studies, tourism studies and academic activism. Her work is inspired by feminist new materialism, STS and posthumanist theories. She is currently working on the research project ‘Envisioning proximity tourism with new materialism’ (Academy of Finland, 324493), where she focuses on the topics of more-than-human care, death, rhythmicity and adventure in Northern context. Her work has been published in Qualitative Inquiry, Culture and Organization and Tourism Geographies, among others. Tiina Seppälä holds a PhD in International Relations (2010) from the University of Lapland, Finland, where she works as a university researcher. She has engaged with slum activists and women’s rights movements in Nepal and Bangladesh, anti-eviction movements in India, anti-war/peace activists in the UK and asylum-seekers in Finland. Her research interests are development, displacement, social movements, postcolonial and feminist theory, ethnography, and art-based and collaborative research methodologies. Anu Valtonen is Professor of Cultural Economy at the University of Lapland, Faculty of Social Sciences, Finland. She works at the interface of marketing, organization and tourism studies. Her research interests relate to critical and feminist theories, qualitative methodologies, bodies, senses, and sleep cultures. Recently, she has been engaging with feminist new materialism, affect theories, and more-than-human methodologies.

1. Introduction: reimagining ways of talking about the Anthropocene Anu Valtonen and Outi Rantala THE ANTHROPOCENE? In the current epoch, known as the Anthropocene, humans interfere with the geological and biological processes of the world to a greater extent and at a faster rate than ever before. The term was coined by Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen (2002), and it is commonly used to refer to a range of human-induced phenomena, such as climate change, mass extinction of species and the pollution of the oceans and the air, which all have profound consequences for the wellbeing of every inhabitant of the earth (Crutzen & Stoermer, 2000; Hamilton, 2016; Wright et al., 2018). While it is a contested term (Malm & Hornborg, 2014), the ‘Anthropocene’ has aroused an upsurge of interest in the natural and social sciences, as well as in fields across the arts and humanities. As a result, journals dedicated to the topic, such as Anthropocene and The Anthropocene Review, have been launched, several collaborative projects and seminars have been organised, a wealth of books, articles and special issues have been published (e.g. Angus, 2016; Grusin, 2017; Tsing et al., 2017) and courses on the Anthropocene have been included in the curricula of higher education around the world. Furthermore, a range of diverse cultural projects engaging with the idea of the Anthropocene has been organised all over the globe, such as art exhibitions, performances, theatre plays and podcasts. We have also witnessed the emergence of grassroots activism aiming to change ineffectual political and economic efforts to transform current modes of living. The world-scale movement initiated by 16-year-old Greta Thunberg provides a case in point. These burgeoning activities act as evidence that the Anthropocene is more than merely a term for an epoch (Toivanen et al., 2017); it has proved to be a malleable concept used in creative ways in different contexts. Perhaps most importantly, it has raised much-needed awareness about the magnitude of the environmental problems concerning the earth, inspired people to act and provided an umbrella term that enables people representing different backgrounds 1

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and fields to collaborate in solving urgent earthly problems. The debate has also deepened common knowledge of the complexity of the ongoing transformation. It has highlighted that all planetary subsystems are deeply interconnected, rendering visible the fact that the whole earth, from its crust to the outermost reaches of its atmosphere, has been profoundly disrupted by human activities (Wright et al., 2018, p. 457). In academia, the Anthropocene has facilitated cooperation between disciplines, in particular between the natural and social sciences. It has pushed scholars representing different disciplines to search for a common ground that would enable them to work together instead of falling into the ‘science wars’. The development of geosocial perspectives integrated with geological and social-scientific insights provides a good example (Clark & Yusoff, 2017). The planetary situation clearly demands this kind of collaborative effort.

THE ANTHROPOCENE AS A CRISIS OF THINKING As the above discussion suggests, alongside the ecological crisis, the Anthropocene articulates a crisis of thinking (Zylinska, 2014, p. 19). It poses a range of intellectual challenges to scholars, inviting them to develop a greater degree of critical reflexivity (Wright et al., 2018). This relates, in particular, to the assumptions inscribed in the commonly used conceptual categories through which human–nature relations are considered. The debate has rendered strikingly evident the fact that ‘natural’ and ‘cultural’ entangle in so many ways that their separation must – at last – be questioned, and novel formulations introduced. Nature and culture are so inextricably intertwined in our bodies, our landscapes, our technologies and our ways of doing research that the artificial and harmful (yet persistent) division merits bridging. The debate has also called into question the human-centric foci of much of social-scientific research – as well as the question of the ‘human’ in the Anthropocene. While humans are considered geological forces, and the very term focalises human impact on the earth, not ‘all humans’, but a small a powerful subset living in the global north, are primarily responsible for the crisis. The activities of this group are fuelled by global corporate capitalism, which is reliant upon continued growth, ever-expanding consumption and the use of fossil fuel based energy (Angus, 2016; Malm, 2016; Moore, 2016; Salminen & Vaden, 2015). Furthermore, the Anthropocene demands new reflection on the very category of human, which commonly rests on a distinction between biology and culture (Frost, 2016; Haraway, 2016). By challenging the fantasy of human as separate from inhuman, Frost (2016), for instance, proposes a conceptualisation of humans as biocultural creatures, and in so doing opens up one possible avenue for challenging the human exceptionalism enshrined in disciplinary categories.

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She elucidates the imbrication of the biological and cultural within the corporeal self, building thereby a bridge between humanities and the sciences. In the same vein, Wright and his colleagues (2018) remark that ‘purely inhuman nature – the imagined object of most science – was never a valid construct because the human was always an inextricable element in the view of nature’ (p. 457). This debate has hence encouraged social-scientific scholars to think beyond the dichotomy of nature and culture and to recognise that there is a plethora of other species and creatures living on the same planet besides the one named humans. Many scholars have recently argued for the need to accord more-than-humans expanded agential status in social-scientific inquires instead of treating them as ‘resources’ or as having the role of merely ‘serving human needs’. As a result, we have witnessed an increasing number of social-scientific studies that include more-than-humans in their inquiries and make much-needed efforts to find conceptualisations apt for thinking about how different earthly creatures could, and should, coexist and co-live as kin (e.g. Haraway, 2016; Kalonaityte, 2018; Lorimer, 2015; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2015; Tsing et al., 2017). Furthermore, the development of novel pedagogies (Jickling et al., 2018) and methods that enable the exploration of life and coexistence in a more-than-human world is underway (e.g. Salmela & Valtonen, 2019; Springgay & Truman, 2018; Ulmer, 2017). All in all, then, the Anthropocene has stimulated a necessary reflection on the ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions that underpin social-scientific knowledge production. In continuing this timely debate, this book focuses on discussing the Anthropocene through the concepts of ethics and politics by emphasising the question of space. Many issues of the Anthropocene revolve around the question of how space between the human sphere and the rest of the world is, or is not, shared – an ethical and political question in itself. Furthermore, the Anthropocene profoundly challenges the temporal and spatial horizons of ethical actions, rousing novel ethical concerns. Indeed, the ontologies of space radically affect the episteme through which human–earth relations are understood, challenging the conventional norms for coexistence between various inhabitants of the earth. The Anthropocene also invites us to reassess the often Eurocentric, rationalistic and human-centred assumptions baked into ethical theories and to explore conceptual and practical links between ethics and politics. This book therefore seeks to consider the scope of such ethical and political analyses in a broad sense to better capture the complex and novel nature of these ongoing transformations. It thereby expands the important openings made by previous scholars (e.g. Biermann, 2014; Schmidt et al., 2016). The guiding question of the book, therefore, reads as: how should the ethics and politics of space be thought about in the current epoch? In answering this

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question the book asks, and tries to address, more detailed questions such as what does this mean conceptually, politically and empirically? For instance, how should we think about ethics when applied not only to humans but also to more-than-humans (Beacham, 2018; Kinnunen & Valtonen, 2017; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2015; Zylinska, 2014)? How, then, ought ethical relations between various inhabitants of the earth be reimagined? For instance, what does it mean for energy politics if we acknowledge that the social and biological intertwine? To address these pressing questions, this book draws inspiration from several up-to-date theoretical sources. For instance, the recent new materialist and post-colonialist literatures, which challenge the Western, rational view of science and ethics, enable us to better address the social, political and environmental injustices that different regions of the world are facing and to develop more just, localised solutions (Seppälä, 2016). They also provide apt conceptual tools for capturing the complex ways that the social and cultural, humans and more-than-humans, are intertwined (Rantala et al., 2019). The book also places much emphasis on the lived and embodied experiences of people to grasp how the Anthropocene is felt and lived in different spaces and places around the globe. The narrative nature of the Anthropocene concept forms another crucial characteristic that underpins this book. As narratives have performative qualities, causing people to think and act in a particular way, it is vital to carefully reflect on the narratives that scholars, among other groups, tell.

NARRATIVES OF THE ANTHROPOCENE While the Anthropocene, as a condition, motivates all the chapters of this book, it is primarily the narrative aspect that connects them. Prior scholars have identified a range of narratives that inform the way the Anthropocene is thought about and acted upon. The Anthropocene opens up an evolutionary narrative in itself, which ‘reimagines human origins and endings within a geologic rather than an exclusively biological context’ (Yusoff, 2016, p. 3). In so doing, it radically rewrites concepts of life, moving ‘from predominantly biopolitical notions of life toward an understanding of life’s geophysical origination (geontics)’ (Yusoff, 2016, p. 3). The basic narrative also involves a debate about the beginning of the Anthropocene, and casts several symbolic steps, such as the Industrial Revolution and the Great Acceleration that followed the Second World War, as key markers of the transformation. The end, for the narrative’s part, is concerned with the future of humanity, or the planet after humans, displaying either a ‘good Anthropocene’ with ‘happy endings’ or more dystopian and apocalyptic alternatives (Toivanen et al., 2017). On the other hand, the ‘business-as-usual’ narrative downplays or even denies the existence of an earthly crisis. Advocates of such a narrative (i.e.

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global corporations and political elites) continue to rely on the current neoliberal agenda valuing business expansion and growth and viewing the earth as ‘simply a source of natural resources and a sink for the disposal of our economies’ (Wright et al., 2018, p. 460). The ‘techno-rational’ narrative, in turn, portrays the crisis as a business opportunity, based on the optimistic belief that new technology, corporate innovations, economic development and markets can enable the minimisation of planetary harm and ultimately remake the world (for a critique, see e.g. Heikkurinen, 2017; Wright et al., 2018). The heroic role accorded to markets and technology is visible, for instance, in the development of new green products, green technology and geoengineering. This narrative thus promotes the view that these problems can be solved by the same means that caused them in the first place. In contrast to worldviews portrayed in these two narratives, this book advocates – as do many others (Wright et al., 2018; Heikkurinen, 2017) – a more radical reimagination of prevalent economic and social structures, as well as associated systems of belief. It also promotes a plurality of narratives about the Anthropocene, rather than a single grand narrative. Here, plurality refers to the range of voices represented in the narratives: voices from different spheres of the world, from different groups of people in terms of class, gender and ethnicity, from activists and from those who are most vulnerable to the crisis. The ‘voice’ of the more-than-humans must be included. With plurality, we also refer to the worldviews exhibited in these narratives – and the very style of narrating as such. Reimaging ways of telling narratives about the Anthropocene, such as through the arts, is an important step, as it offers a new and potentially far more extensive way of ‘seeing, sensing, thinking, and dreaming that creates the conditions for material interventions in, and political sensibilities of the world’ (Yusoff & Gabrys, 2011, p. 516; see Wright et al., 2018, pp. 464–465). As Zylinska notes (2014, p. 11), stories have a performative nature: they can enact, not just describe, things. They have the power to promise some futures and conceal others. The work of telling new stories is not an easy practice; it requires ongoing engagement and a willingness to unpack the social, disciplinary and ideological structures within which we are embedded (Loveless, 2019, p. 20).

TOWARD SITUATED NARRATIVES IN A MORE-THAN-HUMAN WORLD The uniqueness of this book lies in the fact that it outlines new and more radical ways of addressing the current crisis. To this end, it envisages a narrative of change that renders visible the range of transformations taking place throughout the globe. This allows us, we posit, to better capture the complex nature of these ongoing transformations, and to alter unjust practices

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and power structures in a more sustainable and context-specific manner. Importantly, this new narrative highlights the localised and situated nature of the Anthropocene, allowing the differences between regions and contexts – and subsequent ethical and political questions – to be taken seriously. In other words, such a view urges us to discuss ethics in specific social, political, environmental and cultural contexts (Cui & Xu, 2019). It also highlights the potentiality residing in non-Western ways of relating to and living on the earth, taking more-than-humans into account. Ontologically, this book challenges the practice of assigning different forms of life to normatively fixed roles and categories, engaging instead in thinking about the world in terms of continuity, openness and messiness. This ontology functions as the inspiration for conceptual innovation. This book employs and develops a number of concepts that open up intriguing insights into the ethics and politics of space in the Anthropocene. To illustrate, concepts such as more-than-human care, scientific fabulation, prefigurative epistemologies, resistance, activism, technologies, sacredness and human–energy–nature relationships invite the reader to engage in critical reflection about how to tackle the earthy crisis. Thus, the core pillars that form the base of the narrative outlined in this book are (1) the generation of situated in-depth knowledge, (2) the recognition of non-Western knowledge and (3) the entanglement of humans and more-than-humans. Next, we elaborate on these pillars. Situated In-Depth Knowledge Due to the dominant role of the natural sciences in defining the Anthropocene, and the earth-level scale inscribed into the very concept, many studies have produced macro-level analyses based upon natural-scientific, statistical and quantitative methods and measures. While this kind of knowledge is vitally important, no doubt, and widely used in well-known reports and studies, such as those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Global Footprint Network, it seems to be ineffective in eliciting change (Bonnedahl & Heikkurinen, 2018). Much of the diverse social and cultural phenomena related to the Anthropocene are, indeed, resistant to modelling (Palsson et al., 2013, p. 6). Furthermore, such a macro-level approach creates a homogenising and universalising account of the earth, neglecting the vast biological, geographical and social particularities, inequalities and complexities of different regions and contexts. Therefore, there is a pressing need for more situated and localised analyses of the Anthropocene, as noted by many (Biermann et al., 2016; Palsson & Swanson, 2016). Moreover, Forrest Clingerman (Chapter 2 in this book) calls for emplaced analyses, arguing that ‘participation in political life is possible only when political action recognizes

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and upholds the need to flourish in a location, context, or place’. These situated analyses necessitate the development and employment of methods suitable for enabling the provision of in-depth and down-to-earth knowledge of the social and environmental changes taking place in different regions, as well as for gaining an understanding of how these changes are lived-with and experienced by different groups. The chapters in this book respond to this challenge by offering situated and empirically well-grounded analyses of various places and spaces around the globe. The offered analyses remain sensitive to the biological, geological and social – as well as ethical and political – particularities and complexities of the places in question. The chapters also exemplify the use of a range of methods that enable researchers to grasp how human–nature relations are articulated in these places at a grassroots level. For instance, Outi Rantala, Anu Valtonen and Tarja Salmela (Chapter 3) explore the lively relationalities between human bodies and rocks by employing the walking method (Springgay & Truman, 2018) in the context of a national park situated in Finnish Lapland. Their chapter also articulates a different story than is commonly told about the Arctic, of which Finnish Lapland is a part. Staging rocks, instead of melting ice and polar bears, illustrates how small, situated stories can provide a more nuanced picture of life lived and experienced in the Anthropocene. The power of small, situated stories is further highlighted by the study of Emily Höckert (Chapter 4). By using the familiar practice of telling fairy tales, she sets out to reimagine the practice of storytelling and story-listening in the Anthropocene. The chapter deliberates on the ways in which scientific fables would allow us to gather around matters of care in more-than-human worlds. The introduced conceptual innovation of scientific fabulation allows multiple voices to be involved in the narrative of the Anthropocene and regards complicating, specifying, slowing down and hesitating as important aspects of narration. Such notions give voices to more-than-humans, an act that is urgently needed, and creates new forms of language and representation that help to speculate on the futures of humanity and the planet. Afroja Khanam and Tiina Seppälä (Chapter 5) and Paul Routledge (Chapter 6), in turn, bring us to Bangladesh, one of the countries in the world most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and rising sea levels. Khanam and Seppälä analyse the injustices faced by displaced people and communities in two slums in Dhaka. Throughout their in-depth fieldwork, they use a mixture of qualitative methods (e.g. interviews, observations, group discussions) to give voices to marginalised people and to highlight the forms of resistance and grassroots activism they enacted to take agency. Routledge’s study, for its part, is based upon a prolonged ethnographic and collaborative engagement with two rural-based peasant movements in Bangladesh. It presents politically engaged research among the rural poor. By highlighting – and contesting –

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unequal social and environmental relations, as well as the historical legacy behind them, his study works toward an ethical politics of climate justice that acts through interventions. Then, in Chapter 7, Arbita Bisht gives a voice to the Adivasis, the indigenous people of India, many of whom are dispossessed of their land due to ‘development’ projects. She presents a document-based analysis of ecological distribution conflicts related to mineral extraction, highlighting social resistance movements that aim at defending the cultural and sacred spaces of Adivasi communities against exploitation. All these chapters contest the capitalist, growth-based and techno-oriented business-as-usual narrative, demonstrating how it brings about uneven solutions both socially and environmentally in different local contexts. In contrast, the chapters highlight how local-level activism, interventions, resistances and social movements can be mobilised to work toward justice, equality, dignity and rights. They also demonstrate how local-level resistance can act as a powerful mediator of transformation. In so doing, they exemplify how the alternative narrative of the Anthropocene that includes political action, protest, civil disobedience and community engagement is put into practice (Wright et al., 2018, p. 463). Altogether, these contributions provide a rich body of contextual understanding from different places and spaces around the world, entangling with social, legislative, ethical and political issues. Furthermore, in Chapter 10, Paolo Davide Farah and Marek Prityi highlight the role of agile governance in addressing ‘wicked problems’ related to the Anthropocene, such as climate change. They argue that agile governance systems must include a broad array of stakeholders with both vertical and horizontal governance backgrounds – from local, state, national and international levels to the private, public and non-governmental organisation (NGO) sectors. These forms of governance, based solely on collaboration, aim to ensure that democratic principles are not compromised as a result of the need to address the issues presented by the Anthropocene. Seen from the perspective of ‘the knowledge generation’, stakeholder collaboration may allow access to the expertise necessary to combat false narratives. In the context of the global north–south divide, collaborative approaches harness the potential to improve both mitigative and adaptive paradigms for addressing climate change. In so doing, the chapter illustrates the way geographical and social particularities, inequalities and complexities of different regions and contexts could be taken into account when earthly challenges are addressed. Recognising Non-Western Knowledge Many scholars have raised concerns that the narrative of the Anthropocene continues to reproduce the Western – and masculine – rationalistic worldview (e.g. Springgay & Truman, 2018). This is strikingly visible in the

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techno-rational narrative that assumes environmental problems should, and could, be solved by technology. As Grusin (2017) points out: Scientists and engineers continue to rely on many of the same masculinist and human-centred solutions that have created the problems in the first place, whether through offsetting carbon emissions, by developing new and cleaner energy sources, or, most dramatically, through heroic agency of geoengineering. (p. ix)

Furthermore, environmental politics scholar Lövbrand (Wright et al., 2018) aptly notes that the concept of the Anthropocene has emerged within a historically situated context dominated by modernist and masculinist forms of science, which contributes to proposed science-led solutions, such as geoengineering. Relying on a Western, rationalist view of science and knowledge is also problematic, as it downplays different worldviews and understandings of knowledge, including local and indigenous knowledge. As a result, while the people of the global south are dramatically affected by the economic and political activities of those of the global north, their own knowledge and ways of thinking about nature–culture relations is not given adequate value or recognition. To overcome this scientific bias, Zylinska (2014, pp. 14–15) talks about a ‘post-masculinist rationality’ and ‘post-masculinist politics’. The aim is not, then, to exert control over everything through the force of instrumental rationality, but rather to face the uncertainty, the unpredictable and speculative nature of things (see also Puig de la Bellacasa, 2012). This book aligns with this suggestion; it responds to Western rationalism by giving a voice to non-Western people and their own worldviews and systems of belief and by employing theoretical sources that depart from the masculinist, rational modes of science. As exemplified in the above-mentioned studies conducted in Bangladesh and India, voices are given to the marginalised people of the global south. The study of Bisht on the Adivasi indigenous community (Chapter 7) brings to the fore a worldview that contrasts with the prevalent Western one. For the Adivasis, nature has value in itself: their cultural identity, livelihood, ways of living and social structures are deeply embedded within local ecosystems. No wonder, then, that they face conflicts with the economically and politically powerful groups for whom nature – forests and minerals – represents merely monetary value. Khanam and Seppälä (Chapter 5), for their part, base their study on slum communities in Dhaka on the epistemological conviction that researchers must listen to the voices of the excluded and marginalised. Importantly, instead of theorising about them from a distance, they try rather to build theory with them, in dialogue. This epistemological approach, informed by the post-colonial theorist Motta (2011) in particular, seeks to transcend the

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binary between theoretical and practical knowledge, challenging, in particular, the presumption that the researcher has ‘the epistemic privilege’ in producing theoretical knowledge. Rather, in prefigurative epistemologies, as their approach is called, theory is produced collectively via reflection and is based upon the lived experiences and struggles of excluded and marginalised communities. Speaking and theorising from the epistemological margins provides one way of leveraging more equal and sustainable insights for policymaking. Post-colonial theories, together with lived experiences, are also employed by Höckert (Chapter 4), who uses them to challenge the idea of knowledge as completed and distanced, as well as to unpack the often problematic nature– culture or human–animal relations portrayed in fairy tales, which perpetuate the Western economic worldviews underpinning these stories. The dominant legacy of science is further challenged by Rantala, Valtonen and Salmela (Chapter 3), who draw from feminist new materialist literature to problematise and refigure human–nature relations. The Entanglement of Humans and More-Than-Humans The Anthropocene has accentuated the need to recognise and retheorise the more-than-human inhabitants of the earth, such as animals, plants, trees, minerals or bacteria (Haraway, 2016; Lorimer, 2015). While there has been a tendency in the Western scientific legacy to think of humans and more-than-humans as separate entities, and to accord active agency only to the former, recent theorisations have challenged this assumption. Barad (2003), among others (Alaimo & Hekman 2008; Bennett, 2010), has forcefully argued for the need to grant agency to more-than-humans and to think of the relation between them and humans in terms of entanglement. This need is quite understandable if we consider the issue of plastics (Hawkins, 2017a, b) and, in particular, the ubiquity of micro-plastics: they can now be found in oceans, freshwater lakes, air, fish, birds, mosquitoes – and human bodies are no exception. Our bodily systems are inextricably intertwined with the micro-plastics that have entered them. Post-masculinist rationality might help in tackling this kind of situation. It calls for a different understanding of rationality, one that is ‘always already embodied and immersed, responding to the call of matter and to its various materialisations – materialisations such as humans, animals, plants, inanimate objects, as well as the relations between them’ (Zylinska, 2014, pp. 14–15). The chapters in this book provide several examples of how humans and more-than-humans coexist and entangle. Chapter 2, by Clingerman, while deliberating on the imaginative and conceptual effects of the Anthropocene in the political sphere, argues that ‘we must discover ways to “re-place” the Anthropocene within the task of imagination and our future, and to

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do so in a way that engages the complexity and uniqueness of human and more-than-human communities’. This complexity and uniqueness are empirically demonstrated by Rantala, Valtonen and Salmela (Chapter 3), who explore the ways in which humans and rocks relate and intertwine in the context of a national park. They accord agency to rocks and demonstrate how they are intertwined with embodied and affective human knowers, both shaped by and shaping them. This way of thinking allows them to offer a complex picture of how more-than-human care is articulated in that particular context. Giovanni Frigo (Chapter 8) sets out to explore the transition of energy from fossil fuels to renewable and sustainable energy sources. His conceptual study starts from the premise that such a transition implies the transformation of complex energy systems and is intertwined with a range of economic, gendered, socio-political, religious and eco-systemic dimensions. To grasp this complexity, he coins the term ‘human–energy–nature relationship’ to highlight how various biological and cultural relations are embedded in it. Such a notion, he suggests, facilitates a reorientation toward eco-centric understanding. Thus, Frigo claims that we need to recognise the intrinsic value of the more-than-human inhabitants of the earth, listing the possible effects of this recognition on environmental law. Chapter 9, by Jana Lozanoska, employs Hannah Arendt’s political theory to analyse the intersection between temporality, technology and justice in the Anthropocene. Starting from the premise that growing technological developments have shifted conceptions of humanity, the chapter focuses on Arendt’s concept of ‘non-time space’ to explore the idea of justice, suggesting that it is in this small crack of time and space that a temporality of judgement occurs. The chapter elaborates that technology relates to public space, politics and justice itself. It does not lean on the techno-utopic narrative that casts technology as a means to tackle environmental problems, but rather it suggests that unpredictable new beginnings play a crucial part in the human condition of plurality, which is characterised by apolitical freedom and political equality, a concept Arendt attempts to teach us.

STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK Taken together, the contributions to this book provide a diverse, timely and perhaps provocative set of perspectives on the Anthropocene. The contributors come from a number of different disciplinary backgrounds, including law, organisational studies, tourism studies, philosophy, cultural geography, political sciences and international relations. The chapters are grouped into three thematic parts. The first part of the book – Reimaginations – opens up the conceptual landscape of the debates surrounding the Anthropocene and reveals pathways to reimaginations. First,

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in Chapter 2, Clingerman provides an up-to-date critique of the concept of the Anthropocene, discussing its legacies and challenges, as well as its potentialities for and reimaginations of thinking about place and space in the Anthropocene. Second, Rantala, Valtonen and Salmela discuss in Chapter 3 how the concept of care must be reimagined when it is applied to the local context of ‘walking-with’ rocks in an Arctic region. They thereby provide a contextual, micro-level analysis of more-than-human care, with the help of a novel method. Third, in Chapter 4, Höckert sets out to reimagine the practice of storytelling and story-listening, deliberating on the ways in which scientific fables allow us to gather around matters of care in more-than-human worlds. The introduced conceptual innovation of scientific fabulation allows multiple voices to be involved in the narrative of the Anthropocene, regarding complicating, specifying, slowing down and hesitating as important aspects of narration. The second part of this book – Stories from Marginalised Communities – presents studies conducted within marginalised communities in the global south, namely Bangladesh and India. It grants voices to often-silenced and marginalised groups, such as poor peasants, displaced people, slum communities and indigenous people. By providing down-to-earth analyses of everyday struggles, conflicts, social movements, interventions and grassroots activism enacted in these vulnerable contexts, the chapters by Khanem and Seppälä (Chapter 5), Routledge (Chapter 6) and Bisht (Chapter 7) render visible the experiences of people affected by the practices of the economic and political elite (such as mining, ‘development’ or biotechnologies), demonstrating how marginalised people take agency to respond to the exploitation they face. These studies also render visible worldviews that portray nature–culture relations beyond monetary terms, thereby opening up a different system of belief that merits respect. In so doing, this part develops a view of epistemology that values non-Western local knowledge and know-how, questioning the epistemic privilege of scientific knowledge. The third part of this book – Law and Technology – takes up the issues of technology, law and justice, pondering their significant yet changing role in the debates surrounding the Anthropocene. The contributions of this part lean on different theoretical perspectives to reimagine prevalent ways of thinking about key concepts and practices. For instance, in Chapter 8, Frigo employs a philosophical perspective to reimagine the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. Through the term human–energy–nature relationship, he captures the complexity of various biological and cultural relations embedded in the use of energy. As such, he facilitates a reorientation of the human–energy–nature relationship toward eco-centric understanding. In Chapter 9, Lozanoska mobilises Hannah Arendt’s work to analyse the intersection between temporality, technology and justice in the Anthropocene.

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Assuming first that growing technological developments have transformed conceptions of humanity, the chapter takes up Arendt’s concept of non-time space to explore the idea of justice: it is in this small crack of time and space that a temporality of judgement occurs. Farah and Prityi (Chapter 10) introduce the age of the Anthropocene through reference to both the warnings of expert reports and the urgency of several challenges associated with the epoch. They describe the challenges and implications that such climatic chaos presents for governance and how such unprecedented challenges must be tackled by agile governance systems that include a broad array of stakeholders from both vertical and horizontal governance backgrounds, ranging from local, state, national and international levels to the private, public and NGO sectors. Chapter 11 by Farah wraps up the contents of the volume by discussing the ways in which the approach proposed in the book contributes to the debate on the Anthropocene.

REFERENCES Alaimo, S., & Hekman, S. (2008). Material feminism. Indiana University Press. Angus, I. (2016). Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil capitalism and the crisis of the earth system. Monthly Review. Barad, K. (2003). Posthumanist performativity: Toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 28(3), 801–831. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1086/​345321. Beacham, J. (2018). Organising food differently: Towards a more-than-human ethics of care for the Anthropocene. Organization, 25(4), 533–549. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​ 1350508418777893. Bennett, J. (2010). Vibrant matter. Duke University Press. Biermann, F. (2014). Earth system governance: World politics in the Anthropocene. MIT Press. Biermann, F., Bai, X., Bondre, N., Broadgate, W., Chen-Tung, A., Dube, O. P., Willem Erisman, J., Sandravan der Hel, M. G., Seitzinger, M. C., & Seto, K. C. (2016). Down to earth: Contextualizing the Anthropocene. Global Environmental Change, 39(July), 341–350. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1016/​j​.gloenvcha​.2015​.11​.004. Bonnedahl, K. J., & Heikkurinen, P. (Eds). (2018). Strongly sustainable societies: Organizing human activities on a hot and full earth. Routledge. Clark, N., & Yusoff, K. (2017). Geosocial formations and the Anthropocene. Theory, Culture and Society, 34(2–3), 3–23. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177​%2F0263276416688946. Crutzen, P. J. (2002). Geology of mankind: The Anthropocene. Nature, 415(6867), 23. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1038/​415023a. Crutzen, P. J., & Stoermer, E. F. (2000). Have we entered the ‘Anthropocene’? IGBP Global Change Newsletter, 41, 17. Cui, Q., & Xu, H. (2019). Situating animal ethics in Thai elephant tourism. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 60(3), 267–279. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1111/​apv​.12221. Frost, S. (2016). Biocultural creatures: Towards a new theory of the human. Duke University Press. Grusin, R. (2017). Anthropocene feminism. University of Minnesota Press. Hamilton, C. (2016). The Anthropocene as rupture. The Anthropocene Review, 3(2), 93–106. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177​%2F2053019616634741.

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Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press. Hawkins, G. (2017a). Plastics. In I. Szeman, J. Wenzel, & P. Fordham Yaeger Fordham (Eds), Fueling culture: 101 words for energy and environment (pp. 271–274). Fordham University Press. Hawkins, G. (2017b). Ethical blindness: Plastics, disposability and the art of not caring. In V. Kinnunen & A. Valtonen (Eds), Living ethics (pp. 15–28). University of Lapland. Heikkurinen, P. (Ed.). (2017). Sustainability and peaceful coexistence for the Anthropocene. Routledge. Jickling, B., Blenkinsop, S., Timmerman, N., & De Danann Sitka-Sage, M. (Eds). (2018). Wild pedagogies: Touchstones for re-negotiating education and the environments in the Anthropocene. Palgrave Macmillan. Kalonaityte, V. (2018). When rivers go to court: The Anthropocene in organization studies through the lens of Jacques Ranciere. Organization, 25(4), 517–532. https://​ doi​.org/​10​.1177​%2F1350508418775830. Kinnunen, V., & Valtonen, A. (Eds). (2017). Living ethics in a more-than-human world. University of Lapland. Lorimer, J. (2015). Wildlife in the Anthropocene: Conservation after nature. University of Minnesota Press. Loveless, N. (2019). How to make art at the end of the world: A manifesto for research-creation. Duke University Press. Malm, A. (2016). Fossil capital: The roots of steam power and the roots of global warming. Verso. Malm, A., & Hornborg, A. (2014). The geology of mankind? A critique of the Anthropocene narrative. The Anthropocene Review, 1(1), 62–69. https://​doi​.org/​10​ .1177​%2F2053019613516291. Moore, J. W. (Ed.). (2016). Anthropocene or capitalocene? Nature, history, and the crisis of capitalism. PM Press. Motta, S. (2011). Notes towards prefigurative epistemologies. In S. C. Motta & A. G. Nilsen (Eds), Social movements in the global south: Dispossession, development and resistance in the global south (pp. 178–199). Palgrave Macmillan. Palsson, G., & Swanson, H. A. (2016). Down to earth: Geosocialities and geopolitics. Environmental Humanities, 8(2), 149–171. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1215/​22011919​ -3664202. Palsson, G., Szerszynski, B., Sörlin, S., Marks, J., Avrile, B., Crumley, C., Hackmanng, H., Holm, P., Ingram, J., Kirman, A., Buendía, M. P., & Weehuizenl, R. (2013). Reconceptualizing the ‘anthropos’ in the Anthropocene: Integrating the social sciences and humanities in global environmental change research. Environmental Science and Policy, 28(April), 3–13. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1016/​j​.envsci​.2012​.11​.004. Puig de la Bellacasa, M. (2012). ‘Nothing comes without its world’: Thinking with care. The Sociological Review, 60(2), 197–216. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1111​%2Fj​.1467​ -954X​.2012​.02070​.x. Puig de la Bellacasa, M. (2015). Making time for soil: Technoscientific futurity and the pace of care. Social Studies of Science, 45(5), 691–716. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177​ %2F0306312715599851. Rantala, O., Höckert, E., & Ilola, H. (2019). ‘Knowing-with’ in the era of the Anthropocene. Matkailututkimus, 15(2), 4–8. https://​doi​.org/​10​.33351/​mt​.88263.

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Salmela, T., & Valtonen, A. (2019). Towards collective ways of knowing in the Anthropocene: Walking-with multiple others. Matkailututkimus, 15(2), 18–32. https://​doi​.org/​10​.33351/​mt​.88267. Salminen, A., & Vaden, T. (2015). Energy and experience: An essay on naftology. M.C.M. Schmidt, J. J., Brown, P. G., & Orr, C. J. (2016). Ethics in the Anthropocene: A research agenda. The Anthropocene Review, 3(3), 188–200. https://​doi​.org/​10​ .1177​%2F2053019616662052. Seppälä, T. (2016). Feminizing resistance, decolonizing solidarity: Contesting neoliberal development in the global south. Journal of Resistance Studies, 2(1), 12–47. Springgay, S., & Truman S. E. (2018). Walking methodologies in a more-than-human world: WalkingLab. Routledge. Toivanen, T., Lummaa, K., Majava, A., Järvensivu, P., Lähde, V., Vaden, T., & Eronen, T. J. (2017). The many Anthropocenes: A transdisciplinary challenge for the Anthropocene research. The Anthropocene Review, 4(3), 183–198. https://​doi​.org/​10​ .1177/​2053019617738099. Tsing, A. L. (2017). The mushroom at the end of the world: On the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. Princeton University Press. Ulmer, J. B. (2017). Posthumanism as research methodology: Inquiry in the Anthropocene. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 30(9), 832–838. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​09518398​.2017​.1336806. Wright, C., Nyberg, D., Rickards, L., & Freund, J. (2018). Organizing in the Anthropocene. Organization, 25(4), 455–471. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177​ %2F1350508418779649. Yusoff, K. (2016). Anthropogenesis: Origins and endings in the Anthropocene. Theory, Culture and Society, 33(2), 3–28. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177​%2F0263276415581021. Yusoff, K., & Gabrys, J. (2011). Climate change and the imagination. WIREs Climate Change, 2(4), 516–534. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1002/​wcc​.117. Zylinska, J. (2014). Minimal ethics for the Anthropocene. Open Humanities Press.

PART I

Reimaginations

2. Imagining place and politics in the Anthropocene Forrest Clingerman INTRODUCTION In 2000, Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stroemer argued that a threshold had been crossed: humans were now unique drivers of global environmental change, such that the planet had passed from one geological period – the Holocene – to the new age of “the Anthropocene” (Crutzen & Stroemer, 2000). Responding to this and other essays (Crutzen, 2002a, 2002b), researchers across the sciences and humanities are now asking if we have entered a new age, defined as when humans have wrested control of Earth systems. Certainly, some researchers have been concerned with the environmental and scientific questions that are raised in discussions of the Anthropocene, suggesting a pressing need to investigate the “Great Acceleration” of human control, use, and manipulation of materials (Steffen et al., 2007). At the same time, even though interest in this term started out as an attempt to understand changes in the geologic record and the human impact on Earth systems, the term has been extended to capture more transdisciplinary interpretations of the ways humanity currently encounters and manipulates environments. The significance of the Anthropocene is best understood when we reflect on what seems an easy question: what do we imagine when we envision an Anthropocene epoch? There are many possible answers, but they all have an important commonality: our visions of the Anthropocene are not limited to scientific framings of changes to the Earth system, but instead become a way of characterizing limits, distortions, and possibilities to the meanings we attach to our environments. In other words, it is precisely the interpretive possibilities of the concept that make it provocative. As Jamie Lorimer (2016) writes, “The Anthropocene proposal has catalyzed a wider intellectual event: a flurry of activity with far-reaching ontological, epistemic, political and aesthetic consequences” that some call the “Anthropo-scene” (p. 117). This “Anthropo-scene” does not have a clear identity as of yet. Some make calls for a so-called “good Anthropocene”. Others have been more pessimistic, worrying that it portends 17

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a shift toward an Earth that is impoverished, opaque, and unsustainable. With that in mind, Jussi Parikka (2014) writes, the Anthropocene is a concept to describe the effects of the human species and its scientific-technological desires on the planet. And yet it is a concept that also marks the various violations of environmental and human life in corporate practices and technological culture that are ensuring that there won’t be much of humans in the future scene of life. (p. 1)

Taking these competing visions together, the Anthropocene is a name for the current ambiguous relationships between environments and human society. Nowhere are the imaginative and conceptual effects of the Anthropocene clearer than in the political sphere. Participation in political life is possible only when political action recognizes and upholds the need to flourish in a location, context, or place. Furthermore, politics – and, ultimately, ethics – require the acknowledgement of the many differences in the locatedness of the public square. Yet as Frank Biermann and his colleagues (2016) have noted, there has been a noticeable lack of situatedness in discussions of the Anthropocene. They write that while “the Anthropocene concept can be powerful in raising awareness of the overall human impacts on our planet, … it risks being framed and understood in a way that is too ‘global’ and monolithic, neglecting persistent social inequalities and vast regional differences” (p. 342). What becomes vital for political and social life in the midst of the Anthropocene, therefore, is this: we must discover ways to “re-place” the Anthropocene within the task of imagination and our future, and to do so in a way that engages the complexity and uniqueness of human and more-than-human communities. To explore this claim further, this chapter will proceed in three steps, which are situated against the background of environmental hermeneutics (i.e., reflection on the interpretation of experience and the intersubjective senses of meaning of environments [Clingerman et al., 2016]) and the concept of place. First, I will explain the hermeneutical dimension of the concept of the Anthropocene. Second, I will suggest that there is a danger to the Anthropocene, insofar as it does not easily fit with a natural public square. Third, I suggest that the safeguard to this danger comes through our ability to attend to the aesthetic side of place. In this case, aesthetic engagement acts as an imaginative mechanism to counteract the danger of the anonymous public square of the Anthropocene.

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THE ANTHROPOCENE AS A HERMENEUTICAL CONCEPT Biological species simultaneously impact and are beholden to their surroundings. This is true of manatees, butterflies, oak trees, and – unsurprisingly – human beings. Indeed, human beings have evolved through the diverse forms of self-conscious, intentional environmental connections that define our species. From the emergence of homo sapiens as a species, to human domestication of non-human animals and the rise of agricultural cultivation, to the introduction of industrialization and forms of mass consumption, and now finally the current hypermodernity of economic globalization, human history can be understood as a story of how our species shapes and adapts to its surroundings in an effort to thrive. Another way to see the human story, then, is to reflect on how human beings are an embodied species, who are intertwined with space and place. We are emplaced creatures who interpret who we are by interpreting where we are. To define our creaturely “emplacement” (a term that echoes philosopher Paul Ricoeur’s [1984] concept of “emplotment” [pp. 31ff.]) means exposing a fundamental, threefold attunement humans have with/in the world. Our threefold engagement includes (1) abstract analysis through the concept of “place”, (2) the immediate experience of places, and ultimately (3) the intersubjective interaction that happens between concept and experience, conceptual space and lived places (Clingerman, 2004). We are interpretive beings, and our self-understanding requires interpreting our relationship with the places in which we become ourselves. Another way to describe emplacement is to say that it names how humans are materially embedded in a hermeneutical spiral of place. The philosophical tradition speaks of the “hermeneutical circle”, which refers to the way to approach interpretation as a back-and-forth movement between reader and text, as well as between the parts of a text and the whole. When the reader seeks to interpret individual parts of a text, it is always within the context of the whole. However, the meaning of the whole is built through interpreting individual passages. Finding the meaning of the whole requires understanding each part, and vice versa. Even though it is commonly referred to as a hermeneutical circle, a spiral might be a more apt metaphor: the dialogue between part and whole is continually changing and enriching our encounter with both. Indeed, this is why we might also note that “reader” and “text” are equally poles of the hermeneutical circle or spiral. As the reader delves into the text, the meaning of the text changes the reader and deepens the meaning of the text, creating a conversation instead of a vicious circle.

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Just as there is a hermeneutical spiral in the case of a written text, so too we can see that there is a complex hermeneutical spiral between inhabitant and place, as well as between human and more-than-human world. Simply put, there is a hermeneutical spiral of place: human emplacement is not only pivotal for making sense of environments and the world at large, but also important to provide the context for human self-understanding. What is happening to this hermeneutical spiral of place now that humanity is moving from being a local or regional participant of change to being a primary agent of global change? The hermeneutical spiral becomes relevant in the context of debates over the Anthropocene, insofar as the underlying assumption of the Anthropocene is that human scientific and technological activities have added a new complexity to the human–environment connection. If humans are emplaced creatures that manipulate the world, we always find it “impossible to define the earth independently of the human” (Altamirano, 2017, p. 7). At the same time, environments and places define the human community and sense of meaning. In other words, Crutzen’s (2002a, 2002b) proposal for the Anthropocene reflects on how current environmental changes (what we might call “parts” of the story of place) are understood through a larger global narrative (the “whole”). The Anthropocenic narrative focuses on how the human–environment connection has crossed a previously uncrossed boundary; the places and landscapes surrounding us must now be reinterpreted in light of an ontological and temporal border-crossing. To interrogate the way that the Anthropocene offers a new lens for interpretation, it is important to characterize the different levels of meaning the concept holds. The first level comes from its scientific meaning. The concept of the Anthropocene emerged as a frame to identify fundamental changes to environments and Earth systems by the human impact, as such changes were registered by several scientific disciplines. This proposal, rooted in the proposition of a new geological time period, was simple: human beings are now significant drivers of environmental change, and these changes are represented in a shift in the geological strata itself. A healthy debate began to play out in scientific and humanistic research: if the human species has become a dominant environmental agent that precipitated a new geologic time period, when did this occur? For example, was it at the time of colonization, the introduction of steam power and coal use, industrialization, the global spread of radioactivity during atomic weapons testing, or the “Great Acceleration” (Steffen et al., 2007)? A second level – which reflects on the social, political, and philosophical facets of the term – also comes into play. The scientific disagreement over the starting point of the new era is complicated by discussion over what term best describes this new age. “Anthropos” is the transliteration of the Greek word

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for human; the Anthropocene, therefore, is the recent period defined by the human. But as philosopher Christopher Preston (2018) writes, Some have proposed the terms Capitalocene or Econocene in order to capture something about the role played by business in the transition that the planet is experiencing. Others think the word Homogenocene would better characterize the diminishing of human and biological diversity on display. Some feminists think the term Manthropocene more suitably speaks to the question of which portion of humanity has wrought the bulk of planetary havoc. A parallel line of thinking has proposed the term Eurocene. (p. xvi)

Preston himself suggests that the best term is “Plastocene”, a play on the word “plastic” that illuminates the malleable and synthetic world we now inhabit. Preston thus highlights how the human species has begun to remix the material world through a synthetic logic that manipulates things on a multiscalar level, from genetic engineering to proposals to manipulate entire Earth systems. Importantly, the malleability of this new human world includes political as well as material shifts. In that vein, Antti Salminen and Tere Vadén (2015) present another terminological possibility, focused on the idea that our current world is best understood as an age of energy, fossil fuels, and (most significantly) oil. In what they term a “nafthology”, Salminen and Vadén highlight the ways that our particular reliance on a specific political and material structure of energy has redefined the human and more-than-human world. In this brief description, it is clear that there are disagreements over when the Anthropocene began, and even whether that is the most appropriate name to call our current era; there is nonetheless an important commonality to all these proposals: in all of these cases, what must be studied is how humans have now crossed a threshold to have pervasive, wide-ranging control of space. In other words, the human species has gone from ad hoc domestication of local environments and places to the ubiquitous overhumanization of the planet through recent human frameworks of thought and action. As Zalasiewicz et al. (2010) write, the concept of the Anthropocene “was coined at a time of dawning realization that human activity was indeed changing the Earth on a scale comparable with some of the major events of the ancient past. Some of these changes are now seen as permanent, even on a geological time-scale” (p. 2228). The concept of the Anthropocene started with a scientific connotation, yet quickly resonated with the humanities and social sciences, as these fields wrestled with the rapid technification and the globalization of human society. The initial identification of the Anthropocene as marker of planetary time gained traction only when the term was acknowledged as a way to identify a certain discourse centered on the meanings of human–environment change, control, and scale. In other words, the investigation of the geological epoch of “the

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Anthropocene” is no longer simply a debate for the scientific community. As philosopher Marco Altamirano (2017) writes, what [the investigation over the Anthropocene] means, partly, is that what normally concerns natural science exclusively, i.e. the “natural world” or the object of the natural sciences, now forcefully presents a dynamic critique of human practices, i.e. the “social world” or the object of the social sciences and humanities. (p. 7)

It is a concept that began as technical question for geology, but quickly required input from fields as diverse as sociology, political science, economics, ethics, and the arts. Given the emerging transdisciplinarity of the concept of the Anthropocene, what seems clear is that “the Anthropocene” becomes a hermeneutical concept as it moves from marker to discourse. Philosophical hermeneutics has been called the “art and science of interpretation”, uncovering the way to understand discourse as what Paul Ricoeur (1979) has called the dialectic of event and meaning (pp. 8ff.). In keeping with this, saying “the Anthropocene” guides or frames an interpretation of the world across a broad discourse, drawing together otherwise distinct fields and vocabularies. We designate or name a discourse, not merely a collection of things, as the Anthropocene. In other words, this hermeneutical concept is used as an interpretive name for, on the one hand, the happening, the event, of the (over)humanization of environments. And on the other hand, this concept is used to identify how we grapple with the ontological import and meaning of this shift. Structured through a dialectic of event and meaning, therefore, the idea of the Anthropocene is hermeneutical insofar as it expresses a uniquely human event that involves a mediation of distinct levels of environmental, spatial change. As event, the Anthropocene highlights interconnected material levels of change, which have emerged as humans individually and collectively alter the biosphere. Yet such change is only fulfilled when it implies a recognition that the human enactment of material change bears a deeper, reflexive ontological change. So this is where the meaning of the Anthropocene is found: as our species negotiates materiality, spatiality, and temporality as contexts for existence, the Anthropocene is the meaning that emerges from the reflexive engagement with our transformation of these contexts. As a hermeneutical concept, the discourse of the Anthropocene manifests a specific mediation of event and meaning. On the one hand, it opens a framework for interrogating the event of overhumanization of the world and environment. This event names not only the physical and material changes that humans have responsibility for, but equally the cultural and natural processes that produce this overhumanization – to name a few: scientific quantification, economic globalization, and technification. What is significant is that such

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an event holds meaning: the Anthropocene discourse makes a normative declaration that this event is a crisis. And thus, on the other hand, understanding such a crisis event is possible only through the mediation of a desire for meaning. The discussion of the Anthropocene does not merely create a list of human material activity or environmental relationships, but also suggests why recent encounters imply a fundamental reorientation of how we understand ourselves as creatures in and of the world. This places us in the midst of a crisis of meaning, not just a material crisis of resource depletion, environmental degradation, or the like. What emerges from this crisis of meaning is how the Anthropocene works as a challenge to reinterpret our sense of what is meant by self, other, and world. For example, as Daniel Chernilo (2017) has commented, the Anthropocene has an implicit construction of the human being. This anthropology is not simply showing humans as a physical agent, but more importantly as an ontologically reflexive being with clear contradictions and limitations (Chernilo, 2017). In similar ways the Anthropocene becomes the moniker for how we understand global environments, non-human others, wildness, and the like.

NATURE AND THE PUBLIC SQUARE OF THE ANTHROPOCENE In the preceding section of this chapter, I argued that the concept of the Anthropocene is hermeneutical in orientation. In the present section I investigate how aspects of what we can call the hermeneutics of the Anthropocene do not fit easily with the “natural public square”. One of the implications of the interpretive nature of the Anthropocene is that this concept mediates human emplacement in the midst of an event that redefines the ground of the human social world. In other words, a hermeneutics of the Anthropocene does not define Earth systems apart from the human species, but attempts to show how humans must reinterpret the embodied space of the human and more-than-human alike. Or perhaps to say this a bit more provocatively, the Anthropocene disrupts the ongoing hermeneutical spiral of place; its purpose is to provide a conceptual and ontological basis for a new interpretive spiral. To explain: prior to the discussion of an Anthropocenic epoch, our sense of the human–nature relationship is an evolving tension, wherein humanity is emplaced as both creatures within nature and actors outside of it. The interpretive spiral is an ongoing story of humanity caught between Icharus and Prometheus – nature challenges us in ways that at times lead to failure, while at other times success. Proposals of an Anthropocenic epoch are, in effect, announcements of a break from this past. No longer are we in constant struggle with the surroundings that make us who we are. Instead, there is a new mediation of humans and environment, wherein humanity emerges from a dialectic

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of event and meaning grounded in a previously unknown overhumanization of the world. The spiral now longer shows that who we are is defined in part by where we are. The spiral is twisted and sent spinning in reverse: now, where we are is defined by who we are. The Anthropocene is not a neutral interpretation, nor does it suggest a gradual continuance of the story of how humans relate to their environment, but rather it names the current age as an abrupt shift, which involves a new vision of our place in/of the world. Nowhere does this emerge more forcefully than in the space of politics and power. Humans are material, embodied, and emplaced beings, which means an impact on our interpretation of place extends to all aspects of social and individual life. Therefore, a hermeneutics of the Anthropocene has an impact on how the human community understands politics: in light of a hermeneutics of the Anthropocene, human interpretations of power breach environments by rendering them meaningful only within the context of an “Anthropocenic” economic and political vision. Since it is conceptually extended beyond its scientific starting point, talk of the Anthropocene is a form of interpreting power in space and time. The concept of the Anthropocene, therefore, demarcates a discourse questioning the critical, human-centered overcoming of our very spatio-temporal boundaries and location; this inevitably affects our engagement with the space created by the public square. To explain this more fully, notice how political engagement happens in the “public square”. It is not coincidental that political life is described through a term that conveys a historical, structured place (a “square”): power is negotiated in the ongoing emplacement that resides in between intellectual and material space. Previously, I have described this as the “natural public square” (Clingerman, 2015). First, the public square is partly constituted by the metaphorical place of politics; it is an intellectual or a metaphorical space that situates the political discourse of the community, and it serves as the location of where relationships of difference and power are negotiated. As an intellectual space, it situates ideologies, frameworks of governance, social values, debates over rights and obligations, and the like. More recently, social media allows the public square to inhabit “virtual”, electronic space. Yet such intellectual relationships are inevitably negotiated only because they are enfleshed by actual people, places, and socio-economic relationships. Thus the public square is, secondly, a literal or natural human space. Built and natural environments, humans and non-humans, immigrants and inhabitants might all form the citizenship, and are gathered together in dialogue in particular times and places, over particular issues and conflicts. Power ultimately transcends the limits of the intellectual and material dimensions of power alone.

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These two spatial elements of the public square culminate in a point of mediation, which can be explained as “meta-spatial space”: a space where political life gathers metaphorical and literal places together for its inhabitants, in order for power to unfold. The intersection of this “meta-spatial space” is found in the place “in-between” metaphorical and material worlds. An example of such meta-spatial space might be the use of social media by otherwise disenfranchised groups to disseminate information, organize, and challenge prevailing power-structures. Even when lacking power over physical space, groups can use the conversational space of social media, and in turn that use of metaphorical space can be leveraged to open possibilities in the literal spaces of communities. Put simply, one tweet can be a call to action, bringing protesters to the streets and suggesting new visions of power. As the case of social media suggests, there are several facets to this intersection, including in-between human societies, in-between embodiments, in-between the differences of stakeholders, in-between human and non-human inhabitants, to name a few examples. In other words, the metaphorical space of the public square is encountered in literal locations, wherein the intellectual differences are made manifest by the embodiment of deliberations of power. Similarly, our material politics are meaningful expressions of power when imbued with concepts and values. In this meta-spatial space, power is negotiated through ideas contextualized by bodies, beings, times, and spaces. The natural public square is where (and, to acknowledge the temporality of place, when) the intellectual space of political life is intertwined with the literal, embodied place of the contestation of power. In the natural public square, political life does not happen in places that are wholly abstract, generic, impersonal, or universal. Instead, there is an irreducible local place of political life, which uncovers and illuminates the desires of beings who dwell there to negotiate particularity-in-community. For example, political debate on education expenses or taxation does not take place in the absence of the embodied variety of inhabitants. Instead, the natural public square is a recognition that one’s relationship to power is perspectival and relational. Understood in this way, suddenly the connection between justice and the environment is no longer at the periphery of the public square, but essential to its natural functioning. For the intellectual side of the public square is rooted in the vital contribution that our actual environments make to life, to what Klemm and Schweiker (2008) call our “natural goods” (pp. 97–111); the health of an environment becomes an indicator of the possibility of the health of political life itself. There are numerous examples of the types of questions that animate the recognition that all forms of justice are embodied and anchored in place. For example, philosopher Kristin Schrader-Frechette (2002) asks, “How can current land owners continue to treat the earth merely as property when it also is a vehicle for securing or destroying environmental

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justice?” (p. 69) These types of pivotal questions arise through the need to localize and emplace political life. A second example can be seen in debates over economic proposals that attempt to respond to the abstract, disembodied features of globalization and post-industrial capitalism. When a “bigbox” store supplants local merchants, the local community must engage in its political, social, and economic effects – who receives benefits and economic power? Who must shoulder the environmental and health impacts? If the anonymity of globalization seeks to ignore these questions, the insights of proposals such as degrowth, the sharing economy, and inclusion of non-economic value indicators in political discourse highlights the unique particularity of how political life is locational. We now have exposed the roots underlying the political dilemma of the Anthropocene. If the public square demands a multilayered, localized political life, where is this found now that our emplacement is hermeneutically framed through the idea of the Anthropocene – a potentially anonymous, absolutizing redefinition of local places? Can the Anthropocene offer authentic locations of power and equity? Or is the Anthropocene a time of environmental amnesia – a forgetting of how to inhabit place? While there is a potential for the Anthropocene to create a logic of local, particular places, the discourse of the Anthropocene also unwittingly advances a troubling logic of sameness and universality. In many cases, the latter seems to predominate, especially when the concept of the Anthropocene situates history and nature in a “con-distance”, to use the term of Antti Salminen and Tere Vadén (2015, p. 3). This dilemma is evidenced further in the connections between the Anthropocene, modernity, and absolute space. Delanty and Mota (2017) suggest that a key part of the interpretive work of the Anthropocene is rooted in the proximity between the impulse of modernity and the natural space of the Anthropocene. Modernity, they claim, is about the rupture between history and nature. A major question for the present day, then, is whether or not the cultural and political currents of modernity can be harnessed to challenge the self-destructive forces that the modern age has unleashed in creating the age of the Anthropocene. In this sense, the challenge of governing the Anthropocene – or transforming it into a positive political project – is also about overcoming the limits of modernity whose presuppositions … have been based on the separation of human history from natural history. (Delanty & Mota, 2017, p. 17)

After such a cleavage, the political promise of the Anthropocene is found in how the relationship between nature and history must be rethought. But what “nature”? What “history”? In the rush to interpret the meaning of the totalizing collapse of boundaries between human and world, the Anthropocene becomes infused with anonymity and global sameness. For

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example, there is debate about the appearance and significance of a “golden spike”, or a spatial marker embedded in the global geologic strata that indicates the time of the Anthropocene’s start. Regardless of how the scientific debate over the “golden spike” is settled, its identification will mark the start of a unique spatio-temporal uniformity of human domination, and in turn will be a tool for exploring the effacement of the boundaries that otherwise separate individual landscapes, societies, and places. So when the concept of the Anthropocene invites us to interpret how human and natural history are not separated in any meaningful sense, there is a sinister way to perceive this as an invitation to a dangerous overhumanizing power: an implicit reduction of “history” and “nature” to generic, universal ideas rather than variegated, lived worlds. Without a counterbalance – something that will be attended to in the next section – the public square of the Anthropocene becomes a manifestation of the connection between absolute space and global power, obliterating local communities, unique identities, and the irreducibility of particular landscapes. Concretely, this conceals inequities based on race, gender, socio-economic position, historical ethnic and national relationships, and the like in favor of the anonymous human (a human that looks remarkably privileged in the face of the complexity of space). Even more, the Anthropocene has trouble allowing for resistance as a means of public engagement, because there is no human outside the impact of the Anthropocene. When humans beings are identified with a singular representation as a driver of global change, the marginalized (found in human communities and more-than-human ecosystems alike) remain unseen. So the crisis event of the Anthropocene is furthered by political imbalance: we ignore the multiplicity of ecosystems and places, unwittingly favoring an abstract, overhumanized “space” that eliminates the fertility of the world. And in turn, this overhumanization is not a domestication of space by particular bodies, but by the idealized “human” that inhabits wealth, race, and gender in a way that excludes the multiplicity of others. Can unique human communities resist being victims of the abstract overhumanization of the Anthropocene? Can local landscapes resist becoming pawns in the Anthropocenic visions of human society? Raising such questions suggests that the hermeneutics of the Anthropocene might unwittingly fall into a trap that has captured many spatially oriented concepts. As Smith and Katz (1993) argue, many spatial metaphors do not acknowledge the problematic complexity of space. Instead, these metaphors – like the concept of the Anthropocene – presume an absolute, universal, and

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unambiguous sense of space. Smith and Katz go on to say that this conceptualization of space emerged at the same time as capitalism, and reinforces it. The emergence of capitalist social relations in Europe brought a very specific set of social and political shifts that established absolute space as the premise of hegemonic social practices. The inauguration of private property as the general basis of the social economy, and the division of the land into privately held and precisely demarcated plots; the juridical assumption of the individual body as the basic social unit; the progressive outward expansion of European hegemony through the conquest, colonization and defence of new territories; the division of global space into mutually exclusive nation-states on the basis of some presumed internal homogeneity of culture …: these and other shifts marked the emerging space-economy of capitalism from the sixteenth century onwards and represented a powerful enactment of absolute space as the geographical basis for social intercourse. (Smith & Katz, 1993, p. 75)

It is not difficult to see that this culminates in the totalizing discourse of the Anthropocene. Economic globalization and capitalism run parallel with the Anthropocene as a physical and temporal event: both economic globalization and the Anthropocene are predicated on a sense of spreading absolute space, uniformity, and interconnectedness, which centers on the generic human. Where do these movements emerge from? For economic globalization, it is the byproduct of European colonization. For the Anthropocene, it is the pervasive overpowering of fossil fuels and industrialization. Thus the danger is the prospect that a hermeneutics of the Anthropocene will become a totalizing project: the Anthropocene potentially implies a history where meaning is possible only when our sense of place is framed through the supposed universality of human agency, abstract space, neoliberal economics, and a new stage of global modernity. Likewise, reference to “global environmental change”, “nature”, and the like increasingly forms a curiously disembodied material world – one that lacks unique identity, spatiality, and location. What is left out is the location of fallible, individual humans participating in local communities that embrace the differences of the more-than-human world. This dynamic has negative political implications for a flourishing human and more-than-human community. There is a real possibility that only the few have political voice in the Anthropocenic public square insofar as the meaning constructed by the Anthropocene undermines the way the public square operates as a natural place welcoming of political difference. Two analogies might explain this. One is the gradual accretion of geologic layers from the particulates of presentness. Like geologic layers, diverse political voices in the Anthropocene are compressed or transformed, threatening political life by creating a seemingly uniform strand of discourse. Or, to use a second earthly analogy, the showing of power in the Anthropocene is akin to erosion: it is the effacement of the ways local places exhibit a multivalent value of diver-

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sity of human and more-than-human life, washing away some voices while leaving others. This uncovers a critique of proposals that attempt to delineate better national and international approaches using existing frameworks (e.g., Biermann et al., 2012): many proposals neglect the intricate and difficult interconnections between international politics, free-market globalization, and Western thinking. Even suggesting improved responses to local “stakeholders” assumes one particular universal approach that defines one’s place at the table, rather than a truly localized vision of an individual-in-community, let alone the necessity of differences. In sum, the hermeneutics of the Anthropocene challenges our sense engagement with political life, because it threatens to reduce important differences between members of the community – differences that have been at the heart of the natural public square. Kathryn Yusoff (2016) eloquently says: “If humans now author the rocks, atmosphere and oceans with anthropogenic signatures then the inhuman (as nature, earth, geology) becomes decidedly changed as a category of differentiation” (p. 6). Yet as Delanty and Mota (2017) write, “It is simply not the case that humanity as a whole is in the same boat” (p. 24). When a hermeneutics of the Anthropocene neglects difference, it effaces the powerless, the non-human, and the other. We therefore must ask: If the public square – and with it, the political life of the human and more-than-human world – is meta-spatial space, then how do we fight against an Anthropocenic dynamic that dissolves the multiplicity, variety, and peculiarity of people and places?

AESTHETIC ATTUNEMENT AND THE ANTHROPOCENE What is to be done? If the previous section of this chapter outlined a potential danger, the current section briefly outlines a proposal for where we find a counterbalance: aesthetic attunement and imagination. For such interpretive opportunities to occur, our Anthropocenic reinscription of the world requires a more intentional attunement to the locality of power, difference, and embodiment. Thus, rather than attempt to oppose the danger of the Anthropocene through its own logic – that is, through a logic of conceptual mastery and domination – the counterbalance takes a position of highlighting how sensible experience enriches our interpretations of place. At the heart of this counterbalance is a proposal built on perceptual humility: if we listen closely, perhaps our interpretations of the Anthropocene can imagine power in conversation with local experiences of embeddedness in the world. Reflecting on this proposal might begin with a sometimes-heard cliché: “all politics is local”. Commonly, this phrase is taken to mean that elections are won because a candidate responds in a direct and engaging manner to the

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inhabitants of the public square. It means politics focuses on the contexts of the local participants, which invariably are most engaged with issues that are concrete, specific, and localized. A political debate might be framed in terms of “globalization”, for example, but in reality we are not as concerned with “globalization” as we are with the direct experiences we perceive that connect with this abstract, conceptual term: for instance, the loss of a job due to the closure of a nearby factory; degraded local environments from economic “progress”; or the ways we see lifestyles changing from “how it used to be”. The insight of this adage, then, is that the political life of the community invariably returns to the irreducible experience of where we are, and how we see ourselves to be. Political dialogue cannot simply be an abstract or conceptual act, but just as importantly it is animated by our perception of who and where we are, the ways we experience places, and (ultimately) who we hope to be. We do not just conceive political life, we imagine it, together with the concrete community that gathers in the natural public square. If political life requires experiencing community as much as conceiving power, the task of imagining politics – as a material and intellectual locatedness in place – can serve as an antidote to the anonymity and absolute domestication of time and space. When we envision ways to reintroduce localized power in and through the ensemble of unique places and inhabitants, the interpretations that are described as “the Anthropocene” no longer collapse into an overhumanized, generic structure of privilege. In other words, finding a flourishing political life in the Anthropocene means contextualizing the crisis, imagining how the public square is enacted by emplaced beings in the midst of otherness. This occurs when politics begins with an aesthetic attunement to place, culminating in imaginative hopefulness. A flourishing Anthropocenic political life begins with aesthetic attunement, when we embrace the embodied, spatial multiplicity of the public square. As described above, political discourse promotes the flourishing of inhabitants when it is undertaken through meditatively dwelling in-between intellectual space and natural space. What we must be vigilant against is any discourse that threatens this balance: when our interpretations of the world allow the conceptual side of politics to overpower all other places, thereby replacing the natural place of bodies and beings with an anonymity and forgetfulness of “where we are”. This is where an aesthetic attunement to place becomes relevant. Modern aesthetics has often been defined as maintaining a disinterested focus on appreciation of cultural objects, particularly the work of art. But the aesthetics that is called for here is more in keeping with the recent field of environmental aesthetics: a wholehearted perceptual engagement that is radically contextual, material, and experiential. Sigurd Bergmann (2007) summarizes this well by explaining: “An ecological aesthetics is a self-aware human reflection on

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one’s living-in-particular-surroundings” (p. 15). Fully sensing and dwelling in a place of mediation, aesthetic attunement provides a vantage point to deliver a political critique: it confronts the Anthropocenic anonymity of overhumanized place by declaring the unique ways we sense or perceive the appearance of power. It recognizes the embodiment of power in the locations where power dwells, and is keenly aware of how individuals and places are impacted by the absence of power. Aesthetic attunement is implicit in the discourse of the Anthropocene: it appears on the underside of where the human–environment divide collapses, as well as in the diverse ways human artifactual existence perpetrates the Anthropocene through the privilege of some humans and communities over others. Bergmann suggests that a more holistic understanding of aesthetics is inextricably intertwined with morality: an “aesth/ethics”. The idea of aesth/ethics stems from the fact that aesthetics – our perceptual engagement with the world – and ethics – our moral engagement with the world – are strongly connected through a material, productive encounter with our surroundings. Aesthetic attunement means seeking an appropriate response to the sensuousness that defines us. Ethical engagement means accepting the responsibility that is identified during our appropriate response to this sensuousness. Another way of stating this insight is to say that within the movement of aesthetic attunement is the desire for a productive response, which comes in the form of a platial imagination. The imagination gives us the ability through which to envision possibilities, appreciating otherwise unheralded elements of the present. Imagination, in other words, is “the free play of possibilities in the state of noninvolvement with respect to the world of perception or of action” (Ricoeur, 1991, p. 174). The imagination takes the world as it is and seeks to envision it in new ways, as different than it otherwise will be. With imagination comes the possibility of power, since “it is imagination that provides the milieu, the luminous clearing, in which we can compare and evaluate motives as diverse as desires and ethical obligations, themselves as disparate as professional rules, social customs, or intensely personal values” (Ricoeur, 1991, p. 177). All this occurs in particularized, embodied places; we imagine ourselves not in anonymity, but as political and ethical actors gathered with others in a localized space. Like the hermeneutics of the Anthropocene, the imagination is anchored in temporality. But while the Anthropocene is predicated in the pervasive change of the present, the imagination is rooted in the potential of the future. Using the imagination to experiment with new possibilities is the way that local communities – even ones without the economic, social, and material structures of power – can discover what is otherwise in the age of the Anthropocene. Importantly, this process takes from the present and gives to the future. A simple example can be seen in how the imagination can reorient the debate

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over climate change. Climate change, as a symptom of environmental change, is often discussed as a sign of the Anthropocene. But is this symptom contextualized as a global present, or a local future? Activists focused on resistance – for example, resistance to sea level rise that will destroy Pacific island countries, or resistance to changes in precipitation that will cause local or regional droughts, or resistance to the threat of extinction itself – show the possibility of imagination in the face of the Anthropocene.

CONCLUSION: LONGING FOR CRITICAL HOPE In the foregoing, I have argued for a particular hermeneutically oriented description of the Anthropocene. This hermeneutics of the Anthropocene allows us to see the danger we face, particularly in the political implications of this new epoch. But the public square is not only a space of power, but equally a place of imagination. In the case of our Anthropocenic future, I conclude by suggesting that the full force of imagination becomes visible at a crossroads between despair and hope. In the concept of the Anthropocene, we have already seen a danger that might lead to despair. It is easy to envision the anonymity and forgetfulness of the Anthropocene as leading us toward inequality, violence, and the effacement of difference. Nativism, technocracy, corporate-sponsored globalization, consumerism – all these are manifestations of the anonymous space of the Anthropocene, we might argue. But what finally makes the work of the imagination political is its ability to overturn the actuality of the present to show the power of “what might be”. But with the imagination, our interpretation of the Anthropocene can lead us to other, more hopeful visions of who and where we are. The reason for hope is this: while one interpretation of the Anthropocene flattens any sense of material, local context, another possible interpretation envisions how “the Anthropocene creates opportunities to cast the planet itself as a key player in the drama of human politics rather than simply its stage” (Rowan, 2014, p. 447). Movements toward indigenous rights, an expansion of political agency, localized economies, an appreciation of natural cosmopolitanism, and so on – these are imaginative possibilities that are rooted actions from within unique places and communities, which thrive because (not in spite of) their embeddedness. And they are also the results of the Anthropocene, insofar as they express an alternative sense of boundaries and power. In essence, imagination opens our eyes to what Cherice Bock has called “critical hope”. Bock (2016) has suggested that critique becomes transform-

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ative only when it is “embodied” and “enacted” (p. 11). Drawing on Paulo Friere’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Bock writes that Freire’s liberation pedagogy explains the struggle between oppressor and oppressed, the fact that we all are bound up in this struggle and dehumanized by it, and that most of us play both roles at different points in our lives and relationships. To break this cycle requires risking acts of love, seeing one another as human beings, and becoming conscious of the parts played by ourselves and others in this system of oppression. (Bock, 2016, p. 12)

This becomes an occasion for hope. The enactment of critique moves from alienation and despair to a hope grounded in action: a hope that “is a process of facing one’s fears with courage and within a network of social support and meaning-making. Hope is both the object hoped for and the feeling one gets as one works to get there” (Bock, 2016, p. 14). By imagining our emplacement in the Anthropocene – our sense of being and dwelling in place – and seeing how the radical particularity of place resists the domestication of the planet, a critical hope comes to the fore.

REFERENCES Altamirano, M. (2017). Time, technology and environment: An essay on the philosophy of nature. Edinburgh University Press. Bergmann, S. (2007). Technology as salvation? Critical perspectives from an aesth/ ethics of the spirit. European Journal of Science and Technology, 3(4), 5–19. Biermann, F., Abbott, K., Andresen, S., Bäckstrand, K., Bernstein, S., Betsill, M. M., Bulkeley, H., Cashore, B., Clapp, J., Folke, C., Gupta, A., Gupta, J., Haas, P. M., Jordan, A., Kanie, N., Kluvánková-Oravská, T., Lebel, L., Liverman, D., Meadowcroft, J., … Zondervan, R. (2012). Navigating the Anthropocene: Improving Earth system governance. Science, 335(6074), 1306–1307. https://​doi​ .org/​10​.1126/​science​.1217255. Biermann, F., Bai, X., Bondre, N., Broadgate, W., Arthur Chen, C.-T., Dube, O. P., Erisman , J. W., Glaser, M., van der Hel, S., Lemos, M. C., Seitzinger, S., & Seto, K. C. (2016). Down to Earth: Contextualizing the Anthropocene. Global Environmental Change, 39(July), 341–350. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1016/​j​.gloenvcha​.2015​.11​.004. Bock, C. (2016). Climatologists, theologians, and prophets: Toward an ecotheology of critical hope. CrossCurrents, 66(1), 8–34. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1111/​cros​.12171. Chernilo, D. (2017). The question of the human in the Anthropocene debate. European Journal of Social Theory, 20(1), 44–60. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​1368431016651874. Clingerman, F. (2004). Beyond the flowers and the stones: “Emplacement” and the modeling of nature. Philosophy in the Contemporary World, 11(2), 17–24. Clingerman, F. (2015). Natural or political public space? Spaces of interpretation, environmentalism, and the sacred depth. In M. Luccarelli & S. Bergmann (Eds), Environment, space and the public (pp. 131–147). Brill/Rodopi. Clingerman, F., Treanor, B., Drenthen, M., & Utsler, D. (Eds). (2016). Interpreting nature: The emerging field of environmental hermeneutics. Fordham University Press.

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Crutzen, P. J. (2002a). The “anthropocene”. Journal de Physique IV, 12(10), 1–5. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1051/​jp4:​20020447. Crutzen, P. J. (2002b). Geology of mankind. Nature, 415, 23. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1038/​ 415023a. Crutzen, P. J., & Stroemer, E. F. (2000). The “Anthropocene”. IGBP Newsletter, No. 41, 17–18. Delanty, G., & Mota, A. (2017). Governing the Anthropocene: Agency, governance, knowledge. European Journal of Social Theory, 20(1), 9–38. https://​doi​.org/​10​ .1177/​1368431016668535. Klemm, D. E., & Schweiker, W. (2008). Religion and the human future. Wiley-Blackwell. Lorimer, J. (2016). The Anthropo-scene: A guide for the perplexed. Social Studies of Science, 47(1), 117–142. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​0306312716671039. Parikka, J. (2014). The Anthrobscene. University of Minnesota Press. Preston, C. (2018). The synthetic age: Outdesigning evolution, resurrecting species, and reengineering our world. MIT Press. Ricoeur, P. (1979). Interpretation theory: Discourse and the surplus of meaning. TCU Press. Ricoeur, P. (1984). Time and narrative. Vol. 1. The University of Chicago Press. Ricoeur, P. (1991). From text to action: Essays in hermeneutics, II. Northwestern University Press. Rowan, R. (2014). Notes on politics after the Anthropocene. Progress in Human Geography, 38(3), 447–450. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​0309132513517065. Salminen, A., & Vadén, T. (2015). Energy and experience: An essay in nafthology. MCM' Publishing. Schrader-Frechette, K. (2002). Environmental justice. Oxford University Press. Smith, N., & Katz, C. (1993). Grounding metaphor: Towards a spatialized politics. In M. Keith & S. Pile (Eds), Place and the politics of identity (pp. 67–83). Routledge. Steffen, W., Crutzen, P. J., & McNeill, J. R. (2007). The Anthropocene: Are humans now overwhelming the great forces of nature? Ambio, 36(8), 614–621. Yusoff, K. (2016). Anthropogenesis: Origins and endings in the Anthropocene. Theory, Culture and Society, 33(2), 3–28. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​0263276415581021. Zalasiewicz, J., Williams, M., Steffen, W., & Crutzen, P. (2010). The new world of the Anthropocene. Environmental Science and Technology, 44(7), 2228–2231. https://​ doi​.org/​10​.1021/​es903118j.

3. Walking with rocks – with care Outi Rantala, Anu Valtonen and Tarja Salmela INTRODUCTION In familiarising ourselves with the literature on the Anthropocene and its geologic origins, a number of personal experiences filled our bodies. ‘Rocks’, one of us said. ‘I have always loved rocks, their beauty and their silence. I have spent my summers in the glaciated rocks of our summer cottage, laying there, sitting there, feeling the warmth and smoothness of the rocks – or their slipperiness after the rain.’ Another told us that she had been working as a guide in an open-air amethyst mine in a national park – spending one summer on a fell, telling the visitors about the geological history of the place, and admiring the diverse lichens growing on the surface of the rocky stones that covered large areas of the top of the fell. She climbed up to the top every day of that summer, feeling the rocky surface under her feet, touching the wrinkly lichens, and appreciating their slow tempo of growth. The third person in our group had childhood memories of a large, smooth-surfaced rock, on which she and her sister used to sit and take a break when swimming together at their family cottage. The warmth, even heat, of the rock felt comforting. She said she can almost feel it in her body again when the memories take her back to the stone – which still exists there. She also told us about her experiences at trail running events in a national park, where the long climb to a fell was awarded with thousands and thousands of sharp and unsteady rocks, forcing her and the other runners to slow down so as not to break their ankles. After sharing these experiences, we all noticed that to date we had considered our embodied relations with the rocks to be part of our private lives, not our academic ones. Why is this? we pondered. And we went on discussing what would it mean, then, theoretically and methodologically, if we were to take seriously that our relationships with the rocks matter to theory making for scholars engaged in tourism. We, who had been trained to consider, theorise and empirically explore mostly humans, or living creatures such as animals, faced a crisis of thinking. 35

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Our experiences exemplify that the Anthropocene articulates a crisis of thinking, alongside the ecological crisis (Zylinska, 2014, p. 19), and that it therefore forces a new epoch of thought (Yusoff, 2015). This epoch of thought has led scholars in many scientific fields to problematise and politicise the human-centric foci of research, to redefine traditional disciplinary boundaries, to challenge conventional concepts and their premises, and to develop novel conceptual templates and languages by which the world is investigated. We join these efforts in this chapter and seek to develop ways to theorise and empirically explore the relationship between rocks and humans. This is a much-needed task since, as Elisabeth Grosz remarks, ‘The geological/ geographic order is the most tangible and concrete condition for all forms of life, and indeed, for the existence of all terrestrial objects’ (Grosz et al., 2017, p. 132). Curiously, despite the increasing interest in incorporating more-than-humans into the research agendas of the social sciences, the geologic is often left without consideration. It seems, indeed, that ‘rocks have been harder for social and cultural theorists’, as Gisli Palsson and Heather Anne Swanson (2016, p. 152) note. Recently, however, the concept of the Anthropocene has brought human relations with the ‘geos’ to the fore, and in doing so, worked as a much-needed catalyst for the development of novel geosocial perspectives (Clark & Yusoff, 2017; Yusoff, 2013, 2015). Such perspectives recognise the interdependency and co-existence of the social and geologic, facilitating one’s ability to notice how geologies are part and parcel of our daily lives. They also open up a rich potential for the development of many social-scientific conceptualisations, as Stephanie Springgay and Sarah Truman (2018) point out: ‘Geo-sociality, the enmeshment of bios and geos expands notions of agency, vitality, politics, and ethics’ (p. 17). To us, this invites a deliberation of the notion of care: what does care mean in the context of rocks? Geosocial perspectives take different forms depending on the theoretical sources employed. We follow Palsson and Swanson (2016), who forcefully argue for a ‘down-to-earth’ perspective that attends to ‘how geologic relations matter differently to particular entities in particular locales’ (p. 155). They emphasise that geosocial relations are always thoroughly situated, embodied and grounded in particular encounters. This enables us to avoid the often-heard critique that studies around the Anthropocene equate with global- and planetary-scale issues, obscuring the local particularities and differences. In this chapter, we thus seek to provide a situated and ‘down-to-earth’ embodied understanding of how the lives of humans and rocks are stuck together (Ginn, 2013, p. 532). The embodied practice of walking-with (cf. Springgay & Truman, 2018), a method that we employ, together with the orientation of care, sensitises us to noticing how rocks and humans relate, and how care is involved in that relation. We draw from new materialist literature

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(Barad, 2003, 2007; Braidotti, 2013; DeLanda, 1992) to explore the relationalities of rocks and humans by concentrating on reimagining the ethical grounds of this relation (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2012). The walking method is also rooted in feminist new materialism theory and thus emphasises movement as a form of knowledge production. We generate empirical insights by way of bodily immersion into the context of our study, Pyhä-Luosto National Park, situated in Finnish Lapland, famous for its unique geological formations. We walk there, feeling the ground, sensing the rocks and allowing our bodies to be affected by them – indeed, relating with rocks. The national park is managed by the Parks & Wildlife Finland unit of Metsähallitus, a state-owned enterprise in charge of managing protected areas in Finland. It attracts both domestic and international visitors and provides trails for trekking and tracks for skiing. Nowadays, it also allows mountain biking as well as snowshoeing during the wintertime. In the park, earthy geophysical processes are concretely visible, and it is possible to experience them in an embodied way by practically walking-with the rocks (see Figure 3.1). The national park represents a prefigured mode of ordering (Franklin, 2004, 2012; Ren & Jóhannesson, 2018), where geosocial relations and care are manifested. In what follows, we outline our theoretical and methodological perspective, after which we offer our empirical story of walking-with rocks. To conclude, we discuss the implications of the study on debates surrounding geo-sociality and the Anthropocene more widely.

GEOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE TO THE STUDY OF THE LIVELY RELATIONALITIES OF ROCKS AND HUMANS The geologic is easily conceived of as a stable, permanent, hard, inert and rigid underground, quietly installed in the expansive timeline of the Earth. The stable status accorded to rocks is manifested in widely used sayings, such as ‘build on stones, not on sand’. Yet, the geologic is not just stable matter, but a manifestation of the dynamic earthly processes that have been played out throughout history. All this is beyond a human life timescale and as such escapes our embodied comprehension. As anthropologist Elisabeth Povinelli points out, ‘we think something is enduring because we can’t see or don’t experience the constant wobbling’ (Povinelli et al., 2017, p. 182). It is in the moments of sudden changes such as earthquakes that render comprehensible that even the most rigid structures can flow, mutate and crash (Palsson & Swanson, 2016). On a more mundane scale, the changing quality of rocks is visible in the ways human activities alter the surface or structure of rocks. Think of the case of climbing, for instance, that may make a new rock appear (Hennion, 2007),

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Figure 3.1

Ethics and politics of space for the Anthropocene

Isokuru gorge at Pyhä-Luosto National Park, photo by Outi Rantala

or how walkers leave human imprints on the surfaces of rocks while letting their shape and size determine the course and pace of walking (Springgay & Truman, 2018). Our analysis focuses on exploring precisely these kinds of lively relationalities of rocks and humans. To gain an understanding of these relationalities, we have familiarised ourselves with the geosocial literature that has rendered visible the manifold ways the lives of rocks and humans relate (Clark & Yusoff, 2017; DeLanda, 1992; Grosz et al., 2017; Povinelli, 1995, 2016; Yusoff, 2013, 2015). For instance, studies display how Indigenous communities accord agential status to rocks (Povinelli, 1995; Raffles, 2012), bringing up also ‘the wisdom of the rocks’ (DeLanda, 1992) and their sacred status within these communities (Kramvig & Verran, 2017). In the same vein, children all over the world are shown to develop distinct relationships with rocks by animating them and carrying stones in their pockets (Rautio, 2013). Indeed, when we pause to reflect, it is relatively easy to notice that rocks do play a part in people’s everyday lives. Think of, for instance, practices such as gemstone therapy that are based on the belief of the healing effect of stones (Ishaquem et al., 2009), the habit of picking up stones from beaches when travelling and placing them at home as

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souvenirs, travelling to geologically spectacular places such as Grand Canyon, piling up stones while walking in wilderness areas, avoiding rocks and stones when putting a tent up while trekking (Rantala & Valtonen, 2014), or decorating gardens with stones, not to mention the use of jewels. These examples also exemplify how mineral matter is made meaningful in these different practices; matter and meaning entangle (Hekman, 2008; Lorimer, 2015). The new materialist literature provides another theoretical source that helps us to theorise about the relationality of humans and rocks, and the ethical nature of this relation. The work of Karen Barad in particular guides us to see that we are actually continuously intra-acting instead of inter-acting (Barad, 2007) with each other, and that ‘we’ consists of multiple forms of life. This kind of thinking reorients us in our considerations of the relationship which we have learned to call, and distinguish as, a ‘nature relationship’. Most importantly, it reorients us in our consideration of ethics. For Barad, ethics is ‘not about right responses to a radically exteriorized other, but about responsibility and accountability for the lively relationalities of becoming, of which we are a part’ (Barad as cited in Dolphijn & van der Tuin, 2012, p. 69). This becoming, what Barad calls ‘agential separability’, works not as individuation but instead as ‘making connections and commitments’ (p. 69). Hence, drawing on recent literature that proposes an enlarged sense of care (Barad, 2003, 2007; Braidotti, 2013; Kinnunen & Valtonen, 2017; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2012, 2017), we challenge the idea of care as a responsibility to an individual human subject. That is, being, thinking, knowing and doing are all embedded in and entangled with who and what we relate to and care for, and that which takes care of us. This ethics is based on the ‘relational entanglement of life: to show that “we” are connected and thus invited to care’ (Ginn, 2013, p. 532). In this mindset, caring becomes relating, and relating becomes caring. Taking distance from normative moralistic visions of care (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2012, p. 198), we want to make visible possible forms of caring relationalities between rocks and humans. To further explore the idea of care as relational, in what follows we will reflect on the ways we inhabit and dwell in the world. Catherine Johnston (2008) argues that our ways of knowing the non-human world should not be based on abstract philosophical arguments, but on ‘our actual relationships, our day-to-day living and working’ (p. 646). In order to discern the ways we inhabit the world, we will pay attention to the tensions between relatedness and detachment. Franklin Ginn’s (2013) investigation of the relationalities of slugs and gardeners provides new insights into the lively relationalities between human and non-human agents. For Ginn (2013), slugs and gardeners ‘stick’ together through shared histories, curiosity and disgust, but at the same time gardeners detach themselves from the act of killing slugs – recognising the vulnerability of slugs and being transformed by that recognition. Ginn

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(2013) employs a definition of detachment as ‘denoting a range of dispositions in which life is not drawn together but pulled apart’ (p. 534). Furthermore, he asks ‘what kind of ethics can emerge when we do not encounter beings, when “we” are not sticky together, but are “unstuck” when we attempt to anticipate their movements, detach ourselves from them and erase them before we ever meet’ (p. 534). Here, we understand detachment as emerging ‘not as the negation, but as an enabling constituent of more-than-human ethics’ (p. 532). We pay attention to the ways in which our relations with rocks stick together but also become detached. This forms the basis for our epistemological standpoint: through situated and relational entanglement, we are, indeed, invited to care. Finally, we highlight the bodily basis of the relationality between humans and more-than-humans (Grosz, 1994; Ingold, 2011; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2012). It is the flesh body that walks and moves, experiences and senses the rocks, relates to them (Ingold, 2011) – and, in doing so, knows. This represents an embodied way of knowing. The affective experiences with the rocks are felt through the body, without us being able to capture them thoroughly in words (Duff, 2010). Before turning to discuss our embodied experiences of these relationalities, we introduce the methodology of ‘walking-with’.

WALKING METHODOLOGY Our repeated experiences of walking-with rocks in the Pyhä-Luosto National Park form the starting point for this study. The impetus for Springgay and Truman’s (2018) book, Walking Methodologies, was a walk-with Micalong Creek in Wee Jasper, New South Wales, Australia, where they gathered with a group of women ‘to think and walk-with water, and to open up questions about human and nonhuman entanglements’ (p. 1). As it was for them, also for us, to walk-with is to open up oneself to relationality. Therefore, to understand walking-with, we must first understand the embodied nature of walking (see e.g. Pink et al., 2010). Springgay and Truman (2017) say it well: ‘As we walk we are “in” the world, integrating body and space coextensively’ (p. 30). Walking-with, then, is movement-with, inviting rhythmic, temporal and affective dimensions to our social-scientific inquiry. The method foregrounds sensuous and rhythmic interrelations (Vannini, 2015) and the importance of becoming attentive to the ordinariness of surroundings while walking (Yi’Eng, as cited in Springgay & Truman, 2018, p. 20). With its embodied and affective nature, walking-with escapes, in many ways, verbal expression and as such the logic of representation (Edensor, 2008; Springgay & Truman, 2017; Thrift, 2008, Vannini, 2015). Importantly, when walking-with rocks, we are confronted with a practical, sensable agency of non-human subjects. Ulmer (2017) notes how walking-with methodologies are connected to the posthuman inquiries of the Anthropocene

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that aim to ‘think-with’ – with objects, things, animals, elements and theories. Moreover, to think-with through movement has, as Springgay and Truman (2017) note, ‘altered the landscape of social science and humanities research’ (p. 27).1 Using the walking-with methodology, we are able to shift our focus towards movements, choreographies and time in our lively relationalities – and towards revealing ‘the imperceptible dynamism of matter’ (Blackman, 2012, p. 5). Walking-with can take various forms.2 In our case, we have walked in the national park with our colleagues, ‘carrying’ our concepts, theories and methodological approaches; we have walked with our smartphones, hiking boots and rucksacks, and with our families and friends, and, most importantly, we have walked with the rocks, ants, pine trees, birds and twigs. By choosing nature walks as our walking method, a chance to explore how walking-with rocks can be extended to knowing-with rocks emerges. As Sarah Pink et al. (2010) note, ‘We cannot but learn and come to know in new ways as we walk’ (p. 3). We thus practically learn to know through walking, which necessarily involves movement. Walking-with forces us to rely on our affective experiences, and also to let go of our expectation to know what comes next. In other words, it allows us to become open (Johnston, 2008; see also Vergunst, 2008). Let us next go for a walk.

EMPIRICAL INSIGHTS TO LIVELY RELATIONALITIES Isokuru Gorge (Big Gorge) is a deep, rocky gorge – the deepest one in Finland. On a sunny, early summer morning, we follow the steps down into the bottom of the gorge, and get to a trail, which is paved with duckboards. One of us says, ‘It is surprisingly hot, I need to take my jacket off.’ We can feel the wooden duckboards under our hiking shoes and hear our steps echoed from the tall, rocky walls surrounding us on both sides. The rocks on the walls appear to be ready to start sliding down at any moment, causing an uneasy feeling in our stomachs. The air in the gorge is fresh – the sun does not reach the gorge well, and cold emanates from the stones. We feel our noses and fingers getting cold. Once we reach the end of the gorge, we arrive at the Pyhänkasteen putous (waterfall of sacred baptism). There is a wooden bench situated there, opposite the waterfall, but when we find out about the history of the place, we do not feel like taking a break there. Instead, we feel even colder. The waterfall is known for its historical importance. Until the 1650s, local people visited the sacred place, but the name of the waterfall originates from the actions of the priest Esaias Mansveti Fellman. According to the lore, he violently baptised the local Sami people into Christianity in 1648 with the water from the waterfall. Rocks in the Pyhä-Luosto National Park have witnessed billions of years of history. It is one of those geological places where the layers of rocks tell

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stories of the past: the sedimentations, traces of water ripples, ancient critters and fossils render visible the life that came before us. Some rocks carry the traces of waves on their hard skin, illustrating the footprints of the ice age and the times when the area was once the bottom of a sea. The range of fells in the park was born two billion years ago and is actually a remnant of one of the most ancient mountains in the world. The fells in the park consist of quartzite, composed of the sand that lay at the bottom of an ancient sea, and which was left there when the ice age eroded the mountains away. More recently, the rocks of the park have witnessed changes in the practices of Sami livelihoods. The name of the national park, Pyhä (saint, sacred), refers to a time when the place was a sacred place of Sami people, with their sacred Seita stones situated in the area. This history is present in the name, readable on the signboards and felt as an aesthetic atmosphere embodied in the contemporary park. Currently, there exists two ski centres situated at the two ends of the national park, and a network of hiking and cross-country ski trails with open huts and campfire pits situated along the trails. Walking-with rocks in the park helps us to recognise our location within the wider, more-than-human kinship network (Alaimo, 2016; Haraway, 2016). According to Tim Edensor (2008, p. 137), walking conjures up other times and places that disrupt our idea of any linear flow. Hence, as we enter the park and the Isokuru Gorge, the linear story of the history of these particular rocks and humans is interrupted by embodied memories of walking-with rocks elsewhere, by information available on the signs and at the visitor centre of the park, and by stories told about this rocky place. Our bodies are present in different times and places, which is as such not a Romantic and euphoretic state of mind but rather a feeling that is intertwined with our embodied sensuous feelings and our ability to walk in the park – or rather, with our poor skills of orienteering and finding our balance on uneven stones. While rocks have existed in the park far longer than humans, nowadays humans carry the rocks along with them to the park in new forms. We contribute to the lively relationalities of rocks and humans when we enter the national park with our eyeglasses and smartphones, with carbon steel knives and GPS equipment, with metal parts in our hiking boots and coffee pots. The wooden planks of duckboards, designed by humans and with their locations designated by the rocks, illustrate further the co-creation of relationalities. The duckboards are constructed to prevent the erosion caused by human visitors walking in the park, but the erosion is also caused by constant winds blowing on the fells and by the snow and ice entering the holes in the rocks. Thus, we become aware of how humans and rocks form lively relationalities in the national park in many ways. The walk in the gorge brings to the fore the various signs of detachment between rocks and humans. The possibility that rocks may roll down the gorge

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feels threatening – we are filled with an urge to escape. The cold emanating from the rocks makes us walk faster and stops us from taking a break in the gorge. The duckboards make sounds and give us a rhythm for our walk – we do not actually feel the rocks on our body, nor do we touch the stones. In the park, duckboards, signboards, maps and guides mediate the relations between human bodies and rocks. The duckboards, for example, prevent us from harming the fragile nature of the national park, but at the same time, they act as an intermediary of the encounter between humans and rocks. Instead of stepping on the floating stones, we step on the stable wooden planks. The stable planks feel safer under our feet, which are used to walking on asphalt or in an indoor environment (Ingold, 2004). Instead of sitting down on cold rocks, we sit down on wooden benches made for this purpose – or we dig woollen, foam or plastic seat covers out from our rucksacks and use those. Instead of leaning on rocks, instead of touching the sharp surfaces of stones, we lean on ropes next to the duckboards. Ginn (2013) argues that instead of aiming to overcome the things that separate us, we should account for those with more-than-human ethics. In his example, a close interaction between gardeners and slugs makes the gardeners familiarise themselves with the trails and reactions of slugs, acknowledge the shared – yet different – vulnerability of humans and slugs, and respace and reorganise the garden, ‘decentring the human as a sovereign power in the garden’ (p. 537). Similarly, through walking-with, we can become aware of the shared vulnerability of rocks and humans in the park and conscious of the detachment – materialised, for example, in the form of duckboards – as a way of enabling the rock to shape itself without erosion caused by human visits to the park. However, Springgay and Truman (2018, p. 32) note that thinking about a place as geosocial and as ‘Land’ demands that we consider the earth on which we walk and public parklands not as commodities to be owned, used and managed by humans for extractive profit. They continue by referring to Stacy Alaimo: ‘Rather than a retreat, Alaimo (2016) would insist on inhabitation. This inhabitation is not occupation, but rather a form of ethical action which arises “from the recognition of one’s specific location within a wider, more-than-human kinship network” (p. 30)’ (p. 32). Inhabiting points us towards our entangled ways of living instead of letting us put emphasis on the management of our encounters and detachments. When we are willing to recognise and be open towards the vulnerability of non-human others, we can be transformed by that recognition (Ginn, 2013). When coming back from the gorge, one of us notes that it was long ago when the Isokuru Gorge formed a sacred place for Sami people, with Seita stones situated there. Nowadays, the gorge forms a place of walking through, and the trail at the bottom of the gorge invites detachment instead of entan-

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glement. We realise that the Anthropocene epoch seems to have turned the rocks into a resource instead of enabling lively relationalities. While walking, we start to gradually understand that in order to access the relationality and the ethics manifested in human–rock relations, we need openness towards complex relationships between rocks and humans, and we need to become aware of the practices within which we cultivate and sustain openness (Höckert, 2018; Rautio, 2013). For instance, we need to engage in a critical reflection concerning our habituated ways of perceiving and thinking of rocks, and to decentre our humanness. Knowing-with, which is based on actual relationships, ‘demands that we engage openly, honestly and practically not only with our own ideas and beliefs, but also with the real nonhumans who are so often the subjects of them’ (Johnston, 2008, p. 646). We need to recognise our walking in the park as dwelling and inhabiting the park, and as a way of being both in relation with and apart from the rocks while we walk – and we need to care for the outcomes of the inhabiting, despite the speculative nature of those outcomes. Rautio (2013) states that We become stone-carrying with carrying stones. We literally weigh a bit more, balance our walk a bit differently, think certain thoughts and become certain kind of bodies and individuals in relation to what kind of stone-bodies we encounter and interact with. (p. 404)

Accordingly, our lively geosocial relationalities are formed through inhabiting – which consists both of relating with the rocks but also detaching ourselves from the rocks. The ethicality lies in the recognition of the non-human other in our ways of relating and detaching.

DISCUSSION In this chapter we have aimed to theorise, conceptualise and empirically investigate human–rock relations, employing a national park situated in Finnish Lapland as a research context. By way of combining insights from the emerging geosocial literature and feminist new materialism, we have developed a situated, ‘down-to-earth’ embodied perspective to investigate the lively relationalities of rocks and humans, and the way that care is implicated in them. Our analysis demonstrates that care is manifested in these relationalities in complex ways, taking the form of both detachment and entanglement, which do not exclude one another but instead contest an assumption of a harmonic relation between human and more-than-human subjects. Following many others (Kinnunen & Valtonen, 2017; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2012, 2017; Zylinska, 2014), we have thought of ethics not as a problem to be solved or rules to be followed, but rather as a mode to live with and through.

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Furthermore, such an understanding of ethics neither takes a human scale or human interests at its core nor denies human responsibility. From these premises, we have reimagined caring forms of relating to more-than-human others, placing care firmly within the lived praxis performed in the everyday. To us, the practice of walking-with rocks provided fertile ground for developing such a stance on caring. In so doing, our study enriches explorations of care within the ‘wider, more-than-human kinship network’ (Alaimo, 2016; Haraway, 2016). While many of the existing studies have investigated issues commonly understood as ‘living’ and being part of ‘bios’, such as soil (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2015) or animals (Ginn, 2013; Haraway, 2008), our study takes ‘geos’ into consideration, which often – and mistakenly – are conceived of as inert and non-living (Bennett, 2010; Palsson & Swanson, 2016). By this focus, and by displaying the complexity of care as articulated in the human–rock relations we investigated, the study can prompt new insights into caring and help to recognise and respect the multitude of kin relations that the Earth entails (Haraway, 2016). The methodological approach that we employed, the walking method, enabled us to produce detailed, embodied and situated knowledge of human– rock relations. As Johnston (2008) notes, knowing-with that is based on actual relationships ‘demands that we engage openly, honestly and practically not only with our own ideas and beliefs, but also with the real nonhumans who are so often the subjects of them’ (p. 646). We thus walked-with the rocks – embodying the presence and history of rocks and stones with every step. The act of walking in the rocky fells of the national park required culturally specific bodily techniques and codes of practice (Ingold, 2004; Lorimer & Lund, 2003; Lund, 2005), which related in our case, for example, to the Western conceptualisation of nature as scenery (Lund, 2005) and our everyday embodied experiences of walking on gravel and pavement (Vergunst, 2008). The act of walking is seldom harmonious (Edensor, 2008; Heddon & Myers, 2014), and our analysis also highlighted how we sensed the rocks in situations where they made our walking a challenge and brought about fear, for example a fear of rocks falling down. Leaning on the branch of the walking method that draws from feminist new materialist theorisation (Springgay & Truman, 2018), emphasising situatedness, sensitivity, openness and corporeal reflectivity, enabled us to identify the subtle nuances that walking-with rocks entailed. While we had been walking in the park several times before this study, it was only now that we stopped to reflect on our practice and the way care plays a role in it. During the research process, we gradually learned to become more open to the multitude of qualities of rocks, and to the ambivalences related to caring. As a result, our thinking and bodily relation changed, perhaps forever. Now, we engage differently with the personal practices we described in the beginning of this

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chapter. Sitting on the rocks at summer cottages and trekking or running on the fells covered by rocks is not the same any longer. These experiences are more. They are filled with care. The reflection of our personal and recreational encounters with rocks has sensitised us to appreciate our dependency on the rocks and the geological origin of the Earth more widely (Povinelli et al., 2017; Yusoff, 2016). It has invited us to begin to think of more caring conceptualisations for bedrocks, rocks and stones, ones that enable the recognition of their lively relationalities instead of seeing them merely as resources, as is the case in the prevalent techno-economic discourse through which mining, fracking and geoengineering are legitimised (Valtonen & Banerjee, 2018). Caring conceptualisations should also articulate the politics of care, which manifest through an urge to care for the rocks, and like in our case, through worrying about the consequences of capitalising on the once sacred land for recreational purposes (see Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017). The institutionalised form of care of the national park represents one example of how lively relationalities are framed and prefigured in certain ways. In the Arctic and northern areas, tourism has been a potent force framing the relationalities merely as encounters between vast ‘empty’ wilderness and the mobile tourist (see Grimwood et al., 2019). While the national park infrastructure exemplifies certain forms of care, it also detaches us from nature. Our analysis has illustrated the subtle nuances of care, within which there is potential for becoming sensitive to the various layers of the lively history present in the national park. As such, the crisis of thinking that this study responded to exemplifies well the importance of situated bodily experiences in facilitating the creation of caring attachments to the Earth, as Salminen and Vaden (2015) have argued in the context of oil. It matters that we know, feel and sense the rocks, because then we can form close relations to them, relations that matter. It also forced us to acknowledge our own human- and biocentrism that lurks behind our thinking. This is an important outcome, since ‘thinking in the world involves acknowledging our own involvements in perpetuating dominant values rather than retreating to the sheltered position of an enlightened outsider who knows better’ (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017, p. 10).

CONCLUSION Our study has offered a situated and ‘down-to-earth’ story of walking-with and knowing-with rocks that is based on our own experiences. It is our lot to live our lives in the epoch of the Anthropocene and in an area that enables our bodies to entangle with the geological specificities of one particular region in Finnish Lapland. The geologic in general, and the one exhibited by the Pyhä-Luosto National Park in particular, opens up an expansive timescale that easily goes

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beyond human comprehension. Interestingly, the very timeline of the rocks motivated us to develop a caring attentiveness towards them. Recognising that we were walking-with the most ancient rocks of the Earth created a particular feeling of respect in us, together with appreciation and astonishment. We felt humble, being able to ‘know with care’ these particular rocks. Our study also provides a different story than usually told of the Arctic area, of which the region we studied is a part. While the Arctic plays a major role in debates around the Anthropocene and climate change in particular, it is typically the melting ice or a suffering polar bear that gets represented in these stories. These stories also tend to be future-oriented, arguing, roughly put, that ‘we should act soon so as to save the Earth for future generations’. We have told our situated story from the point of view of people living with the rocks in the Arctic area and turned the focus to the earthly history – which also has the potential to nurture human attentiveness to care for the Earth.

NOTES 1. 2.

Here, Springgay and Truman point to the work of Blackman, 2012; Clough, 2007; Manning, 2012; Massumi, 2015; Seigworth and Gregg, 2010; Springgay, 2011. See WalkingLab, https://​walkinglab​.org/​, for examples of walking-with projects.

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Franklin, A. (2012). The choreography of a mobile world: Tourist orderings. In R. Van der Duim, C. Ren, & G. T. Jóhannesson (Eds), Actor-network theory and tourism: Ordering, materiality and multiplicity (pp. 43–58). Routledge. Ginn, F. (2013). Sticky lives: Slugs, detachment and more-than-human ethics in the garden. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 39(4), 532–544. https://​ doi​.org/​10​.1111/​tran​.12043. Grimwood, B. S. R., Muldoon, M. L., & Stevens, Z. M. (2019). Settler colonialism, Indigenous cultures, and the promotional landscape of tourism in Ontario, Canada’s ‘near North’. Journal of Heritage Tourism, 14(3), 233–248. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​ 1743873X​.2018​.1527845. Grosz, E. (1994). Volatile bodies: Towards a corporeal feminism. Indiana University Press. Grosz, E., Yusoff, K., & Clark, N. (2017). An interview with Elisabeth Grosz: Geopower, inhumanism and the biopolitical. Theory, Culture and Society, 34(2–3), 129–146. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​0263276417689899. Haraway, D. (2008). When species meet. University of Minnesota Press. Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press. Heddon, D., & Myers, M. (2014). Stories from the walking library. Cultural Geographies, 21(4), 639–655. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​1474474014521361. Hekman, S. (2008). Constructing the ballast: An ontology for feminism. In S. Alaimo & S. Hekman (Eds), Material Feminisms (pp. 85–119). Indiana University Press. Hennion, A. (2007). Those things that hold us together: Taste and sociology. Cultural Sociology, 1(1), 97–114. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​1749975507073923. Höckert, E. (2018). Negotiating hospitality: Ethics of tourism development in the Nicaraguan Highlands. Routledge. Ingold, T. (2004). Culture on the ground: The world perceived through the feet. Journal of Material Culture, 9(3), 315–340. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​1359183504046896. Ingold, T. (2011). Being alive: Essays on movement, knowledge and description. Routledge. Ishaquem, S., Saleem, T., & Qidwai, W. (2009). Knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding gemstone therapeutics in a selected adult population in Pakistan. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 9(32). https://​doi​.org/​10​.1186/​1472​-6882​ -9​-32. Johnston, C. (2008). Beyond the clearing: Towards a dwelt animal geography. Progress in Human Geography, 32(5), 633–649. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​0309132508089825. Kinnunen, V., & Valtonen, A. (Eds). (2017). Living ethics in a more-than-human world. University of Lapland. Kramvig, B., & Verran, H. (2017, June 6–9). Stones as entities participating in ontological practices [Paper presentation]. The 2nd Peaceful Co-existence conference, Pyhä, Finland. Lorimer, H., & Lund, K. (2003). Performing facts: Finding a way over Scotland’s mountains. In B. Szerszynski, W. Heim & C. Waterto (Eds), Nature performed: Environment, culture and performance (pp. 130–144). Blackwell Publishing. Lorimer, J. (2015). Wildlife in the Anthropocene: Conservation after nature. University of Minnesota Press. Lund, K. (2005). Seeing in motion and the touching eye: Walking over Scotland’s mountains. ETNOFOOR, 18(1), 27–42. Manning, E. (2012). Always more than one: Individuation’s dance. Duke University Press.

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Massumi, B. (2015). Politics of affect. Polity Press. Palsson, G., & Swanson, H. A. (2016). Down to earth: Geosocialities and geopolitics. Environmental Humanities, 8(2), 149–171. Pink, S., Hubbard, P., O’Neil, M., & Radley, A. (2010). Walking across disciplines: From ethnography to arts practice. Visual Studies, 25(1), 1–7. https://​doi​.org/​10​ .1080/​14725861003606670. Povinelli, E. (1995). Do rocks listen? The cultural politics of apprehending Australian aboriginal labor. American Anthropologist, 97(3), 505–518. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1525/​ aa​.1995​.97​.3​.02a00090. Povinelli, E. (2016). Geontologies: A requiem to late liberalism. Duke University Press. Povinelli, E., Coleman, M., & Yusoff, K. (2017). An interview with Elizabeth Povinelli: Geontopower, biopolitics and the Anthropocene. Theory, Culture and Society, 34(2–3), 169–185. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​0263276417689900. Puig de la Bellacasa, M. (2012). ‘Nothing comes without its world’: Thinking with care. The Sociological Review, 60(2), 197–216. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1111/​j​.1467​-954X​ .2012​.02070​.x. Puig de la Bellacasa, M. (2015). Making time for soil: Technoscientific futurity and the pace of care. Social Studies of Science, 45(5), 691–716. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​ 0306312715599851. Puig de la Bellacasa, M. (2017). Matters of care: Speculative ethics in more than human worlds. University of Minnesota Press. Raffles, H. (2012). Twenty-five years is a long time. Cultural Anthropology, 27(3), 526–534. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1111/​j​.1548​-1360​.2012​.01158​.x. Rantala, O., & Valtonen, A. (2014). A rhythmanalysis of touristic sleep in nature. Annals of Tourism Research, 47(7), 18–30. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1016/​j​.annals​.2014​ .04​.001. Rautio, P. (2013). Children who carry stones in their pockets: On autotelic material practices in everyday life. Children’s Geographies, 11(4), 394–408. https://​doi​.org/​ 10​.1080/​14733285​.2013​.812278. Ren, C., & Jóhannesson, G. T. (2018). Collaborative becoming: Exploring tourism knowledge collectives. In C. Ren, G. T. Jóhannesson, & R. van der Duim (Eds), Co-creating tourism research: Towards collaborative ways of knowing (pp. 24–38). Routledge. Salminen, A., & Vaden, T. (2015). Energy and experience: An essay on naftology. MCM' Publishing. Seigworth, G., & Gregg, M. (2010). An inventory of shimmers. In G. Melissa & G. Seigworth (Eds), The affect theory reader (pp. 1–25). Duke University Press. Springgay, S. (2011). ‘The Chinatown Foray’ as sensational pedagogies. Curriculum Inquiry, 41(5), 636–656. Springgay, S., & Truman, S. E. (2017). A transmaterial approach to walking methodologies: Embodiment, affect, and a sonic art performance. Body and Society, 23(4), 27–58. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​1357034X17732626. Springgay, S., & Truman, S. E. (2018). Walking methodologies in a more-than-human world: WalkingLab. Routledge. Thrift, N. (2008). Non-representational theory: Space, politics, affect. Routledge. Ulmer, J. B. (2017). Posthumanism as research methodology: Inquiry in the Anthropocene. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 30(9), 832–848. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​09518398​.2017​.1336806. Valtonen, A., & Banerjee, B. (2018, June 4–6). Time of rocks in organizations [Paper presentation]. The EGOS conference, Tallinn, Estonia.

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4. On scientific fabulation: storytelling in the more-than-human world Emily Höckert THE THREE LITTLE PIGS AND THE BIG BAD WOLF Once upon a time, our family was invited to eat dinner at our neighbours’ house. After a while, my daughter became tired and was ready to sleep, while we adults wished to continue our discussions by the cosy fireplace. I took her to the guest room, hoping that she would be able to feel at home and fall asleep. However, as we had no book with us, I had to try to memorise or improvise a goodnight story by myself. The problem was that I could not think of any. I started to mutter something about three little pigs that lived in the woods. My daughter interrupted me and said, ‘Mum, remember that a good storyline consists of the beginning, the problem that occurs, solving the problem and the end.’ The main purpose of describing this moment is not only to brag how smart my then six-year-old child was: although I was impressed and amused by her knowledge of a coherent plotline, I was most of all disappointed by my own inability to engage in spontaneous and creative storytelling. By that time, I had been writing academic books, articles, chapters and short stories, which should have meant that I had been developing my storytelling skills for a while. Many years ago, I had also come across Ari Hiltunen’s (2002) illuminating book Aristotle in Hollywood: The anatomy of successful storytelling, which reveals the secrets of popular storytelling in contemporary bestselling novels, films, series and video games. In the Poetics, Aristotle suggested that the function of a successful plot is to arouse emotions of pity and fear, and then produce emotions of pleasure and catharsis (Hiltunen, 2002, p. 27). While every story includes a problem that is then solved, as my daughter had learned in school, Aristotle’s theory of drama underlines how crucial it is that the audience feels sympathy towards the heroes and heroines, and can then feel ‘proper pleasure’ when everything works out well in the end. Although I had retained Aristotle’s ‘secret anatomy’ in my heart when watching films, I had never tested using them myself. 51

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A few days after this incident, I was comforted by the confession of a Finnish scholar, Erkka Railo, on social media, who described how he had managed to read a boring 50-page-long bedtime story about Barbie Mermaids to his offspring without afterwards remembering anything about the plotline. What had made his experience both impressive and amusing was the fact that while he had found the story meaningless, he had given personalised voices to the different mermaids. This made me examine my child’s bookshelf and conduct a short, but systematic, literature review of the fables and other stories that we had enjoyed and found thought-provoking: the books that we both had found worth re-reading. I present this literature review of bedtime stories – those with a good combination of melancholy, inspiration and kindness – in detail in the next section. The episode at our neighbours’ house also had more far-reaching consequences. After that evening, I began to pay more attention to the ways in which we engage in storytelling and listening in today’s world in general. First of all, I became curious about those encouraging examples that showed the positive, transformative power of storytelling, for instance in the context of climate change and environmental protection. Simultaneously, many were lamenting the ways in which politicians and media are today overusing stories and by doing so oversimplifying complicated things. The contemporary means of digital communication were also blamed for weakening our storytelling skills in general (see e.g. Gálik & Gáliková Tolnainová, 2015). In sum, could all this mean that while the role of stories was growing, the stories as such were getting shorter, and more categorical, with less space for complexity and hesitation? We could ask whether Twitter’s rule of 280 characters, among other forms of communication with limited word-counts, had contributed to more concise and straight-to-the-point stories in this age. For instance, the Finnish newspaper Long Play had been launched to offer longer, more thorough journalism in times when big newspapers have been cutting back on the depth and length of their articles. Then my concern was whether the same phenomenon had managed to spread to face-to-face communication. Was it only me who felt that it was often necessary to keep stories short, spice them up with jokes and exaggerate to keep your companions attuned to what you are saying? This made me ask, with a nostalgic tone in my voice, whether we were gradually losing the capability to listen to and tell longer stories. My concern became increasingly stronger when reading student essays on sustainable development and the Anthropocene. Some students seemed to have been engaging with the core course literature on climate change at the same level as Erkka Railo had read the ‘Barbie Mermaid’: with little enthusiasm and few expectations of finding something interesting or new. Approaching all this in relational, intersubjective terms, it does not make sense to point the finger at either the writer or the reader of these research reports, which include

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large amounts of data and factoids (see Morton, 2018). Instead, writers and readers (read: us) all have the responsibility to strive for meaningful and caring dialogues with one another. Could it be that students’ (read: our) interest in this kind of literature has been slowly but surely eroded, as our knowledge of climate change has peaked? What we are missing when reading Barbie Mermaid books and literature on climate change is, in my view, the feeling of wonder and the experience of the ‘phenomenological nod’, that is, the nod that we make when we can vividly relate to happenings described in a text (van Manen, 1990, p. 27; see also Edelheim, 2015). The nod that makes us care and hope that the story will continue and remain alive. It is the reaction of ‘Wow, that sounds good!’ or ‘That sounds interesting!’, after welcoming a new idea, a sound, or something else (Morton, 2018, p. 42). It has been these moments of doubt and wonder that have fuelled my interest in exploring the importance of storytelling and storylistening in the Anthropocene (see also Haraway, 2016b; Paddison et al., 2019; Valtonen & Kinnunen, 2017, p. 8). ‘Dumping data’ about environmental change and mass extinction has not proved to be effective in raising humans awareness of, and empathy towards, non-human inhabitants of the Earth (Haraway, 2016b; Morton, 2010, 2018), and there is an urgent need for alternative ways of understanding, discussing and being in the Anthropocene. More specifically, drawing inspiration from Donna Haraway’s (2016a) demand for multispecies storytelling for Earthly survival, I will argue that the transformative power of storytelling should be taken seriously. I have borrowed the notion of the scientific fable from Bruno Latour’s foreword in Vinciane Despret’s wonderful, entertaining and thought-provoking book What would animals say if we asked the right questions? In the foreword to this book, Latour (2016) writes: You are about to enter a new genre, that of scientific fables, by which I do not mean science fiction or false stories about science but, on the contrary, true ways of understanding how difficult it is to figure out what animals are up to. (p. vii)

According to Latour, the book is an example of the new domain of scientific humanities that brings together and puts to work the resources of science and humanities. While he refers here to Despret’s work on and with animals, the genre of scientific fables is valuable when listening to and imagining the stories that more-than-humans tell. The beauty and purpose of Despret’s means of fabulating is that she complicates, specifies, slows down and hesitates so that multiple voices can be heard (Latour, 2016, p. ix). Indeed, does this not sound like our main task as researchers? Latour calls Despret an empirical philosopher – more specifically, an additive empiricist. In the same way as subtractive empiricists, additive empiricists are interested in facts and grounded claims; however, different from subtractive empiricists, who aim

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to eliminate contradictions and decrease the number of alternatives, additive empiricists wish to slow things down to include multiple voices that express multiple understandings. In this sense, the additive empiricists are untidy guests (Veijola et al., 2014), who disrupt the linear, anthropocentric narratives of the past and the future (Gren & Höckert, forthcoming; Stevens et al., 2018; Trexler, 2015; Valtonen et al., 2019) and the idea of the researcher as a kind of conqueror. Importantly, being an untidy and caring additive empiricist means being a sensitive reader and writer whose aim is not to try to make others look bad. Haraway (2016b) seems to recommend this as a fruitful tactic for critical scholars. She draws special attention to Despret’s way of weaving together scientific fabulation by stating that Despret is not interested in thinking by discovering the stupidities of others, or by reducing the field of attention to prove a point. Her kind of thinking enlarges, even invents, the competencies of all the players, including herself, such that the domain of ways of being and knowing dilates, expands, adds both ontological and epistemological possibilities, proposes and enacts what was not there before. That is her worlding practice. (pp. 126–127)

To explore the possibilities and challenges of storytelling as a worlding practice and as a remedy for ‘Earthly survival’ (Haraway, 2016a), I wish to draw attention to the ways in which scientific fables allow us to visit and gather around matters of care in more-than-human worlds (Despret, 2005, 2016; Greenway, 2016; Haraway, 2016b; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017). The importance of fables is here connected to the ideas of ecological and minimal ethics that call for care, openness and wonder towards radical otherness (see Morton, 2018; Valtonen & Kinnunen, 2017, p. 8; Zylinska, 2014). In line with the phenomenological thought of escaping closed ends, Despret (2016) encourages us to create stories, to make history and to reconstruct in a way that ‘opens other possibilities for the past in the present and the future’ (p. 178). In more pragmatic terms, this journey in the making is fuelled by my personal eagerness to join the ever-growing group of social scientists who use enthusiasm to give voice to the experiences and resilience of the more-than-humans. In other words, I am ready to start exploring beyond the anthropocenic imaginary (Mostafanezhad & Norum, 2019) and to develop the skills of storytelling and storylistening with multiple others.

LITERATURE REVIEW OF MY DAUGHTER’S BOOKSHELF After that evening at our neighbours’ house, I went again to my daughter’s bookshelf and picked up a book where a lion, bear, horse, pig, peacock, ele-

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phant, snail and a butterfly smile at each other on an orange cover – although frankly, it is not really possible to say whether the peacock and butterfly were smiling or not. In any case, Fables from all around the world includes 33 short fables where animals are the main characters (Kauppila, 2015). It had been one of our favourite books, before Harry Potter and other humans came to stay. Morton (2018) writes that this kind of steady exclusion of animals from children’s books is a very normal phenomenon. Animals start to disappear from stories, or end up playing supporting characters, when children grow older. The process of colonising a more-than-human world begins when we are teenagers and gradually start being less interested in animals. Unless we are biologists, we are not supposed to get excited when a turtle finds a friend, worried when a baby deer loses its mother or curious about whether a butterfly is happy or not. However, what are the consequences of stopping to relate to animals as equal peers? Could it be that we need to create distance from them in order to be able to live with the knowledge that the animals are raised so that we can eat and wear them (Greenway, 2016, pp. 2–3)? As Rosi Braidotti (2013, p. 68; see also Kline & Rusher, 2018) notes, drawing from Deleuze, there are animals we watch television with, there are animals that we eat, and there are animals that we are afraid of. Returning to the literature review: before Harry Potter’s entrance, we had read many of those 33 fables several times. Our favourites were the modern, quite absurd stories where, for instance, a giraffe grows a longer neck after getting tired with all the gossiping and pointless chattering at the savannah (Huovi, 2015). Another beloved page-turner was the story of a widowed elephant, who ended up making a hot-air balloon out of his dear wife’s skin (Itkonen, 2015). This was a heart-breaking love story, where the reader is reassured that the elephant wife would have been happy that her husband was now able to travel the world with this balloon. From a quick overview of our favourite stories, I could see that we had preferred the more surprising and bizarre ones, those that created feelings of compassion, curiosity and hope; the fables with calm rhythms, open ends and no feeling that we were reading ‘Morals for Dummies’. These kinds of stories did not aim to eliminate strangeness but raised new questions (see Levinas, 1969; Despret, 2016). They starred characters who became even stranger as we got to ‘know’ them (Morton, 2010, p. 15), and these stories included irony, which insists that there are other views that need to be acknowledged (Morton, 2010, p. 17). The story of the three little pigs and a big bad wolf was also in this book of 33 fables. In this version, the big bad wolf eats two of the smallest pigs, who had built their homes from such a weak material that they could easily be blown down. The story, which is originally from England, shows that in comparison to the third pig, who had built her home out of bricks, these two pigs were actually quite lazy, as they had not put more effort into building

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their homes. The third pig was also so smart that she managed to get the wolf into a boiling pot, and then ate the entire wolf for dinner. The lessons that this story was probably supposed to teach, about the virtues of working hard to avoid punishment, were not among my favourites. In fact, I do not believe we read this story more than once. As my systematic categorisation and analysis of ‘favourite’ and ‘not favourite’ fables continued, I was able to notice that the Greek fabulist Aesop’s work in particular ended up in the ‘not favourite’ category. Aesop (620–564 BCE) was a famous and productive fabulist who wrote stories starring animals, plants and objects with human characters. Indeed, it seems that Aesop was among the pioneers who explored different ways of speaking about and to human species (Patterson, 1991; see also Morton, 2018, p. 6). The purpose of his often quite melancholic stories was to describe relationships between humans and to teach moral lessons. For instance, Aesop’s Fable number 373 (in the Perry Index) tells us about a grasshopper who had spent the summer singing and dancing while the ants worked hard to collect food for the winter. When the grasshopper became hungry, she had to turn back to the ants to ask for food. Instead of sharing their food with the grasshopper, the ants reminded her about their bitter memories of the last summer. The purpose of the story is apparently to awaken sympathy and support for the hard-working ants, and to offer a moral lesson about how ‘to work today is to eat tomorrow’ (see Zafiropoulos, 2001). Despite the purpose of the story, and I know that I am heading quickly towards fundamental questions of social justice here (Kangas, 2000), my feelings of sympathy are mainly with the grasshopper. My gut feeling is that reading these kinds of stories with a normative, moral message should allow room for reflection and questions. First, I find it difficult to see these ants’ behaviour as ethical. The most basic, ancient duty is surely to welcome ‘the Other’ who comes to your door, starving or cold, asking for help (Derrida, 2000; Germann Molz & Gibson, 2007). It also seems as if the story paints a rather narrow picture of meaningful work. Hence, the second question that comes to my mind is therefore whether there was a chance that the ants had secretly enjoyed the grasshopper’s singing during the summer. I am also concerned about whether the ants themselves had taken any time to rest during the warm summer days. Could it be that this kind of effectivity-fetish and storing of resources is one of the reasons that we have ended up in a vicious circle of overproduction, extractive mind-sets and self-centredness? Is not it precisely the celebration of these kinds of work morals that has created a growing number of tired, hard-working people who long for the idleness and creativity of the grasshoppers (see Cederström & Spicer, 2015)? There are interesting questions here, about whether we recognise our own morals in these stories, from whose perspective they are written, and who we

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identify ourselves with. What if the ‘Three little pigs and the big bad wolf’ was read as a story about the Anthropocene? About the era in the Earth’s history where humans, 0.01 per cent of all the living beings, had managed to destroy the majority of other living things on Earth (Bar-On et al., 2018; IPBES, 2019). I am trying to make my point by roughly weaving together a story where the three pigs represent more-than-humans and the wolf plays the role of the reckless, malicious humans. My guess is that not so many of us have read or listened to this, or any other fables, and identified ourselves with the wolf or the other bullies and beasts (see also Despret, 2016, p. 7), and so telling the story this way might cause disbelief and shock, and face political resistance (see Bonneuil & Fressoz, 2015; Morton, 2018). It challenges us to ask whether we prefer the ending where the wolf is boiled to death – which is an impressively accurate metaphor for the warming climate (see also Steffen et al., 2015) – or is just sent back to the forest with an unsettling feeling of embarrassment. Another, perhaps kinder version of the ‘Three little pigs and the big bad wolf in the Anthropocene’ could be one where the wolf played the role of environmental change. If the story was told in this way, it would mean accepting that the pigs had to live under constant stress, that is, in the constant company of the wolf who they cannot stop feeding. This version sounds like a never-ending, less calming, comforting or hopeful bedtime story. Indeed, these two alternative versions of the ‘Three little pigs and a big bad wolf’ both include a feeling of great stress, if not trauma. Realising that (a) I am the wolf that I have learned to hate, or that (b) I must live together with the wolf for the rest of my life, might lead to some sleepless nights and disturbing nightmares. If we consider the first option, living white, middle-class life in the Nordic countries means that I am not only an average wolf, but one of the worst and biggest kinds of wolfs of all. Preferring the second option comes also with the fact that many Earthly creatures are experiencing the effects of the wolf’s presence much more ruthlessly than we do up here by the cosy fireplace (IPBES, 2019; see also Chapters 5 and 6, in Part II of this book). It seems important here to ask whether some of the stories about the planetary situation might tune us into too deep waters (Gren & Höckert, forthcoming; Morton, 2010). If they make us feel mere anxiety, stress and trauma, as Morton (2010, 2018) suggests, then we will probably not be able to come up with co-creative, caring solutions to the problems in the pigs’ and the wolf’s forest. As the accumulating research into the ongoing environmental catastrophe indicates, it is all Earthly creatures, including humans, who are traumatised by the Anthropocene (see Kingsolver, 2012; Steffen et al., 2015; Valtonen & Kinnunen, 2017, pp. 6–7). Psychologists seem to agree that traumatic experiences that leave us breathless fragment our sense of security, our attachment and interconnection to others and the connection of experiencing hope in the world (Serani, 2014). While many scientists are increasingly desperate about

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the mass-denial of the seriousness of the ongoing ecological catastrophe, it is also understandable that people feel reluctant to read these kinds of unsettling stories before going to sleep (see Hamilton, 2010). To be honest, I experience that my daughter is also better off without dystopic bedtime stories.

STORYTELLING WITH MORE-THAN-HUMAN PROTAGONISTS During the sporadic literature review of my child’s bookshelf, I became determined to keep the bookshelf filled with stories that talk about kinship and caring relations in more-than-human worlds, that is, stories that can help us to recognise the vitality and multiplicity in more-than-humans instead of seeing ‘nature’ as an object. These are stories where ants, pigs and crickets are not divided into totalising, clear-cut categories, such as ‘hard-working or lazy’, ‘good or evil’, ‘us or them’ (see postcolonial scholars like Spivak, 1988). In line with Zylinska’s (2014, pp. 20–21; see also Valtonen & Kinnunen, 2017) approach on minimal ethics, we might need more non-systemic and non-normative ways of engaging in storytelling and storylistening in order to make a difference to the arrangements that we are calling the world. Moving beyond the bookshelf project at home, I began to think about the indigenous storybooks that kindly shared glimpses of indigenous cosmologies. Anne Wilson Schaef’s (1995) book Native wisdom for white minds reminds us how hearing stories grounds us: the more stories, the better, and the greater the diversity of stories, the better. Indeed, Wilson Schaef (1995) underlines the importance of hearing diverse stories from Earthly creatures unlike oneself. Wilson Schaef draws inspiration from American Indian Lupita Johnson, and the way in which her grandfather encouraged her to share stories in different voices to celebrate Mother Earth: ‘Share all stories, it beautifies Mother Earth, especially in different voices. It is bad if all stories become one, there’s no more stories, no more life’ (Lupita Johnson, as cited in Wilson Schaef, 1995). In indigenous traditions around the world, storytellers are the educators and language keepers who ensure the continuation of indigenous philosophies, epistemic traditions, customs and ways of life (Sium & Ritskes, 2013, p. v). In this way, storytelling can be seen both as a site and a tool for survival that binds and re-connects all beings together. These connections extend not only to our human ancestors and to generations yet to come, but to all the Earthly creatures (Archibald, 1997; Iseke, 2013; Stevens et al., 2018). Stories are commonly told in relation to the land, the air and the sky (Whiteduck, as cited in Sium & Ritskes, 2013, p. vi). The land, for instance, is not a backdrop, location or something that can be owned; instead, the land is the premise of why and how the stories are being told and ‘how we/they come to know our/ themselves’ (Iseke, 2013; Sium & Ritskes, 2013, p. vi). Aman Sium and Eric

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Ritskes (2013, p. vii) write that ‘The land remembers and constructs relationships with those who live on it.’ This means that decolonisation is not only about an acknowledgement of indigenous peoples’ sovereignty over the land they occupy, but also about protecting traditional, multiple ways of relating to, caring for, honouring and learning from land. Indigenous storytelling often begins from familiar sites of personal pain and disconnection, land struggles and historical erasure, in ways that command our attention (Emberley, 2014, p. 20; Sium & Ristkes, 2013, p. iii). While Europeans begin their stories with ‘Once upon a time’, Native American folktales might begin, for instance, ‘When coyote was a man’. What seems crucial here, among other things, is that the stories are not merely a social glue keeping humans together, as Yuval Noah Harari (2011) discusses in his book Sapiens: A brief history of humankind, but tangles together all kinds of creatures on the Earth. While my previous research journeys and storylines have focused on relational ontologies, I have also focused merely on the subjectivities that are shaped between human characters. I have travelled most of all with Levinas’s (1969; see also Derrida, 1999) idea of the ethics of hospitality, which means understanding ethics as an openness to the other. In the Levinasian spirit, I have sought to imagine relational, hospitable ways of being that can be seen as an alternative to solipsism and encounters between individual entities. Yet, all this disruption and longing to re-connect has taken place within the anthropocentric ontology starring humans – where being is based on being among humans, and ethics is based on responsibilities between people (Höckert, 2018, p. 169; see also Braidotti, 2013; Pyyhtinen, 2016; Zylinska, 2014). So, the question here is, what would it mean to start telling stories starring other animals and plants, 99.9 per cent of those living on the Earth? It seems like a vital piece of scientific fabulation is the careful casting of protagonists. American bestselling novelist John Grisham (see Hiltunen, 2002) once noted that a successful story needs to have sympathetic heroes and heroines who become tied into a horrible situation where their lives are at stake. So who are the heroines and heroes in our contemporary stories about the Anthropocene? Those who we feel sympathy for? The ones who we can identify with and whose survival we keep hoping for? While diving into these questions, my eyes catch The Guardian’s report (‘Deer poacher’, 2018) about a poacher in the United States who had been ordered to watch the Disney classic Bambi as part of his sentence for illegally killing hundreds of deer. Donna Haraway’s (2016b, co-written with Despret & Terranova) Camille stories and Barbara Kingsolver’s (2012) Flight behaviour are examples of scientific fables (sf) or climate fiction (cli-fi) where monarch butterflies – and humans who care for their survival – play the role of the protagonists. Both stories follow the migration of monarch butterflies between Canada, the United States and Mexico, and how the butterflies’ struggle for existence happens in

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biological symbiosis with human generations. Along their route, monarch butterflies face the devastating consequences of deforestation and chemical technologies of mass industrial agriculture (Haraway, 2016b, pp. 141–142). In Camille stories, the new-born child, and the generations to come, bond with the braids formed by these butterflies in motion. This means that the coming generations would grow in knowledge and awareness committed to the lives of the insects in the place where they lived. The tale invites us into Haraway’s vision for a multispecies sociality, a way to ‘cultivate the arts of living on a damaged planet’, a phrase she borrows from Anna Tsing and her collaborators, Heather Anne Swanson, Elaine Gan and Nils Bubandt (2017). In Flight behaviour, Kingsolver brings together her biological expertise and voice as an environmental activist to discuss how significantly climate change is altering the lives of all Earthly creatures. The story is situated on the mountains of rural Tennessee where Delarobia, the main human character, encounters the mountain landscape of a flaming forest, alive with millions of monarch butterflies. The amazing view is something that she and others living in that region have never seen before. While the vision changes the course of Delarobia’s life, where the butterflies become the new star-players, it soon becomes clear that the butterflies are there to tell her that there is something seriously wrong. Instead of flying to their normal wintering grounds in the high mountains of Mexico, climate change has altered the dream-like adventure of these butterflies and many are dying. In this book the butterflies are protagonists who ‘speak’ in multiple ways, and people interpret their presence and ‘talk’ differently – some as religious messages, others as alarms of environmental catastrophes. It is perhaps less important to try to identify what the butterflies are saying than how they say it – and how the listeners experience it and react to their increasing awareness of existing entanglements.

CAN THE MORE-THAN-HUMANS SPEAK? The traditional definitions of fables include the idea of speaking animals. I had the privilege of bringing this issue to the table in the annual colloquium of the Finnish Society for Environmental Social Sciences (YHYS), organised at the University of Lapland in Finland, in November 2018. Here, Angela Moriggi (see also Grenni & Moriggi, 2018), who writes children’s stories, shared the story of a cow in her own book, which performed and looked a bit like the singer Michael Jackson. Nevertheless, along the writing process, Moriggi had started to question the way we make animals look and behave as if they were human. As a result, she had let the cow be a cow, with an identity that was not expressed merely by the way she talked, moonwalked or accessorised. Indeed, while it is understandable that an elephant will talk to a tailor-duck in

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a children’s book, it is important to allow other others to express themselves, in multiple, mysterious ways. I was therefore happy to realise that the notion of a fable included several broader meanings that could be stretched and re-thought even further. This means that while it was essential that animals have a strong voice in fables, those voices were not necessarily formed in words from human languages. Instead, the voices can challenge us to listen to their own sound, and to ways of ‘speaking’ that are radically strange to us. This means that while we will never understand or know these ‘languages’ thoroughly, we can still welcome and experience them. Despret’s (2016) book What would the animals say if we asked the right questions? includes many examples of storytelling that question our presumptions about non-human animals. It is clear that Despret’s animals do speak in several ways, although Despret has not put any words, either French or English, into their mouths. For instance, in her chapter entitled ‘Why do we say that cows do not do anything?’, she asks a simple but fundamental question: ‘Do animals work?’ Instead of collecting information or opinions about the question at hand, the text aims to provoke hesitation and experiment, that is, what are the effects of thinking like this? Despret (2016, pp. 180–181) refers to the sociologist Jocelyne Porcher’s research, where this question of work was asked by both farmers and cows themselves. While the farmers had difficulties answering these questions, the cows demonstrated the ways in which they aimed to maintain a peaceful atmosphere and smooth manoeuvres. In Porcher’s view, as Despret (2016, p. 181) describes, everything that appears to be taken for granted attests to an entire range of collaborative, invisible work with the farmer. Postcolonial thinkers have thoroughly discussed the perils of the heroic task of giving a ‘voice to the other’ (Höckert, 2014; Spivak, 1988; Tuhiwai-Smith, 2012). While most postcolonial scholars have focused on relationships between humans, or on the relationships between the self and the other, their thoughts carry important teachings when wishing to engage in storytelling in more-than-human world. According to Gayatri Spivak (1988), we are doomed to fail, but the only right thing to do is keep trying. The key here is, according to postcolonial critiques, to do our homework by reflecting upon our limitations in being able to listen what others are saying, and by acknowledging the impossibility of ‘giving voice’ to others as transparent mediums. In other words, this means recognising the ‘white man’s burden’ in postcolonial encounters and reflecting on the responsibilities and risks that come from representing ‘the Other’ (Ahmed, 2000; Easterly, 2006). Although Levinas has not often been categorised as a postcolonial philosopher, his discussions about openness towards the other are postcolonial through and through (Drabinski, 2011). In addition to striving for inter-

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subjective, open, welcoming, caring relations between ourselves, he offers important guidance in relation to storytelling and representation. I suggest that scientific fables should also draw inspiration and guidance from Levinas’s thought of ‘ethical saying’, which means de-establishing speaking for and speaking about the other. This ethical saying does not aim to define the other as an object of knowledge, but merely as a desire of infinity, openness and receptivity (Levinas, 1998, p. 297). In other words, one of the most practical instructions for ethical representation might be scepticism towards closed ends. For Levinas (1998, pp. 37–38, 45–51), ethical representation – or storytelling – requires desiring the omnipresent excess of the saying instead of privileging the said. At the risk of oversimplifying Levinas’s thought, ‘said’ could be defined as something with a totality and limits, while ‘saying’ refers to openness, to ‘the living world’, to a gesture towards another human being (see Höckert, 2018). Instead of seeing these two as opposites or alternatives to each other, ‘saying’ expands the potentially reductive and oppressive boundaries of ‘said’. The ‘double session of representation’ discussed by Spivak could thus be dismantled using a missing (third) sense, Levinas’s ethical saying. Levinas’s ideas suggest that the ‘solution’ to the situation where ‘the subaltern cannot speak’ could be found in ethical saying, which opens up new spaces to speak among Earthly creatures. In this spirit, scientific fabulation could also follow the thought of ethical saying. Such phenomenological storytelling does not end but leaves the doors and windows open to the unexpected: it is storytelling that encourages new forms of storytelling and storylistening. It is a form of storytelling that does not solve problems by providing moral codes but gives us the strength to persevere with difficult problems, together with others (see Haraway, 2016b). Furthermore, storytelling told in the Levinasian spirit means storytelling that helps to direct our attention to the relations between ourselves. In more concrete terms, this means slowing down, hesitating and focusing on what is happening in different encounters and in the entanglements in a more-than-human world. When moving towards the idea of scientific fabulation, it becomes timely to move beyond stories of animals given human characters, and towards constructing and sharing fables that reflect relationships between Earthly creatures.

SPECULATIVE STORYLINES Those who have analysed Aristotle’s somewhat cryptic writings of drama suggest that he conceived action and plot as more important than the characters. This is also what my daughter’s teacher had emphasised in their classroom. Aristotle’s plotline, similarly to popular folktales and epic Disney films, hold us in suspense when we witness undeserved suffering. Just re-visit

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your experiences from watching The Lion King. In most cases, stories end with a relief and a moving feeling of happiness (Hiltunen, 2002, p. xiii); however, in the midst of the accelerating environmental catastrophe, it is unclear whether we should write and share stories with such catharsis and clear endings. In other words, while we are suffering from the trauma and depression caused by this environmental car-crash, we might need to give up the desire to script actions and to write solid plotlines with a beginning and an end. This requires accepting that the causes of suffering cannot be simply defeated, but that the plotline continues with difficult problems that need to be tackled continuously. Morton (2018) suggests that we must start doing something and trust that we will be able to work this out along the way. We must improvise and envision stories as we go. So where to begin after finding out that perhaps we are not cast as the nice pigs, but as the wolves who blow homes down and mess things up? That it has been us, the part of humanity who today lives in material abundance, who have irreversibly disrupted the peaceful coexistence. Is it timely to write a new story that begins from the moment where the wolf wakes up realising that he was the moron, prompting a personal, nearly paralysing crisis? What would it mean to begin the storytelling from the wolf’s traumatic experience and then follow his intentions to return to peaceful coexistence? To peaceful ways of being with others, where nobody needs to fear that their home will be suddenly blown down. In the middle of this melancholic traumatic moment, however, it is important to tell stories that do not merely focus on feeling pity for the wolf, forgetting the pigs. In a story like this, it must be remembered that both the wolf and the pigs experience the ideal world as somewhere very far away. Guided by Morton’s (2010) and Zylinska’s (2014) writings, I have become interested in the role of melancholy in storytelling. John Drabinski (2011, p. 146) suggests, referring to Fanon’s thought in The wretched of the Earth, that storytelling about pain, trauma and beginning is one way to begin after colonialism. In an anthropocentric context, this thought can be equally applied to new beginnings after the colonialism of the more-than-human world. While historical experience of catastrophe haunts ‘the problem of beginning in the postcolonial moment’, as Edouard Glissant (1997) puts it, the question is how the pain of history can be turned into something productive (see also Drabinski, 2011, p. 146; Valtonen & Kinnunen, 2017, p. 8). According to these postcolonial scholars, it seems that we must begin from the beginning. Glissant suggests that although the beginning is found at the bottom of deep oceans, in the abyss, it must also be something fruitful, productive and intellectually creative. Drabinski (2011, p. 146) agrees that in order to release the future from worsening despair, we must begin with an honest acknowledgement of pain, sadness and melancholia.

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William Greenway’s (2016) book on meanings and shifts in scientific fables, called Agape ethics: Moral realism and love for all life, clearly describes the vitality of the moment of beginning after colonising the more-than-human world. He weaves the storyline of the book around an encounter with a cricket at an airport. The cricket had tried to escape the human-dominated airport and aircraft by jumping from the small opening by the aeroplane door to the runway. When the cricket saw his chance to escape, one of the passengers yelled ‘Get it!’ She stretched her body to stamp down her foot and crushed the cricket. The situation continued with confused people looking at the woman. The woman with the fast reflex seemed to be also unsure why she had felt the urge and duty to kill the cricket. Greenway (2016) uses the example of reflexively killing a cricket as an example of ‘remaining closed off from love for all the creatures’. His book shows how this encounter can be weaved into a longer story about humans’ alienation from the moral reality and the meaningfulness of life (Greenway, 2016, p. 4). Greenway (2016) writes, ‘Love is the sense of altruism and agape, lies at the heart of moral reality, and agape opens us to the most profound and meaningful dimensions of reality’ (p. 5). He calls for a reawakening to agape and a reawakening to having been seized by love for every creature, for every cricket and human. It seems as if Haraway’s (2016b) idea of remaining with the trouble also allows us to feel melancholy and to take the current crisis very seriously. Simultaneously Haraway warns us of the risks of reading, studying, agitating and caring so much that everything becomes too heavy (Haraway, 2016, p. 4), so heavy that we might never leave the abyss. For instance, while my wish and aim is to prepare my child for the ‘wild world’ out there (see Caton & Grimwood, 2018), I do not read bedtime stories without fecundity – without any possibility of lifting us from the abyss. Nor should we do this with our students. It means that we need to acknowledge the catastrophe and the trauma, but to make sure that we do not stay stuck in the depth of the ocean or fall into the trap of offering simple solutions. In Fabrizio Terranova’s film Story telling for Earthly survival, Haraway (2016a) pleads that ‘We need other kinds of stories’. She calls for ‘storying otherwise’ that sounds and feels different. Haraway (2016b) emphasises that we need to write stories and ‘live lives for flourishing and for abundance’ (p. 136). (It does not feel like the story of the three pigs and the wolf would help us in this.) She encourages us to test writing different versions of stories, acknowledging that they might all make terrible mistakes. Simultaneously, the stories should also be seen as invitations to participate not only in conscious reading and critical reflection, but also in further writing and storytelling (Haraway, 2016b, p. 136; see also Salmela, 2018).

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CO-TELLING NEW STORIES I am now heading towards the end of the story of a researcher who wishes to engage in storytelling and storylistening in the more-than-human world. We are also in the final part of the tale of a parent who wanted to develop her skills in improvising great good-night stories. These parallel stories have sought answers to the question of the kind of storytelling that might be needed to decolonise relations among Earthly creatures, and reimagining a more caring and peaceful coexistence in the Anthropocene. Instead of trying to memorise the pigs and the wolf story, I have become encouraged by crazy storylines that no one can guess beforehand: storytelling that leaves the doors and windows open to surprises. Telling, reading and listening to scientific fables can help us address the collective shock caused by environmental change, and to move on by living the ethical and ecological knowledge that we already have in us (see Morton, 2018). Hence, we need new, welcoming spaces for telling and listening to scientific fables to envision peaceful coexistence among Earthly creatures. It seems that in order to reimagine a peaceful coexistence in the Anthropocene, we need these kinds of narratives, with melancholic vibes. These kinds of scientific fables can open up new, welcoming spaces between ourselves, and in this way help us to gather around multiple matters of care. This might be something that we have not known we cared about, but a well told story awakens the listeners’ feelings of empathy and care. In line with Zylinska’s (2014) idea of minimal ethics, we become conscious, and care for things at different scales. Indeed, reimagining ethics for the Anthropocene requires addressing the question of scale, that is, how far we could and should zoom in and zoom out when cultivating ethical imagination with multiple others (Jóhannesson, 2018). While some claim that caring for the Earth requires ‘thinking big’ (Morton, 2018; Gren & Huijbens, 2014), others argue that the stories of life and death need to be re-thought and re-told equally in micro-scales (Valtonen et al., 2020; Valtonen et al., 2019; Zylinska, 2014, p. 11; see also Valtonen et al. in this edition). A great example of the latter is Joanna Zylinska’s guidebook to Minimal ethics (2014), which helps us to search for a good life in times when the very notion of life is under threat. Expanding Levinas’s thought on ethical subjectivity, Zylinska develops an idea of ‘bioethics’, the ‘ethics of life’, which refers to a primordial responsibility towards more-than-human and human others. I therefore have a feeling that Levinas and Zylinska together can be of great help when composing more inclusive, welcoming and caring gatherings with non-human others (see also Grimwood, 2015, pp. 17–20; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017; van der Duim et al., 2017).

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I have sketched here ideas around storytelling that are, in Latour’s words, additive; storytelling that builds on previous research, offers new perspectives and awakens curiosity and care towards the matter of concern (see Latour, 2004; Luna, 2013; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017). The research process has been driven by curiosity about the potential of developing my storytelling and storylistening skills and discussing the importance of storytelling in the Anthropocene – an era that is mainly communicated through facts and figures. However, the purpose of my chapter has not been to create a new ‘formula’ or guidelines for writing fables, but to discuss and problematise the prevailing ways of telling tales, including those with clear characters of good and evil, the classical stories that teach a moral lesson at the end, and stories with the pattern of beginning, problem occurs, problem is solved. Why might this way of telling stories not work in the Anthropocene? First of all, re-creating dualistic characters of good and evil, or self and other, is not a good basis for cooperation and mutual care. Instead of eliminating strangeness, it is important to strive to include multiple voices in the more-than-human world. Second, it does not seem fruitful to tell stories about how all this will end. As an alternative, it is essential to complicate, tease out nuances, speculate and hesitate, escaping closed ends (see also Rhodes, as cited in Valtonen & Kinnunen, 2017, p. 8). Instead of solving problems by providing moral codes, scientific fabulation can give us strength to persevere with difficult problems together with others. I have connected scientific fabulation to the idea of ecological and minimal ethics that calls for openness, wonder and care towards radical otherness that creates new openings where hope, inspiration and new nuances can pour in. Third, I believe that we must question the idea of classical stories that provide a moral lesson at the end, because nobody really knows how to tidy up all this ecological mess. While the tactic of making people feel guilt has turned out to be somewhat counter-productive, it could be better to focus on enhancing feelings of care, and thinking with care. Importantly, scientific fabulation is not only a way of telling stories, but an approach that shapes and pierces all the ‘ologies’, that is, ontologies, epistemologies, methodologies and axiologies. It is a phenomenological style that can build on the ancient traditions of fable-reading and fable-listening, storytelling and storylistening. Instead of teaching moral lessons, scientific fables include the idea of ‘ecological ethics’, which questions the anthropocentric tendency to delete strangeness and otherness. Instead, scientific fables with ecological ethics call for openness and wonder towards the other and otherness, towards radical change. I am now standing on the veranda, my backpack filled with Morton’s, Despret’s and Haraway’s texts, with books of indigenous storytelling, and a big thermos of coffee. Haraway (2016b, pp. 136, 143; see also Karasti et al., 2002) encourages composing collaborative and divergent stories in actual

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story writing – stories that can also be audio and visual performances, digital or sculptural. I am, luckily, not on my own, but I will have a chance to test this kind of storytelling with our research group ‘Intraliving in the Anthropocene’ (ILA). Our first co-written fable Visiting had its premiere in a science slam in November 2018 (see Rantala et al., 2019). This story, which is told with the voices of forest inhabitants who host guests in a Finnish national park, has already raised lots of positive reactions. Indeed, as we are all very excited about the epistemic and methodological possibilities of sharing stories, there will be many new exciting stories to come.

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Kline, C., & Rusher, R. C. (2018). Between awareness and activism: Navigating the ethical terrain of eating animals. In B. S. R. Grimwood, K. Caton & L. Cooke (Eds), New moral natures in tourism (pp. 99–115). Routledge. Latour, B. (2004). Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters of concern. Critical Inquiry, 30(2), 225–248. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1086/​421123. Latour, B. (2016). Foreword: The scientific fables of and empirical la Fontaine. In V. Despret, What would the animals say if we asked the right questions? (pp. vii–xiv). University of Minnesota Press. Levinas, E. (1969). Totality and infinity: An essay of exteriority. Duquesne University Press. Levinas, E. (1998). Otherwise than being, or beyond essence (A. Lingis, Trans.). Duquesne University Press. Luna, R. E. (2013). The art of scientific storytelling: Transform your research manuscript using a step-by-step formula. Amado International. Morton, T. (2010). The ecological thought. Harvard University Press. Morton, T. (2018). Being ecological. Penguin Random House. Mostafanezhad, M., & Norum, R. (2019). The anthropocenic imaginary: Political ecologies of tourism in a geological epoch. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 27(4), 421–435. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​09669582​.2018​.1544252. Paddison, B., Höckert, E., & Crossley, E. (2019). Building our stories: Co-creating tourism futures in research, education and practice. Journal of Teaching in Travel and Tourism, 19(1), 1–7. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​15313220​.2018​.1560527. Patterson, A. (1991). Fables of power: Aesopian writing and political history. Duke University Press. Puig de la Bellacasa, M. (2017). Matters of care: Speculative ethics in more than human worlds. University of Minnesota Press. Pyyhtinen, O. (2016). More-than-human sociology: A new sociological imagination. Palgrave Macmillan. Rantala, O., Valtonen, A., Salmela, T., & Höckert, E. (2019, January 17). Visiting [Paper presentation]. The SUCH meeting, Helsinki, Finland. Salmela, T. (2018). The (dis)organized sleeping body: Transgressing boundaries. Acta Universitatis Lapponiensis 369. Lapland University Press. Serani, D. (2014, January 4). Why your story matters? The healing power of personal narrative. Psychology Today. https://​www​.psychologytoday​.com/​intl/​blog/​two​ -takes​-depression/​201401/​why​-your​-story​-matters. Sium, A., & Ritskes, E. (2013). Speaking truth to power: Indigenous storytelling as an act of living resistance. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education and Society, 2(1), i–x. Spivak, G. C. (1988). Can the subaltern speak? In C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (Eds), Marxism and interpretation of culture (pp. 271–313). University of Illinois Press. Steffen, W., Broadgate, W., Deutsch, L., Gaffney, O., & Ludwig, C. (2015). The trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration. The Anthropocene Review, 2(1), 81–98. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​2053019614564785. Stevens, Z. M., Grimwood, B. S. R., & Caton, K. (2018). Story and moral development in tourism education. Journal of Teaching in Travel and Tourism, 19(1), 22–38. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​15313220​.2018​.1560529. Trexler, A. (2015). Anthropocene fiction: The novel in a time of climate change. University of Virginia Press. Tsing, A., Swanson, H. A., Gan, E., & Bubandt, N. (Eds). (2017). Arts of living on a damaged planet. University of Minnesota Press.

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Tuhiwai-Smith, L. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. Zed Books. Valtonen, A., & Kinnunen, V. (2017). Living ethics in a more-than-human world. University of Lapland. Valtonen, A., Salmela, T., Höckert, E., & Rantala, O. (2019). Envisioning proximity tourism through new materialism. EGOS (European Group for Organizational Studies) 2019 short paper proposal. Valtonen, A., Salmela, T., & Rantala, O. (2020). Living with mosquitoes. Annals of Tourism Research, 83. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1016/​j​.annals​.2020​.102945. van der Duim, R., Ren, C., & Jóhannesson, G. T. (2017). ANT: A decade of interfering with tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 64(May), 139–149. https://​doi​.org/​10​ .1016/​j​.annals​.2017​.03​.006. van Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience: Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy. State University of New York Press. Veijola, S., Germann Molz, J., Pyyhtinen, O., Höckert, E., & Grit, A. (2014). Disruptive tourism and its untidy guests: Alternative ontologies for future hospitalities. Palgrave Macmillan. Wilson Schaef, A. (1995). Native wisdom for white minds. One World. Zafiropoulos, C. A. (2001). Ethics in Aesop’s fables: The Augustana collection. Brill. Zylinska, J. (2014). Minimal ethics for the Anthropocene. Open Humanities Press.

PART II

Stories from marginalized communities

5. Rethinking knowledge, power, agency: learning from displaced and slum communities in Bangladesh Afroja Khanam and Tiina Seppälä INTRODUCTION Due to the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ that started in 2015, forced migration has become an object of wide attention and public debate across Europe. The large number of refugees arriving in Europe has been characterised as a serious ‘crisis’ with frequent references to the exceptionality of the situation, framing it as a ‘state of emergency’ that requires extraordinary measures (e.g. Crawley et al., 2017; Krzyżanowski et al., 2018; Nykänen et al., 2018; Triandafyllidou, 2017). What this Euro-centric crisis rhetoric and media discourse has made evident is the striking obliviousness to forced migration taking place outside the borders of Europe every day. The number of uprooted people continuously increases around the world due to ongoing conflicts and human rights violations, and results in massive internal displacement and South-to-South migration (IPU, 2013). However, as a phenomenon it does not make similar news headlines as does the arrival of a small fraction of the millions of the world’s refugees in Europe. Forced migration and displacement are serious problems in the Global South where the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has increased dramatically during the past two decades. Globally, the total number of people who had been displaced by the year 2011 was over 240 million, including both people displaced due to conflicts and natural disasters and those displaced due to development-related causes such as land grabbing and large-scale industrial projects related to, for example, mining of coal and minerals, building of dams and steel plants, as well as construction of commercial complexes, new housing areas, traffic systems and roads (Basu, 2011; Cernea, 1986, 1988, 1991; IPU, 2013; UNHCR, 2010). In 2016, there were over 40.3 million IDPs (IOM, 2017; UNHCR, 2018). Moreover, millions of people every year

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are forced to migrate from rural areas to urban slums due to factors such as poverty, loss of cultivable land and livelihoods. As pointed out by the International Organization for Migration (IOM, 2010), there are always multiple causes of migration and displacement at play simultaneously. Besides the factors mentioned above, climate change has become an increasingly common cause of forced migration and displacement. Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to the impacts of climate change (Asaduzzaman, 2016; IPCC, 2012; World Bank, 2013). It frequently experiences extreme climatic events such as flood, cyclone, storm surges, drought, river erosion, salinity and waterlogging, which have significant impacts on people, particularly the poor (Alam, 2017; Choudhury et al., 2005; IPCC, 2007; Jordan, 2015; Pouliotte et al., 2009). According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2012), Bangladesh is among the countries estimated to lose the largest amount of cultivated land due to climate change. If the global sea level rises by one metre, the country will lose 17 per cent of its land and over 30 million people will become displaced. The effects would be serious, especially in the coastal areas. Not only climate change as such, but also various environmental problems and natural disasters strengthened by climate change are forcing people to migrate. Recent studies demonstrate that in tropical and subtropical regions millions of people are displaced due to climate-change-related triggers and causes, including floods, sea-level rise, storm surges, riverbank erosion, high temperatures, extreme drought, lack of drinkable water, waterlogging, increasing salinity of land and changes in cultivation patterns (Alam, 2017; Choudhury et al., 2005; IPCC, 2007; Jordan, 2015; Pouliotte et al., 2009). Although most of these people do not cross any state borders, and are thus IDPs, often they are referred to as ‘climate refugees’ (Gemenne, 2011; Myers, 2002; Walsham, 2010).1 Their situation is, however, very different in comparison to refugees, and requires specific responses at national and international levels due to existing gaps between various definitions (e.g. Khanam, 2018). While the concept of ‘climate refugees’ has been used in the public discourse since the mid-1980s, it has been a difficult task to define the term. It is common that ‘climate refugees’ are equated with ‘environmental refugees’ despite their differences (Apap, 2019). For example, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) expert Essam El-Hinnawi (1985) has defined environmental refugees as ‘people who have been forced to leave their traditional habitat, temporarily or permanently, because of marked environmental disruption (natural and/or triggered by people) that jeopardized their existence and/or seriously affected the quality of their life’. On the contrary, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has avoided using the term ‘refugee’ or used it very cautiously, and instead often refers to ‘environmentally displaced persons’. The United Nations University’s Institute for

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Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) uses the term ‘forced environmental migrant’ (Boano et al., 2008). In other words, there are clear boundaries between the concepts of ‘refugees’ and ‘climate refugees’, and they exclude a number of categories such as IDPs and DPs, which makes it difficult for ‘climate refugees’ to get international protection. Generally, the responsibility to protect IDPs,2 whether displaced by climate change, war and conflicts, development projects or any other factors, resides primarily with the national governments. According to the United Nations Guiding Principles on internal displacement (UN, 2004), states have a duty to avoid displacing people unless it is ‘absolutely necessary’. There is a special reference to protecting against the displacement of ‘groups with a special dependency on their lands’. In cases where displacement is unavoidable, certain guarantees should be established for displacement to be lawful (UNHCR, 2010, p. 9). The UN Guiding Principles were formed to set out the rights of IDPs as well as the state’s and other authorities’ responsibilities towards them. The principles cover protection from unlawful (arbitrary) displacement, they define the nature of protection and assistance in different phases of internal displacement – pre-displacement, during displacement and post-displacement – and they cover issues related to durable solutions. These include return to the place of origin, local integration at the place of displacement, voluntary and safe resettlement in another part of the country, as well as reintegration. IDPs should not be discriminated against – in fact, they should enjoy the same rights and freedoms as any other persons living in the country. Certain IDPs, such as unaccompanied minors, expectant mothers, mothers with young children, persons with disabilities and older persons, might also require specific attention. Importantly, the UN’s Guiding Principles are not limited only to survival and physical security. They cover a full range of rights, including civil and political rights, such as the right to freedom of movement and the right to political participation, as well as economic, social and cultural rights, such as the right to education and health (UNHCR, 2010, p. 7).3 Although not binding as such, the UN Guiding Principles on internal displacement are consistent with international human rights law, international humanitarian law and international refugee law. In this way, they are based on existing standards of international law, which are binding. In cases where a national government fails or is unwilling to provide assistance to IDPs, international organisations have the right to offer their services and to enjoy rapid, unimpeded access to IDPs (UNHCR, 2010, p. 1). This often causes tensions because national responsibility is a fundamental operating principle of the international community and, as noted by the UNHCR (2010, p. 1), governments themselves emphasise it as a function of their sovereignty. Sometimes, the very governments responsible for protecting and assisting their internally displaced populations are unable or unwilling to do so – and, in some cases,

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they may be directly involved in forcibly uprooting civilians. Even then, the role of international actors is to reinforce, not replace, national responsibility (UNHCR, 2010). According to the UNHCR (2010), national responsibility in situations of internal displacement entails the following: preventing displacement and minimising its adverse effects; raising national awareness about the problems; collecting data on the number and condition of IDPs; supporting training on the rights of IDPs; creating a legal framework upholding their rights; developing a national policy on internal displacement; designating an institutional focal point on IDPs; encouraging national human rights institutions to address internal displacement; ensuring that IDPs participate in decision making; supporting durable solutions; allocating adequate resources to address internal displacement when national capacity is insufficient; and cooperating with the international community. Unfortunately, the reality is that not many states in the Global South follow the UN Guiding Principles.4 For example, when people are evicted or displaced, only rarely are they offered any compensation or resettlement, or resettled in an satisfactory way (Basu, 2011; IPU, 2013). In South Asia, this especially concerns people who are displaced in rural areas, most of whom are forced to move to metropolitan cities (Ullah, 2004) where they usually end up living in either legal or illegal slums (Dhungana, 2007, p. 17; Mohanty, 2010, p. 245). Consequently, many South Asian countries have witnessed a rapid growth in the number of slums. In Bangladesh, millions of people from other parts of the country have moved to the capital city Dhaka. As there are over 500 slums in Dhaka (Kamruzzaman & Hakim, 2016), it is often referred to as a ‘city of slums’. Between 1996 and 2005, the number of slum-dwellers more than doubled from 1.5 to 3.4 million (Islam et al., 2006). Currently, over 18 million people live in Dhaka (World Population Review, 2019), more than half of them in slums (Al-Mahmood, 2012).5 It is important to note that even in cases where climate change and environmental problems are predominant drivers of migration and displacement, they are at the same time influenced by many social, economic, political and other factors (IOM, 2010). According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR, 1997), forced migration also escalates ‘inequality, social conflict, segregation and ghettoization’ and causes serious harm to the poorest of the poor. This is evident especially in slums, which are becoming increasingly more populated and crowded. While the interplay between different causes of forced migration and displacement is receiving more attention in academic research, often studies in countries such as Bangladesh primarily concentrate on IDPs and migrants from the perspective of governance of population instead of paying attention to the inhuman treatment of displaced people and their miserable living conditions in slums.6 Whether taking place in rural areas or urban slums, forced displacement and

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inhuman treatment of evicted people can be considered an extreme example of social injustice and inequality, and a categorical denial of basic human rights (see e.g. Islam & wa Mungai, 2016). Yet, it is important to note that displaced people are not only helpless victims: their power and ability to handle and ‘transform difficult situations into new social conditions’ must also be recognised (Canuday, 2009, p. 264). Indeed, this is why the aim of our chapter is not only to analyse the injustices, problems and challenges faced by displaced people and slum communities, but also to describe their collective efforts to manage their lives in difficult circumstances, for example through various forms of community building and active self-help groups. Our approach is based on the assumption that these efforts and actions carry with them the potential for ‘small transformations’, and our explicit aim is to visibilise the agency and centralise the knowledge of displaced and slum communities. In this sense, we are building on a perspective similar to one used by Cummings et al. (2019) in their recent study concerning the importance of local knowledge in development. They strongly criticise the Human Development Index (HDI) by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that ‘monitors long-term, national progress in human development against three fundamental dimensions: long and healthy life, access to knowledge, and standard of living’ (Gaye, 2011), as knowledge in the HDI is ‘measured in terms of formal education and does not pay explicit attention to societies’ own capacities to create and exchange knowledge’. According to their critique, the ‘emphasis on external, exogenous knowledge in development processes’ is shared by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, which ‘give primacy to scientific and technological knowledge, largely ignoring traditional knowledge’ while the importance of ‘local knowledge, and its role in development, is not mentioned or clarified’ (Cummings et al., 2019). These are exactly the reasons why we have chosen to draw on a theoretical-methodological approach that derives perspectives and conceptual and analytical tools from feminist and postcolonial theory as well as social movement and critical development studies in the conviction that researchers must carefully listen to the voices of the excluded and marginalised and, instead of theorising them from a distance, try to co-create knowledge and build theory together – in dialogue – with them (Denzin & Giardina, 2007; Lincoln & Cannella, 2009; Motta, 2011, pp. 194–196; Motta et al., 2011, p. 16; Motta & Seppälä, 2016; Nagar, 2014; Seppälä, 2016, 2017). In this chapter, we take small and still quite preliminary steps towards a particular kind of understanding of the relationship between theoretical and empirical knowledge as defined by Sara Motta in her seminal article on prefigurative epistemologies. She argues that developing theories that are relevant for marginalised groups demands epistemological and conceptual rethinking to subvert academic subjectivity and privilege and to transcend the binary

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between theoretical and practical knowledge (Motta, 2011, p. 192). In particular, the presumption that the researcher has ‘the epistemic privilege’ in producing theoretical knowledge must be challenged as it fails to recognise that also research participants can create theoretical knowledge (Motta & Nilsen, 2011, pp. 21–22). Instead, in studies based on prefigurative epistemologies, theory is not produced individually but collectively ‘via reflection, within political struggle, based upon the lived experiences and struggles of excluded and marginalized communities’, and consequently, research done ‘in solidarity with such struggles for social justice’ builds on horizontal relationships of mutual learning ‘in which abstraction is based upon closeness as opposed to distance from lived experience and in which epistemology becomes a prefigurative practice of everyday life’ (Motta, 2011, pp. 194–196). To contribute to the struggles of the communities they study, scholars should create collaborative research agendas and mutually generative processes of knowledge production, building on questions and knowledge-practices that communities themselves consider important (Casas-Cortés et al., 2008; Motta, 2013; Nagar, 2014). In this regard, we draw also on the idea that in breaking down conceptual and theoretical categories of knowledge and ‘speaking from the epistemological margins’ (Motta, 2013, p. 37; see also Anzaldúa & Keating, 2002; Smith, 1999), it is especially important to centralise the experiences of poor and underprivileged women whose histories have been considered ‘marginal, or inessential to the acquisition of knowledge’ (Mohanty, 2003, pp. 231–236; see also Collins, 2000; Motta & Seppälä, 2016). Importantly, this must be done in a way that does not disregard contextual differences, produce women as ‘a singular, monolithic subject’ or overlook their agency and knowledge (Mohanty, 2003, p. 17; Motta, 2013, p. 48; see also Medina, 2013; Spivak, 1988). We also acknowledge that as researchers it is necessary to self-critically reflect on our subject positions and privileges and remain alert to the risk of producing ‘an idealized version’ of collaborative research as any research is ‘inevitably troubled by unequal power relations’ (Sudbury & Okazawa-Ray, 2009, p. 3; see also Seppälä, 2016). Our analysis is based on research data collected during two months of fieldwork in Dhaka in November and December 2015. For our data collection, we utilised various forms of qualitative research methods, including informal and formal, unstructured and semi-structured interviews, group discussions and participatory observation with members of self-help groups and community-based organisations formed by displaced and slum communities in two of the biggest slums in Dhaka, the Korail slum and the Beri Badh slum. We found these methods well-suited for our approach in seeking to produce the kind of knowledge that is based on their lived experiences and reflects closely their perspectives and interests. While our mixed-method approach was not very systematic, it enabled great flexibility when we confronted unforeseen

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circumstances and some rapid changes in the research context, and we were able to adapt our research methodologies and tools accordingly. In addition to the displaced and slum communities, we interviewed representatives, staff members and practitioners of several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working on slum issues, forced displacement and migration, such as Coalition for the Urban Poor (CUP), Assistance for Slum Dwellers (ASD), Bangladesh Association of Women for Self-Empowerment (BAWSE) and Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF). Moreover, we interviewed experts, researchers, academicians and academician activists working on issues related to slums, forced displacement and migration at the University of Dhaka, the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) and Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB). As a method for analysing the research material, we used qualitative content analysis. In practical terms, our analysis proceeded through three phases. First, we went systemically through the whole material, that is, our fieldwork notes and transcribed and other textual material, and divided it into different categories on the basis of the main themes of its content, which can also be referred to as the main ‘units of analysis’; second, we categorised the material into more detailed groups on the basis of its relevance to our research aims; and third, we went through the whole material using specific analytical lenses. In this chapter, we present only some of the results of our analysis, focusing on issues that are relevant from the perspective of the main themes of this book. We have divided the rest of the chapter into four sections. We start with a short introduction to internal displacement and slums in Bangladesh, also briefly describing how we conducted our fieldwork and what kinds of challenges and tensions it entailed. After this, we present and discuss three main themes that arose from our research material: struggles related to everyday life in the slums; struggles related to the constant threat of eviction; and struggles related to politics and power. Then, we move on by discussing ways in which the communities have fought against their marginalisation and for their rights, showing how taking into account their perspectives, agency and knowledge can contribute to ‘small transformations’ that can work to challenge unjust practices and unequal power structures. We conclude by discussing the relevance of our findings from a broader theoretical perspective and presenting some preliminary insights for future research.

INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT AND SLUMS IN BANGLADESH: AN OVERVIEW As discussed in detail above, the causes of internal displacement in Bangladesh are multiple and varied. Regardless of the factors behind their displacement, the living conditions of people who are forced to move to and live in slums are

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usually very poor. In slums, people confront serious problems such as lack of food, water, shelter, sanitation, healthcare and education, as well as unemployment and police repression (Dhungana, 2007, p. 16; Jha, 2011, p. 4). Displaced women are at risk of being exploited and trafficked, and they often face gender-based violence, sexual abuse and increased domestic abuse (Dhungana, 2007, p. 28; McLean, 2011, p. 1; see also Basu, 2011, p. 17; Ghimire, 2011, p. 30; Jha, 2011, p. 4). The effects of displacement are far greater than just material impacts – displacement always represents ‘a wider loss of cultural autonomy, knowledge and power’ (Baviskar, 2004, p. 36; see also Appadurai, 2001; Chatterjee, 2004). Losing one’s livelihood and being forced to migrate is ‘intricately connected with the disruption of sociocultural contexts and communitarian relationships’ (Mohanty, 2010, p. 245; see also Dhungana, 2007, p. 7). Displaced people may experience a loss of sense of belonging (Jha, 2011, p. 5), feel helpless and become depressed (Dhungana, 2007, p. 16). While losing many of their social relationships and networks, IDPs may face resentment from their host communities. Due to scarce resources, displaced people may also have to compete with each other, which can cause conflicts among them. Besides material and social exclusion, displacement indicates exclusion from political decision-making (Mohanty, 2010). Often, displaced people become invisible in the society (Crépeau & Samaddar, 2011, p. 58), but at the same time may also suffer from stigmatisation and various forms of marginalisation, discrimination and harassment (UNHCR, 2010). Many IDPs living in slums are under the constant threat of being displaced again as slums are often demolished due to the continuously rising value of land in metropolitan cities; that is, after being displaced, people in slums may encounter the state again ‘in the form of eviction notices or in the form of bulldozer[s]’ (Jha, 2011, pp. 1, 3). Paradoxically, even in these kinds of cases state authorities often claim that evicting people from slums is ‘good’ for them (Chatterjee, 2004, pp. 34, 59; Jha, 2011, pp. 4–5). In some South Asian countries, groups and communities who struggle against forced displacement are facing increasingly aggressive mechanisms of state control and violence – many are raped, kidnapped, abused and tortured (Baviskar, 2004; Mohanty, 2010, pp. 242–243, 251; Roy, 2009; Roy, 2012, p. 41). For example, in India many social movement activists have been killed when trying ‘to protect forest land from dams, mining operations, steel plants’ (Roy, 2009, p. 36). This demonstrates not only the dark side of development but, as Mohanty (2010) puts it, ‘also the lengths to which the state can go to pursue it, even if it means curtailing the most fundamental of people’s rights, the right to life’ (p. 242). According to the Poverty Monitoring Survey, over 25 per cent of Bangladesh’s total population of 166 million people live in urban areas. Since the liberation war in the 1970s, a rapid influx of people into urban areas has taken place. Between 1970 and 2011, Dhaka’s population grew from 1.4

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million to 15.4 million, and has continuously increased. Currently, Dhaka is home to over 18 million people (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, 2004; UN, 2012; World Population Review, 2019). Most poor people who migrate to the capital city, either voluntarily or involuntarily, find shelter in slums. All major cities in Bangladesh, including Dhaka, Khulna, Rajshahi, Sylhet and Chittagong, have hundreds of slums. Out of these cities, Dhaka has the highest number of slums – living in the city is very lucrative due to a wide variety of social, educational, political and economic opportunities. Over the five past decades, the city has grown substantially due to internal migration. Although there were slums in Dhaka already before the liberation war, urban migration has significantly increased both their size and number in the post-war period. One of the oldest and biggest slums in Dhaka is the Korail slum. Officially, it has over 175,000 inhabitants (Gruebner et al., 2014; Moving backwards…, 2012), but according to some unofficial estimates, it might have as many as 300,000 residents. Originally established in the 1960s during the Pakistani Governance, the Korail slum has a rich and violent history – in the course of the years, parts of it have been evicted several times, and at times there has also been violent confrontations between the residents and government authorities (Moving backwards…, 2012; see also Mridha et al., 2009; Sinthia, 2013). The main reason for the government repeatedly seeking to evict parts of the Korail slum lies in the fact that is it very centrally located at the heart of the city where the price of land has continuously increased during the past decades. In 2015, the Bangladesh government announced its plans to construct a so-called ‘IT city’ in the area, which means that some parts of the Korail slum would be demolished and its residents evicted. In an effort to resist the government’s plans, the residents have organised several protests and rallies, as well as filed court cases against the government to defend their right to reside in the area. As such, these efforts are not extraordinary: over the years, the residents of Korail have regularly resisted various evictions plans, and they have also been very active in forming self-help groups and community-based organisations to improve their living conditions in the slum. There is also a remarkably strong presence of national as well as international NGOs in the Korail slum. The Korail slum is the most central slum, being located at the heart of the city, within ward numbers 19 and 20 of the Dhaka City Corporation. It can be accessed from several roads and via the nearby Gulshan-Banani Lake. There are several units in the slum. The two main ones are Jamai Bazar and Bou Bazar. The adjacent Beltoli Bosti, T&T Bosti, Baidar Bosti, Ershadnagar and Godown Bosti are also part of the greater Korail. During our fieldwork period, we visited Bou Bazar, and interviewed and talked with the residents of the area. Moreover, we gained an opportunity to meet some members of their own community-based organisation, and were happy to accept an invitation to attend one of their internal meetings.

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We also conducted fieldwork in the Beri Badh slum. It was established in the 1980s, much later than Korail (Pryer et al., 2002). Originally, the Beri Badh slum was created on a dam, which was built to protect the city from the constant flooding of the Buriganga river. The slum currently has a population of approximately 10,000 residents. Many of them are originally from the Bhola district, in the southern part of Bangladesh, from where they have migrated to Dhaka mainly due to river erosion, which left them without cultivable land in their home villages. Our fieldwork in the Beri Badh slum included the areas of Boat Ghat Bosti and Forhad Mia Bosti. This slum’s structure is very different to that of Korail – it is much more fragmented, which is due to several evictions that have taken place. The Beri Badh slum is also internally diverse in terms of its structure, housing and sanitary conditions. In some parts of the slum that we visited, people inhabit the same, highly crowded areas with domestic animals such as cows, goats, chickens and ducks. This was the case, for example, in Boat Ghat Bosti, where parts of the slum were also highly contaminated due to an open toilet, which was the only toilet for hundreds of people. While for us it was a struggle to stay there even for the time of the interviews due to a very strong odour, for the slum residents it is their home, an environment where they are living, cooking, eating, laughing, crying, working and sleeping every day.

EVERYDAY STRUGGLES OF IDPS AND SLUM-DWELLERS IN DHAKA In the qualitative content analysis of our research material, the following arose as the three main themes: struggles related to everyday life in the slums; struggles related to being under the constant threat of eviction; and struggles related to politics and power. Below, we discuss each of these themes separately in different sections, although they are partly overlapping. Struggles Related to Everyday Life in the Slums The main problems in the Dhaka slums where we visited are quite typical to slums anywhere in the world; they are related to a lack or limited access to water, electricity, healthcare, sanitation and education. Slum-dwellers need electricity and water just like any other people – for drinking, cooking, washing, hygiene and sanitation, doing dishes, doing laundry, cleaning, and so on. The Bangladesh government has promised to provide water for all the residents of Dhaka within 50 feet of where they live, but as the city is continuously expanding, this promise has become increasingly difficult to keep. In many slums, access to water is either very limited or non-existent, and illegal water systems are very common. (Beri Badh slum residents, interviews, November

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18 and December 2, 2015; NGO representative, interview, December 2, 2015). According to the Coalition for the Urban Poor (CUP), an umbrella organisation of more than 64 NGOs that has provided legal support for slum-dwellers since the 1990s, approximately 50 per cent of existing water pipes in Dhaka slums are illegal (NGO representative, interview, December 2, 2015). This does not mean, however, that slum-dwellers would get their water for free. Often, tube-wells that are constructed with the help of NGOs and originally intended for public use are taken over by external groups or people who start to sell water for a certain price, a common problem that the NGOs cannot unfortunately do much about. The average price for water is around 150–200 takas (Bangladeshi currency) per month (Beri Badh slum residents, interviews, November 18 and December 2, 2015). In the Beri Badh slum, the inhabitants share the costs of at least one collective water pump. Sometimes people from a nearby slum which does not have any water facilities come and buy water in the Beri Badh slum. The water pump can only be used for one hour per day. Sometimes it does not work for three or four days. The water is often very dirty and smelly. Due to the poor quality of water, combined with the lack of proper sanitation and drainage systems, the inhabitants of the Beri Badh slum, and especially the children, suffer from many kinds of illnesses and diseases. While the situation in the Beri Badh slum is unbearable with its too few, smelly and unhealthy open toilets, the Korail slum is somewhat better off as there are at least some proper sanitary latrines, which have been built with the help of NGOs. Our research participants told us that in the Beri Badh slum the biggest problems are that the residents do not have water, electricity, drainage or proper roads, and they suffer from pollution and other environmental problems (Beri Badh slum residents, interviews, November 18 and December 2, 2015). In most slums in Dhaka, there are no medical facilities or health services available. Slum-dwellers are usually unable to use medical services offered by private clinics or hospitals as they are very expensive. In public hospitals, it is not always possible to get proper treatment as they provide only very basic health services. Nearby the Beri Badh slum, there is a Marie Stopes clinic providing medical services for female slum-dwellers for a reduced fee. In the Korail slum, too, some NGOs provide healthcare and medical services. Most are project-based, which means that they are completely dependent on funding: as soon as the project’s funding ends, the services end as well. The situation is similar with regard to education. Many slum-dwellers cannot afford to send their kids to government schools. There are no permanent schools in slums, but some NGOs provide temporary schooling and courses. For example, in the Beri Badh slum there is a slum preschool run by Assistance for Slum Dwellers (ASD), an organisation established in 1988. With over 25 years of experience, ASD has long-term expertise and knowledge on slum-dwellers’ situation

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and their everyday struggles. It has actively advocated slum-dwellers’ rights, also offering them legal aid and support (NGO representative, interview, November 18, 2015). A conversation with one of the ASD preschool teachers revealed that most children in slums are not able to attend the school, as their parents need them to do household work at home – to cook, clean and look after their younger siblings. Those children who are able to attend the preschool are often hungry and cannot concentrate properly on studying. Every year, only around 60 slum children out of several hundred in the area even gain the opportunity to attend the preschool. It lasts for one year. After that, some of the children can go to government primary schools. However, in most cases this is not possible, for various reasons. First, there are no government primary schools located nearby the Beri Badh slum. Second, most parents are unable to pay school fees. Third, many government schools, which are already crowded, do not give the highest priority to slum children during the admission process (Beri Badh slum residents, interviews, November 1, 2015; NGO representative, interview, November 18, 2015). In other words, the basic rights of children to education are ignored and thus effectively denied – a concern that was strongly emphasised by the ASD representatives we interviewed. Besides having established learning centres and primary schools in slums, ASD provides food for slum children and runs an active ‘happy home’ programme for street children, that is, kids who do not have parents or have run away from home, for example due to domestic violence or extreme poverty. ASD has also supported slum-dwellers’ self-help groups and internal institution building, and worked for women’s rights and empowerment in the slums. (NGO representatives, interviews, November 12, 2015) It is estimated that over 2,000 people move to Dhaka city every day, and most of them end up living in slums. People move to the capital city from rural areas in search of better education and work opportunities, as well as for better medical treatment and health services. The main problem is that this migration takes place in a completely unorganised and unplanned way, which creates new problems and intensifies already existing challenges in the crowded slums (NGO representative, interview, December 2, 2015). As argued by some of our interviewees, without a more comprehensive and holistic approach to urban development in Dhaka, the city will soon become unbearable to live in. In addition to more equal and efficient urban planning, it was suggested that systematic development of agriculture could provide a sustainable solution to some of the problems that concern food production (NGO representatives, interview, November 12, 2015).

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Struggles Related to Being under the Constant Threat of Eviction Besides serious problems related to everyday life described above, many slum-dwellers who have moved to a slum due to becoming internally displaced live under a constant threat of eviction. Slum evictions are increasingly common in the city of Dhaka. For example, the Beri Badh slum has already experienced several evictions. Over 100,000 slum-dwellers were evicted by the government due to the establishment of a new graveyard in the area. Some of the displaced slum residents who were evicted from the Beri Badh slum moved to the Korail slum (NGO representative, interview, November 12 and December 2, 2015). One of our research participants told us that in a seminar he attended, the Minister of Local Government, Mosharraf Hossain, had said that the people living in the Korail slum would be evicted due to the government’s plan to construct of a so-called ‘IT city’ in the area (NGO representatives, interviews, November 12, 2015). While the government has not often given eviction notices in the past, this time it was given well in advance. This might be connected to the fact that the government has already bestowed some land in the area to foreign developers (NGO representative, interview, December 2, 2015). It was also speculated that the fact that the Prime Minister’s son had initiated the idea of the IT city was the reason why the government had publicly announced the eviction plan. Many slum residents told us that they do not oppose the project as such, but they would not accept that people in the Korail slum should be evicted to make room for it: ‘Why do they have to build it here … Well, land here is valuable, it is close to Gulshan and Banani’ (Korail slum residents, interviews, December 15, 2015). Both Gulshan and Banani are areas located at the commercial heart of the city. If the planned section of the Korail slum were to be demolished, approximately 65,000 households and 120,000 slum-dwellers, some of whom have been living there since the end of the liberation war in 1971, would have to be evicted (NGO representative, interview, Dhaka, December 2, 2015).7 Many of the residents moved to the slum from rural areas and sold everything when leaving their home villages. Many had to take loans to build their houses in Korail. If they had known that the area would later become under a threat of demolition, they would not had moved there but instead bought land in nearby village areas. The residents told us that if the people living in the Korail slum are to be evicted, they would lose everything, including all the instalments they have made over the years, that is, the unofficial fees they have paid to be able to reside in the slum. They would end up having nothing (Korail slum residents, interviews, December 15, 2015). According to our NGO interviewees, evicting people in the Korail slum would cause many conflicts and protests as the number of residents is high

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and the slum residents are socially very active. Many international organisations that have worked in the area for decades are expected to also show their solidarity and support for the people of Korail. One NGO interviewee pointed out that while the position of the privileged class is very strong in Dhaka, the slum-dwellers, if united, have the potential to ‘stop the city’ through strikes and protests. There are, for example, over 500,000 rickshaw pullers in Dhaka, most of them slum-dwellers, and when they go on a strike the traffic and transport in the city comes almost to a complete standstill (NGO representatives, interviews, Dhaka, November 12, 2015). Slum-dwellers also work as domestic helpers, cleaners, cooks and street vendors, and without the basic services that they provide to other residents of the city on a daily basis, the city would not function properly. As some Korail slum residents put it, while the slum-dwellers may be politically divided, when it comes to important issues, such as possible eviction, they usually come together and unite regardless of their political affiliation. On several occasions when they have been threatened with eviction, they have protested strongly, trying to protect their lives, homes, existence. During the interviews, it became clear that most residents do not oppose development projects as such, but they do not accept the fact that it is always them, the poor and marginalised slum-dwellers, who have to make enormous sacrifices for the sake of development or the well-being of others (Korail slum residents, interviews, December 7 and 15, 2015). At the time of the interviews, the Korail slum residents were strikingly concerned for their future as they were unsure of what was going to happen after the government’s eviction notice (Korail slum residents, interviews, December 7 and 15, 2015). We were told that two writ petitions had already been filed to stop the government’s eviction plans. One was filed by an NGO and another by the slum-dwellers themselves as a collective (NGO representative, interview, December 2, 2015). They were also planning to file a new law suit as a group of at least 20,000 residents who have been living in the Korail slum for more than 30 years, which should legally give them certain housing rights (Korail slum residents, interviews, December 7, 2015). When we asked slum-dwellers about their hopes and dreams for the future, most of them said that apart from stopping the eviction, they only had one dream – that they could stay and live peacefully in the Korail slum. They told us that they own 90 acres of the land in Korail, and if the government would grant them a loan, they would be happy to buy the rest of the 10 acres and pay the loan back gradually (Korail slum residents, interviews, December 15, 2015). Struggles Related to Politics and Power According to many NGO representatives that we interviewed, in every slum in Dhaka there is a power structure that is established from outside. Moreover,

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slums do not usually rise spontaneously but are established and constructed by people who can benefit from them financially. Often, the government and state authorities are involved in these unofficial processes as well (NGO representative, interview, December 2, 2015). We were told that all slums are governed by representatives of political parties, which means in practice that slum-dwellers themselves do not have much say in matters that concern them. The structure of slums has changed a lot during the past decades. Previously, they used to be bigger and more concentrated, but due to the constantly rising price of urban land, the slums are now smaller, more fragmented and scattered than before. According to our interviewees, this can be considered as a conscious strategy on the part of the government, a policy of gradual eviction (NGO representatives, interview, November 12, 2015). While the fact that slums are smaller and more fragmented means, from the perspective of governance, that it is more difficult for the government to manage the slums as a whole, it makes eviction processes easier. Moreover, it means that is more difficult for the slum-dwellers to organise themselves as a collective, unified force. In fact, some NGOs argue that slum evictions and decentralisation of slums can be considered a conscious ‘divide and rule’ strategy by the state in its effort to control the slum population. Some NGO representatives also pointed to a new strategy by the government in regard to slum evictions: the government sells land to private developers who then file law suits against the government when they are not able to use the land due to the slum population living in the area. In this way, the slum-dwellers can be evicted and the slums demolished by a court order. These processes must be understood in a larger context: while previously 80 per cent of the land was owned by the state and only 20 per cent by private developers, now the ratio is rapidly changing – the numbers have almost turned the other way around (NGO representative, interview, December 2, 2015). According to some of our interviewees, the strategy of ‘divide and rule’ is used on a regular basis for controlling the political scene and civil society in Bangladesh. In their opinion, political parties are inciting division among common people in order to gain more power for themselves (Scholar, interview, December 1, 2015). The informal power structures in slums directly influence the everyday lives of slum-dwellers in various ways. Most of the slums are built on government land. When people find shelter on government property, in principle they are not supposed to pay any rent. In practice, however, when a person or a family tries to find shelter in a slum, they have to negotiate contracts and pay for their housing, water and electricity through so-called ‘mastaans’, often referred also to as ‘muscle men’ or ‘middle men’, who are usually working for either the ruling party or the main opposition party (NGO representative, interview, December 2, 2015; see also Suykens, 2015). What is more, all newcomers are usually required to support one or another political party, otherwise they are

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unable to get a place in any of the slums. After settling down, they are often required, on the basis of their party affiliation, to attend meetings and take part in hartals organised by the political parties. Hartal means a general strike or a total shutdown. In Bangladesh, it is one of the most popular and common ways to protest. During a hartal, shops are closed, and no cars, buses or other vehicles are allowed on the roads – indeed, a hartal is considered successful when all shops are closed and the roads are completely empty. Political parties often call a hartal to protest something and to gain support for their political demands. Hartals are organised by both government and opposition parties (Suykens & Islam, 2013). According to our research participants, the mechanisms for controlling slums and governing slum-dwellers are diverse – the practices vary from one slum to another. For example, in the Korail slum, which is built on government land, the slum-dwellers have to pay rent or chada both for their houses and for their land. Chada is a Bengali term for collecting money, which in this case refers to money collected by political parties or slum leaders (Suykens, 2015). In the Beri Badh slum, which is mostly built on private land, not all residents have to pay rent for land, if they are taking care of it on the private landowners’ behalf (Beri Badh slum residents, interviews, November 18 and December 2, 2015). In the public debate, slums are often represented as places where unlawful and irregular activities are common. The Korail slum especially has received much attention in this regard, as a study by the Save the Children argued that in Korail it is possible to buy anything, even a newborn baby. It is also usual for politicians to refer to the Korail and other slums as places of drug trade and drug use. According to people we talked with in the Korail slum, this is a misrepresentation. Instead, they argued that ‘It is the rich people who use drugs as the slum-dwellers do not have the time for using drugs.’ One research participant stressed that slum-dwellers pay their water and electricity bills regularly ‘unlike the rich people’ (Korail slum residents, interviews, December 7, 2015). Some NGO representatives also confirmed that the level of crime in Korail is not very high. They pointed out that most illegal activities are controlled by ‘mastaans’, a group of people or individuals who have ‘muscle power, arms and guns’ and who themselves are often patronised by political parties or powerful persons supported by the parties (NGO representatives, interviews, November and December, 2015; see also Suykens & Islam, 2013; Suykens, 2015). While a decade or two ago most slum-dwellers did not even have a right to vote, slums are nowadays commonly referred to as ‘vote banks’.8 According to slum-dwellers we interviewed in Korail and Beri Badh, representatives of political parties tend to visit slums only before upcoming elections. Typically, political party candidates make a lot of promises: they talk about the ways in

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which they would improve the living conditions and carry out development projects in slums if they were elected. After the elections, no matter what the result of the election is, nothing usually happens,9 and the slum-dwellers are left on their own. Many told us that they are very frustrated and disappointed by false promises given by politicians. Sometimes the very same slums in which representatives of political parties have visited during their election campaigns have been subject to eviction soon after the elections (Beri Badh slum residents, interviews, November 18 and December 2, 2015; Korail slum residents, personal communication, December 7 and 15, 2015). Therefore, it is not surprising that many slum-dwellers view political parties very sceptically, arguing that they ‘work only for the rich people, not for us’ (Beri Badh slum residents, interviews, November 18, 2015). It is a common view among the slum-dwellers that the middle class does not care about them as ‘none of them supports us’ (Korail slum residents, interviews, December 7, 2015). When a large number of slum-dwellers went on strike on 28 April 2011 and stopped working, they were strongly criticised by the middle class. Due to this particular strike, one of the Dhaka’s two mayors announced that he was ‘the mayor of the slum-dwellers’, but according to our interviewees, he has not done anything to improve life in the slums. One research participant told us that she had once gained an opportunity to talk with the city mayor. She had tried to explain how much work the slum-dwellers do in the city as they provide most of the services related to, for example, driving and cleaning. However, the mayor had not seemed interested in these issues. The slum-dwellers we talked with had a very negative impression of him – he was considered more of a businessman than a servant of the public. Again, we were reminded by our interviewees that politicians utilise the slums as a ‘vote bank’, and after the elections, nothing ever changes for the better, a view shared also by several experts and researchers we interviewed (Korail slum residents, interviews, December 7, 2015; Expert, interview, November 15, 2015). According to CUP, while the government has included slum communities in their housing policy and there are also other policies concerning the rights of slum-dwellers, the problem is that they are not implemented. For example, the government has allocated a large sum of money to low-income communities but, according to our interviewees, these resources have not been used (NGO representative, interview, December 2, 2015). Similar problems have also been common in programmes designed for advancing women’s rights and their empowerment. There are several political, social and cultural factors behind these developments. Sometimes religion also plays a role. For example, when the government tried to implement a new policy concerning women’s inheritance rights, it faced fierce opposition from religious political groups. They did not accept the suggestion that women should have an equal 50/50 right to inheritance, as the sharia law allows women to inherit only

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a share of one-third. In other words, while the government’s new policy was progressive, the government was not able to implement it (NGO representative, interview, December 9, 2015).

SMALL TRANSFORMATIONS THROUGH SELF-ORGANISING AND WORKING WITH ALLIES Given the serious problems and challenges described above, it is not surprising that slum-dwellers in Dhaka are highly sceptical of all political parties and the role of the government. In seeking to improve their situation and living conditions, the slum-dwellers have formed many kinds of community-based organisations, slum committees and self-help groups. However, as pointed out by the ASD representatives, the number of self-help organisations in slums is not very high, and most of them are micro-credit groups for women (NGO representatives, interview, November 12, 2015). For example, in the Beri Badh slum we were told that women do not organise socially on their own, and there are no self-help groups. Yet, there are many micro-credit programmes, for example organised by NGOs such as ASA, BRAC (Building Resources Across Communities) and Rural Bangladesh. In the Beri Badh slum, one woman told us that she borrows some money from a micro-credit group, and then lends it further to other people with an interest of 5 per cent (Beri Badh slum residents, interview, November 18, 2015). According to an NGO representative working on slum issues, NGOs have ‘a responsibility to slum-dwellers to improve their situation, make them aware of their rights, or link them with relevant organisations’ (NGO representative, interview, December 2, 2015). Yet, as pointed out by a local researcher, NGOs should focus more on advancing women’s self-empowerment than talking about ‘empowering’ them. According to her, women in Bangladesh are always ‘protected’ by someone (either their fathers, brothers, husbands, sons or some other men), a system that needs to be challenged if gender equality is ever to be achieved. She pointed out that women are constantly negotiating their identities within their families. She mentioned that while female slum-dwellers usually work as domestic maids, often in several different apartments, they also have to take care of their own households. Despite this, she argued that women have quite a lot of power within their own families and also that there are many different forms of resistance and ‘other kinds of empowerment and emancipation that they accomplish on their own’. Thus, when working with marginalised communities such as the displaced and the slum-dwellers, a ‘bottom-up approach is always the best’ at the local level (Scholar, interview, November 15, 2015). One of the scholars we interviewed emphasised that gender is an important factor and that the participation of women is essential for developing effective

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forms of resistance and providing new kinds of ‘gendered visions’. In his view, the feminisation of resistance has been intensive as well as necessary in South Asia. According to him, women in Bangladesh have only quite recently started to participate in broader social struggles, and the low number of women has been a major weakness in social movements (Scholar, interview, November 21, 2015; Scholar, interview, December 1, 2015; NGO representative, interview, December 8, 2015). However, when we spoke with slum-dwellers in Korail, they argued exactly the opposite – that women have been more active than men both in protests and social movements in general. They said that often women outnumber men by at least two to one. This has caused mixed reactions within the communities. Some men have not been pleased to see their wives taking an active part in the activities and protests organised by the slum movements and community-based organisations. Yet, some men have supported their wives and encouraged their participation (Korail slum residents, interviews, December 15, 2015). It was also stressed that issues of class and gender are intimately intertwined (Scholar, interview, November 21, 2015), and that social structures and poverty play an incremental role in all kinds of violence, as well as in ‘the abandonment of women in the patriarchal system’. As the system is very masculine and prohibits women from gaining more power, one of the most fundamental issues to be addressed is woman’s status in the family. One of our interviewees argued that when it is assumed that men are superior to women, nothing can be changed. She stressed that women in Bangladesh need political, social, economic and legal rights, as well as more alternatives and options, particularly in terms of basic livelihood. Importantly, she pointed to the contextual nature of empowerment, emphasising that it varies in terms of position and situation and it can mean different things to different people: ‘If a village woman can send her daughter to school, it is empowerment for her … For the mother, empowerment means different things than for her daughter who might want more’ (NGO representative, interview, December 8, 2015). Another research participant pointed out that women’s engagement has been particularly weak in rural movements. Traditionally, it has been quite difficult for rural and peasant movements to succeed as social movements are usually very urban-centric, and especially Dhaka-centric. He argued that the government can control urban NGOs and social movements more effectively than rural ones. He also anticipated that the fact that women are now slowly becoming more active might cause some problems for the government as it is usually easier for the police to arrest men during protests and rallies (Scholar, interview, December 1, 2015). However, one of our interviewees argued that women also face violence when protesting against violence (NGO representative, interview, December 8, 2015). When the Korail slum-dwellers have protested against evictions, they have sometimes been violently treated by the

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police, especially in the past. In recent years, the protests have involved less confrontation, and the communities have had more freedom to protest (Korail slum residents, interviews, December 15, 2015). One of the NGOs that is working particularly for the empowerment of women, the Bangladesh Association of Women for Self-Empowerment (BAWSE), founded in 1996, can be regarded as successful and effective in several ways. Over the years, it has organised courses and training for women, legal support on issues related to marriage, divorce, inheritance and land rights, as well as micro-credit and family development programmes. BAWSE hosts a library for the residents of the area, runs a primary school for small children, and organises different groups for adolescents, both girls and boys. BAWSE has special advocacy groups for those who face violence in their families and provides them with legal help and assistance. Although it does not work solely with slum-dwellers, working with other low-income groups too, a majority of its work has focused on slum-related issues as most participants, students as well as teachers of the courses and training programmes, come from slum areas (NGO representative, interview, December 9, 2015). As BAWSE has assisted slum-dwellers to establish their voting rights, it has also become involved in their struggles for social and political rights also more generally, which it considers crucial for empowerment of marginalised communities, and especially for women (NGO representative, interview, December 9, 2015). When we asked one of the active members of BAWSE to explain how she would define self-empowerment, she said that for her, it essentially means ‘decision-making power’, of which she gave a concrete and very personal example. Her husband, a banker by profession, did not want her to study, but she started to study without his permission, secretly. At that time, she was also working for the association, something her husband often criticised. She used to tell him that she was doing extra work, long days at BAWSE, and she passed the preliminary level without her husband knowing. However, when it became time to take her MA exam, she was forced to tell her husband about it, as it was expensive. In the end, after long discussions and negotiations, her husband agreed that she could take the exam. After some time, she got a job at a bank, thanks to her education, but she has also continued her work at the association. Her husband has learned a lot from and with her, and they have slowly started making family-related decisions together. She told us that she has gained self-esteem as she now has ‘the capacity to discuss’. She has noticed that her in-laws also respect her more. Her own positive experiences have convinced her that women’s position in the society can be transformed through education (NGO representative, interview, Dhaka, December 9, 2015). Moreover, she has witnessed the impact of her own work in the slum communities. When she first started visiting slums to talk about issues such as childbirth and marriage, she encountered a lot of scepticism. Although the

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communities did not welcome her and seemed disinterested in her work, she kept visiting the slums. Finally, people started to listen to her, and accepted her. In this way, she was able to see the impact of education slowly taking place in the slums, helping especially women to become conscious of their rights (NGO representative, interview, December 9, 2015). Another interviewee emphasised that women’s self-empowerment starts from improving their economic position through education. He shared with us a story about a woman who moved to Dhaka from Barisal due to poverty and lack of livelihood options. The association helped her to gain training in sewing, and she got a job at a garment factory while her husband started to work as a rickshaw puller. In this way, they were able to save money. Finally, they had enough to buy some land in the rural area and the whole family was able to move back to Barisal (NGO representative, interview, December 9, 2015). One of the key challenges in work related to women’s rights are the attitudes, which reflect the values of a patriarchal society. According to our research participants, men in Bangladesh seem to be afraid of their wives becoming ‘too aware’ of their rights, as they may then become ‘uncontrollable’, which might also have implications on their religious behaviour. In particular, men are said to worry that their wives would start talking to strange men (NGO representative, interview, December 9, 2015). Many men have also criticised the association strongly for ‘teaching women to talk too much and too loud’, which can be considered an euphemism for criticism that women are stepping out of their traditional roles. The members of the association were proud to admit this effect: ‘Yes, we really are teaching them to speak louder, we call this “voicing” women.’ After women receive training, they start to discover their potential and possibilities, and consequently they often also become more talkative and argumentative (NGO representative, interview, December 9, 2015). We were told that in the beginning it was not uncommon for women to face domestic violence when they went back home after training provided by the association. Over the years, things improved gradually, and now the husbands usually accept their wives’ involvement in the association. However, communities have gained awareness of women’s rights slowly, and a lot of work remains to be done in this regard (NGO representative, interview, December 9, 2015). While social movements have contributed substantially to social change in Bangladesh, the state has often followed a strategy that is also common elsewhere in the world – movements and activists are portrayed as ‘anti-progress’ and even ‘anti-state’ (Scholar, interview, December 1, 2015; cf. Roy 2009; Mohanty 2010). One NGO representative told us that when they talk about controversial issues such as poverty, development and violence, they have to face ‘so much pressure, threats and intimidation … We are working against the stream’ (NGO representative, interview, December 8, 2015). Activism

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in general was said to be facing new challenges as nationalism and xenophobia are on the rise globally, and therefore international networks and ‘people-to-people’ connections were considered essential. Certain controversies within activist and academic fields were also mentioned. It was argued, for example, that some environmental activists support environmentally destructive projects or lifestyles and that many environmentalists who graduated from established universities have been ‘co-opted’ as they have been recruited by large national and multinational corporations. According to one interviewee, this kind of institutionalisation is very ‘destructive’, and he considered the increasing importance of ‘mercenary academics’ and consultant groups ‘very troubling’. He went on to argue that the academic world has been co-opted by the same kind of ideology – hence, it is necessary to work both inside and outside the academia to tackle the forces of neoliberalism and privatisation. There have always been effective methods for controlling left-leaning academics within the university system, for instance through their work contracts and salary, but according to our interviewee, the degree of control has now tightened: anyone who does not follow the rules will be stigmatised as ‘one of those leftists’ who are ‘against everything’. Increasingly often, it is also implied that leftist academics are receiving ‘foreign money’. While the so-called ‘civil society approach’ is often celebrated, other forms of political engagement by activists and researchers are labelled as ‘dangerous’. Nevertheless, some groups formed by young researchers are trying to re-occupy depoliticised forums, and they are choosing alternative paths, for example by publishing an academic journal that does not accept any commercial money or advertisements (Scholar, interview, November 21, 2015). Several activists and activist-academics that we interviewed stressed that while Bangladesh is portrayed as a success story in terms of development, this ‘development’ in fact mainly serves the interests of the ruling class. It was emphasised that the interests of the ruling class are intertwined in all developing countries, which means that challenging the unequal status quo requires developing alternative social, political and economic models. As explained by one of our interviewees, the ‘minimum requirement’ that people can demand and dream of is ‘people power’ – the possibility to control their own lives and resources and to plan their futures (Scholar, interview, December 1, 2015). He pointed out that as states are becoming increasingly dependent on natural resources, tensions and conflicts over environmental issues between states and their citizens are likely to increase. As poor people cannot just buy everything they need, they are much more dependent on the environment and natural resources than the middle class and elites: ‘Since we are poor, we need to protect our environment’ (Scholar, interview, December 1, 2015). According to another interviewee, besides environmental protection, this requires that inequality in all forms will be tackled and that common property, including

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natural resources, remains common and will not be privatised (Scholar, interview, November 21, 2015). It is also necessary to address seriously the issue of poverty, as it lies behind most of the other problems (NGO representative, interview, December 8, 2015). Another major problem in this context is corruption. As one of the experts argued, being involved in politics in Bangladesh ‘has become an investment that brings benefits’ – gaining a governmental position or office is regarded as a great opportunity for making profit. He referred to a study that demonstrated that 59 per cent of members of the parliament (MPs) are involved in business. While not suggesting that MPs should be denied involvement in business activities, he stressed that such a strong connection between the two is not good for democracy, and that other sectors of the society should be more strongly represented in the parliament to guarantee a broader and more balanced perspective (Expert, interview, December 3, 2015; also NGO representative, interview, December 8, 2015). In this context, it is important to note that most of the major corruption cases in Bangladesh have been related to projects run by foreign and multinational corporations. They have revealed that there are double standards at play when many foreign developers and companies invest and bring their industries or development projects to countries of the Global South: while they criticise corruption taking place elsewhere, often they themselves become involved in corruption when operating in countries such as Bangladesh. This is why, according to the corruption expert that we interviewed, it is impossible to separate global and local corruption from each other – it is ‘two-way traffic’ (Expert, interview, December 3, 2015). Also, NGOs have been involved in corruption – for example, a study conducted in 2008 by Transparency International Bangladesh revealed some serious abuses in the NGO sector (Expert, interview, December 3, 2015; NGO representative, interview, December 8, 2015). While Bangladesh has traditionally had a vibrant civil society, according to our interviewees, a ‘culture of fear’ has surfaced due to several violent attacks and murders of secular bloggers and publishers. It is increasingly common for people who talk in favour or on the behalf of marginalised groups such as slum-dwellers, and those who publicly dare to criticise neoliberal development, to be stigmatised as being ‘anti-state’ (Expert, interview, December 3, 2015; NGO representative, interview, December 8, 2015). This has arguably resulted in the civil society in Bangladesh becoming increasingly divided and polarised. As many social movements have been ‘co-opted’ by the political parties, many people have become increasingly sceptical of their capability to affect change. This has also led to ever-growing mistrust towards the political system in general. One of the problems is that the national media has strong links and loyalty towards established political parties, a fact that also concerns social movements. For them, too, it is difficult accomplish much without the

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support or consent of the political parties. It is also increasingly difficult for social movements to achieve autonomy (Scholar, interview, December 1, 2015; Expert, interview, December 3, 2015) and to express differing views (Scholar, interview, December 18, 2015). A major challenge is that NGOs are working on a wide variety of different issues, and there is not enough collaboration among them. Yet, for example, ASD continuously tries to build partnerships with other NGOs, as they believe that more strength can be gained through synergy. However, it is difficult for NGOs to trust each other, and there is also a lot competition among them as the number of NGOs has increased rapidly. ASD receives its primary funding from Germany and some other European countries. In recent years, foreign aid and donations have been constantly decreasing due to changes in the country’s foreign policy, with new, stricter regulations concerning foreign aid. Financial support from Europe has also become more restricted due to Bangladesh’s suspected terrorist linkages. Many international aid organisations have reduced the number of their partners in the country. Another challenge is that while the larger charities and NGOs are funded more generously, the smaller ones have scarce resources and struggle continuously with their funding (NGO representatives, interviews, November 12, 2015). NGOs have to constantly advertise themselves to make themselves visible and attractive (NGO representative, interview, December 2, 2015; Expert, interview, December 3, 2015). Some NGOs, however, have made a conscious decision not to spend much on advertising: ‘We don’t like to publicise so much our own work, other NGOs use a lot of resources for publications and advertising … It should be open as we are working for the poor people’ (NGO representative, interview, December 2, 2015). Many of our interviewees argued that social movements should become more active in finding new ways to utilise and cooperate with the media in their struggles for social justice, whether it comes to internal displacement or life in the slums. Especially documents and popular films, as well as the internet and social media, were considered important as they can be utilised in presenting and circulating new ideas on and examples of how things can be done differently. While the age of new digital media has not yet radically transformed the communication culture in Bangladesh, which is partly due to the government’s strict online policy and substantial restrictions on the use of social media, one of the interviewed scholars argued that in the long-run it will be impossible to prevent the increasing use of the internet and social media for societal purposes. According to him, the information revolution will have a tremendous effect in Bangladeshi society within the next five to ten years (Scholar, interview, December 1, 2015). Yet, it is very likely that at the same time the government will find new ways and develop new strategies for

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controlling social media and continue to pose some restrictions on the print media as well. For social change to take place, it will be necessary to ‘globalise’ some issues; that is, social movements should seek international support and build transnational alliances.10 Most importantly, people need to realise that they themselves are a genuine force (Scholar, interview, December 1, 2015; Scholar, interview, December 18, 2015). According to many of our interviewees, academics also have a responsibility to engage in activism. As one of them put it, ‘We need to do more research, generate more knowledge while disseminating it also, and not through academic texts only’ (Scholar, interview, December 1, 2015). Another academic activist explained that activism means ‘putting small obstacles in front of the companies’, and continued: ‘We are trying to mobilise people now. Bravery is the part of your brain that makes you fuel fear … We are activists in academia’ (Scholar, interview, December 18, 2015). While transformation is not easy and requires both theoretical work and practical action, in the words of one of our interviewees, ‘beautiful life is possible’ (Scholar, interview, November 21, 2015): ‘We need to convince ourselves … on what needs to be done, it is our duty to provide visions, to engage, to do creative things … Freedom, in a real sense, is needed … We cannot decide on the behalf of the people what to do, or what to want’ (Scholar, interview, November 21, 2015).

CONCLUSIONS In discussing serious problems and injustices related to forced migration and internal displacement in Bangladesh, we have sought to visibilise the knowledge of the displaced and slum communities with whom we engaged in Dhaka, highlighting the importance of taking into account their expertise, experiences, views and perspectives in both academic research and policy-making. It has become clear that the everyday life of displaced and slum communities is extremely difficult in the slums of Dhaka for multiple and complex reasons, and that the people have to continuously struggle for their basic rights and against evictions. Therefore, it is not surprising that among these communities there is not much trust towards the political system. It is common before elections that political candidates and party representatives actively engage with slum communities and raise their expectations by making a lot of promises which, however, only rarely materialise. After the elections, the slum communities may even be evicted by the same political parties in the name of ‘development’, security or something else.

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The Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh Article 15 (a) states that it is a fundamental responsibility of the State to attain, through planned economic growth, a constant increase of productive forces and a steady improvement in the material and cultural standard of living of the people, with a view to securing to its citizens (a) the provision of the basic necessities of life, including food, clothing, shelter, education and medical care.

It seems that the displaced and slum communities are not regarded as deserving the same rights as other citizens. At the same time, our analysis has also made clear that these communities are not just passive subjects or victims; they have formed a wide variety of community-based organisations and self-help groups through which they collectively work to improve their situation in practical terms at the social level, and sometimes also at the political level. Yet, while the displaced and slum communities in Dhaka continue to actively build their lives, it is imperative that their situation – and especially the deep expertise they have of their own situation – should be recognised and taken into account also externally in all instances where the aim is to address and tackle injustices related to forced displacement and to improve the situation of displaced and slum communities. We have also brought forth knowledge of local NGO representatives, experts and scholars who are closely working with the communities. In our analysis, we have treated their knowledge in the same way as that of the communities, as we have consciously tried to avoid the common bias in many conventional approaches where ‘expert’ knowledge is prioritised over other knowledges (for related discussion, see e.g. Cummings et al., 2019; Kothari, 2005). The information we gained from the experts has nevertheless played an important part in our analysis as it has provided us with valuable knowledge on many structural problems and societal challenges that affect the broader framework in which some of the injustices that the displaced and slum communities face are very difficult to address. Through our analysis of these different knowledges, we hope to provide new insights into some of the ongoing ‘small transformations’ taking place within the communities and the society, while not only discussing their novelty and transformative potential but also paying attention to their complexity as well as their relation to broader structural problems and inequalities in Bangladesh. It needs to be noted that the government of Bangladesh has taken several initiatives and drafted policies with regard to issues such as climate change, poverty reduction, development and disaster management. These include, for example, the Sixth Five Year Plan, the Outline Perspective Plan, the National Strategy for Accelerated Poverty Reduction, the Millennium Development

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Goals Bangladesh Progress Report 2012, the Coastal Zone Management Policy, Bangladesh’s National Adaptation Programme of Action, the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan, Guchhogram: Climate Victims Rehabilitation Project, the Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme, and the National Plan for Disaster Management 2010–2015 (Planning Commission, 2005, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012). However, as the participants of our study pointed out, the key problem is that despite all these policies, people are still becoming displaced every day, as most of the policies are not properly implemented – a problem that also concerns the UN Guiding Principles on internal displacement. In the course of our research it became evident that in order to tackle the negative effects of displacement and put an end to the mistreatment of displaced people, the policies need to improve radically, and Bangladesh also needs a more holistic approach to urban development. In order to effect change, in terms of creating both social and political transformation, the best strategy going forward is always to start from the level of the communities – to engage, to ask, to listen, to take into account their knowledge, views and experiences. They are the real experts on questions related to forced migration and displacement. As a way of concluding, we now self-critically return to our theoretical-methodological approach that emphasises the importance of listening to and, more importantly, taking into account the voices of the excluded in practice, as it is important to acknowledge that there are some substantial limitations to our study in terms of engaging with the communities. First, it must be openly admitted that despite our original aims and research design, in practice our fieldwork cannot be described as deeply collaborative or prefigurative in the sense suggested by Motta, because we were only able to engage with the displaced and slum communities for a very limited period of time. This made it impossible for us to build genuinely long-term relationships based on mutual trust and commitment with the communities. Despite our original intentions, after the initial two-month period of fieldwork, we were not able to continue our engagement with the communities in a comprehensive and sustained way, mainly due to our precarious positions in the academia. Both of us have worked on temporary contracts and with short-term grants, which in practice has meant that we have been unable to continue our fieldwork and conduct research on this topic for a longer period of time. In fact, this is why we have started to seriously doubt whether it is even possible within the current neoliberal university system to engage in meaningful collaborative research with marginalised communities as the restrictions posed by limited funding and working time available for conducting fieldwork are so challenging. This also raises many serious and complex ethical questions with regard to research conducted with communities who, despite dedicating their precious time to taking part in research, may end up having nothing/not enough in return (see

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also Seppälä, 2016). However, when it comes to collaborative research and prefigurative epistemologies more specifically, we believe that even if we have not been able to adhere to all their principles, it has been an important learning experience for us to acknowledge their importance, and applying some of them in practice has helped us to better understand the very practical limits of the approach. In our ongoing and future studies, provided that we manage to continue our careers in the neoliberal academia, we hope to take further steps towards incorporating and developing prefigurative epistemologies on the basis of the lessons learned from these preliminary ones.

NOTES 1.

While increasingly many ‘climate refugees’ migrate within and from Bangladesh, the country is simultaneously receiving a growing number of refugees itself. Since 2017, over 900,000 Rohingyas who are escaping ethnic cleansing in the neighbouring country Myanmar have crossed the border to Bangladesh (UNICEF, 2019). 2. IDPs are defined as ‘Persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border’ (UN, 2004, p. 8). The two defining elements of an IDP are involuntary departure and the fact that the individual remains within his/her country. The first element distinguishes IDPs from individuals who have left their homes out of choice and could have otherwise safely stayed where they lived. The second element explains why IDPs are different from refugees – refugees are, by definition, outside their country of nationality or habitual residence. However, both categories of displaced persons usually face similar risks and deprivations (UNHCR, 2010, p. 8). 3. Others include, for example, the right to life and protection against acts of violence and torture, sexual and gender-based violence; to safe access to essential food, potable water, basic shelter, clothing, medical services and sanitation; to freedom of movement, including in and out of IDP camps; to seek asylum in another country; to personal documentation; to respect for family life and unity; to education and training, to equally for women and girls; to employment and participation in economic activities; and to vote and participate in government and public affairs (UN, 2004; UNHCR, 2010). 4. We acknowledge that the UN Guiding Principles, as well as many other similar guidelines, are often viewed sceptically and even interpreted as a form of Western imperialism by many countries in the Global South (and not without reason). We are nevertheless convinced that from the perspective of some of the most marginalised and vulnerable communities, such as displaced and slum communities, these guidelines are crucially important in articulating their basic rights. 5. These developments do not only concern South Asia or Bangladesh. Globally, people increasingly live in slums: approximately half of the world’s population lives in urban areas, and around one billion of them in slums (Sörensen & Söderbaum, 2012, p. 8).

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6. This is not a problem that concerns South Asia only, but is an intimate part of broader structures of academic knowledge production. For a similar kind of critique on research not taking into account the perspectives of communities and role of local knowledge in development studies, see for example Doshi (2013); Escobar (1995); Mignolo (2012); Sabaratnam (2011); in international relations and political science, see for example Juris & Knashabish (2013); Lie (2013); and in Indigenous studies, see for example Battiste (2007); Tuck & Fine (2007); Tuck & Yang (2012). 7. What also causes tension in this context is that the state is carrying out slum evictions despite the fact that many slum-dwellers fought for the liberation of Bangladesh. Many of those who were rehabilitated in slums after the liberation war in 1971 feel that their services to the country have been forgotten (Korail slum residents, interviews, December 7, 2015). 8. CUP has organised, among other things, campaigns where the slum-dwellers can use its address when registering as voters. As CUP provides legal support, its members are in a better position to argue their cases in court. Previously, CUP used to campaign for slum-dwellers voting rights. Now it is fighting for voting rights for the pavement dwellers (NGO representative, interview, December 2, 2015). 9. For example, one of our interviewees told us that during a recent election campaign one of the candidates visited the Beri Badh slum. He promised to build a new bridge there, and to prove this he had a temporary bamboo bridge constructed in the area. The local slum community was pleased and many of the people voted for him. However, after the election, they never heard from him again, and the bamboo bridge has slowly deteriorated (Beri Badh slum residents, interviews, November 18, 2015). 10. One challenge is that for many activists and NGO representatives it is difficult for them to find time for important involvement in regional and international networks as they are extremely busy in their own, everyday work (NGO representative, interview, December 8, 2015).

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Myers, N. (2002). Environmental refugees: A growing phenomenon of the 21st century. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 357, 609–613. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1098/​rstb​.2001​.0953. Nagar, R. (2014). Muddying the waters: Co-authoring feminisms across scholarship and activism. University of Illinois Press. Nykänen, T., Koikkalainen, S., Seppälä, T., Mikkonen, E., & Rainio, M. (2018). Poikkeusajan tilat: Vastaanottokeskukset pohjoisessa Suomessa. In E. Lyytinen (Ed.), Turvapaikanhaku ja pakolaisuus Suomessa (pp. 161–182). Institute of Migration. OHCHR. (1997). Basic principles and guidelines on development-based evictions and displacements. (A/HRC/4/18, annex I). https://​www​.ohchr​.org/​Documents/​Issues/​ Housing/​Guidelines​_en​.pdf. Planning Commission. (2005). Bangladesh: Unlocking the potential: National strategy for accelerated poverty reduction. General Economics Division, Planning Commission Government of People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Planning Commission. (2008). Moving ahead: National strategy for accelerated poverty reduction II (FY 2009–11). General Economics Division, Planning Commission Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Planning Commission. (2009). Steps towards change: National strategy for accelerated poverty reduction 2: (FY 2009–2011). Planning Commission, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Planning Commission. (2010). Outline perspective plan of Bangladesh 2010–2021 (Vision 2021). Planning Commission, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Planning Commission. (2011). Sixth five year plan FY2011–FY2015: Accelerating growth and reducing poverty. Part–1: Strategic directions and policy framework. Planning Commission, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Planning Commission. (2012). The millennium development goals: Bangladesh progress report 2011. Planning Commission, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Pouliotte, J., Smit, B., & Westerhoff, L. (2009). Adaptation and development: Livelihoods and climate change in Subarnabad, Bangladesh. Climate and Development, 1(1), 31–46. https://​doi​.org/​10​.3763/​cdev​.2009​.0001. Pryer, J. A., Rogers, S., Normand, C., & Rahman, A. (2002). Livelihoods, nutrition and health in Dhaka slums. Public Health Nutrition, 5(5), 613–618. https://​doi​.org/​10​ .1079/​PHN2002335. Roy, A. (2009). Listening to grasshoppers: Field notes on democracy. Penguin Books India. Roy, D. (2012). Contemporary politics in West Bengal: The discourse on democracy. In D. Roy & P. S. Banerjee, Contemporary politics in West Bengal: Glimpses from the Left Front regime (pp. 39–65). Purbalok Publication. Sabaratnam, M. (2011). IR in dialogue … but can we change the subjects? A typology of decolonizing strategies for the study of world politics. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 39(3), 781–803. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​0305829811404270. Seppälä, T. (2016). Feminizing resistance, decolonizing solidarity: Contesting neoliberal development in the Global South. Journal of Resistance Studies, 2(1), 12–47. Seppälä, T. (2017). On ‘outsourcing’ the political in political science. Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture, 23(6), 741–756. http://​dx​.doi​.org/​ 10​.1080/​13504630​.2017​.1291097.

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Sinthia, S. A. (2013, March 20). Sustainable urban development of slum prone area of Dhaka city. Zenodo. http://​doi​.org/​10​.5281/​zenodo​.1073379. Smith, L. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. Zed Books. Spivak, G. C. (1988). Can the subaltern speak? In C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (Eds), Marxism and the interpretation of culture (pp. 271‒313). University of Illinois Press. Sörensen, J. S., & Söderbaum, F. (2012). Introduction: The end of the development– security nexus? Development Dialogue, 58, 7–19. Sudbury, J., & Okazawa-Ray, M. (2009). Introduction: Activist scholarship and the neoliberal university after 9/11. In J. Sudbury & M. Okazawa-Ray (Eds), Activist scholarship: Anti-racism, feminism, and social change (pp. 1–14). Paradigm Publishers. Suykens, B. (2015). The land that disappeared: Forceful occupation, disputes and the negotiation of landlord power in a Bangladeshi Bastee. Development and Change, 46(3), 486–507. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1111/​dech​.12165. Suykens, B., & Islam, A. (2013). Hartal as a complex political performance: General strikes and the organisation of (local) power in Bangladesh. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 47(1), 61–83. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​006996671204700103. Triandafyllidou, A. (2017). A ‘refugee crisis’ unfolding: ‘Real’ events and their interpretation in media and political debates. Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies, 16(1–2), 198–216. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​15562948​.2017​.1309089. Tuck, E., & Fine, M. (2007). Inner angles: A range of ethical responses to/with indigenous and decolonizing theories. In N. K. Denzin & M. D. Giardina (Eds), Ethical futures in qualitative research: Decolonizing the politics of knowledge (pp. 145–168). Left Coast Press. Tuck, E., & Yang, W. K. (2012). Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education and Society, 1(1), 1–40. Ullah, A. K. M. (2004). Bright city lights and slums of Dhaka city: Determinants of rural–urban migration in Bangladesh. Migration Letters, 1(1), 26–41. UN. (2004). Guiding Principles on internal displacement (2nd ed.). https://​www​.unhcr​ .org/​protection/​idps/​43ce1cff2/​guiding​-principles​-internal​-displacement​.html. UN. (2012). World urbanization prospects: The 2011 revision. Highlights. UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. UNHCR. (2010). Handbook and guidelines on procedures and criteria for determining refugee status under the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol relating to the status of refugees. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. UNHCR. (2018). Global trends: Forced displacement in 2017. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. UNICEF. (2019). Bangladesh page, Rohingya crisis. https://​www​.unicef​.org/​ emergencies/​bangladesh​_100945​.html. Walsham, M. (2010). Assessing the evidence: Environment, climate change and migration in Bangladesh. International Organization for Migration, Regional Office for South Asia. http://​publications​.iom​.int/​system/​files/​pdf/​environment​_climate​ _change​_bangladesh​.pdf. World Bank. (2013). Turn down the heat: Climate extremes, regional impacts and the case for resilience. A Report for the World Bank by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics. World Population Review. (2019). Bangladesh population. http://​worldpopulationreview​ .com/​world​-cities/​dhaka​-population/​.

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INTERVIEWS 1. Interviews with two NGO representatives, Dhaka, 12 November 2015. 2. Interview with a scholar, Dhaka, 15 November 2015. 3. Interviews with slum residents, Beri Badh slum, 18 November 2015 (several interviewees). 4. Interview with an NGO representative, Dhaka, 18 December 2015. 5. Interview with a scholar, Dhaka, 21 November 2015. 6. Interview with a scholar, Dhaka, 1 December 2015. 7. Interview with an NGO representative, Dhaka, 2 December 2015. 8. Interview with an NGO representative, Dhaka, 2 December 2015. 9. Interviews with slum residents, Beri Badh slum, 2 December 2015 (several interviewees). 10. Interview with an NGO representative, Dhaka, 2 December 2015. 11. Interview with an expert, Dhaka, 3 December 2015. 12. Interviews with slum residents, Korail slum, 7 December 2015 (several interviewees). 13. Interview with an NGO representative, Dhaka, 8 December 2015. 14. Interview with an NGO representative, Dhaka, 9 December 2015. 15. Interview with an NGO representative, Dhaka, 9 December 2015. 16. Interview with an NGO representative, Dhaka, 9 December 2015. 17. Interview with an NGO representative, Dhaka, 9 December 2015. 18. Interview with slum residents, Korail slum, 15 December 2015 (several interviewees). 19. Interview with a scholar, Dhaka, 18 December 2015.

6. Spaces of climate justice: towards an ethical politics of intervention in the Anthropocene Paul Routledge BANGLADESH AS A SPACE OF CLIMATE (IN)JUSTICE This chapter suggests an ethical politics of climate justice intervention in the Anthropocene. Focusing upon placed actions by peasant farmers – in particular the politics of land occupation in contemporary Bangladesh – the chapter presents a spatial perspective to argue that climate justice practice consists of both spatial strategies and sites of intervention that constitute an ethical politics of intervention in the Anthropocene. Bangladesh is located in the ‘tropic of chaos’ where the impacts of the catastrophic convergence of climate change, poverty and violence are most acutely felt (Parenti, 2011). It is considered to be one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change and sea level rise (IPCC, 2008). Sea level rises along its coast are already occurring at rates greater than the global average of 1.0–2.0mm/year due to a combination of global sea level rise and local factors such as tectonic setting, sediment load and subsidence of the Ganges delta (Karim & Mimura, 2008). Further, the coastal region is particularly vulnerable to cyclonic storm surge floods due to its location in the path of tropical cyclones, the wide and shallow continental shelf and the funnelling shape of the coast (Paul & Dutt, 2010). Eighty per cent of the country consists of the floodplains of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Meghna and other rivers, which sustain 75 per cent of the country’s 160 million people (in 2011) (Brouwer et al., 2007). The majority of the country’s population are poor and dependent on agriculture, and are thus more vulnerable to the impacts of changing climatic regimes, particularly flooding (Dasgupta et al., 2011; Doyle & Chaturvedi, 2011; Gilman et al., 2011). The hegemonic production of nature is enacted through the liberalisation of agrarian markets (e.g. through the imposition of structural adjustment programmes), the expansion of biotechnologies in agriculture (e.g. through 107

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the genetic modification of seeds and crops) and the privatisation of nature through the extension of intellectual property rights to agriculture products (e.g. through patent protection laws that enable agribusiness to convert scientific knowledge into commodities and charge fees for their use) (Nally, 2011). Since the early 1990s the government of Bangladesh has implemented structural adjustment programmes, including trade liberalisation of agriculture, involving the withdrawal of input subsidies, privatisation of fertiliser distribution and seed production, and elimination of rural rationing and price subsidies (Murshid, n.d.). These have increased farmers’ indebtedness and landlessness as they struggle to secure the capital to pay for expensive agricultural inputs (see also Desmarais, 2007). Functional landlessness (i.e. ownership of less than 0.2 hectares) accounts for 69 per cent of the population (Hossain, 2009; Seabrook, 2013). Brought about through land grabs by rural elites, local government corruption and environmentally induced displacement, landlessness deterritorialises the poor. Environmental risk exposure is increased for those with low incomes and less access to land (Brouwer et al., 2007). While the country’s capacity to deal with cyclones has improved through the establishment of cyclone early warning and evacuation systems and cyclone shelters, leading to a decrease in fatalities, the capacity of existing cyclone shelters is woefully inadequate to accommodate all the people in flood risk areas (Karim & Mimura, 2008; Paul & Dutt, 2010). Poor peasants’ vulnerability is also exacerbated by hazard risk perceptions generated by influences of local culture, behaviour and coping strategies as well as inadequate land management policies and transport infrastructures (Alam & Collins, 2010; Chowdhury, 2009).1 Moreover, the Government of Bangladesh’s Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP) concerned with food security, adaptation, mitigation and comprehensive disaster management has been primarily shaped by bureaucrats; senior economists, non-governmental organisations (NGOs)2 and international donors such as the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID). Those most vulnerable to climate change – the rural poor – were largely absent from the plan’s formulation and little has as yet been initiated in terms of policy (Alam et al., 2011; Ayers & Huq, 2009; Raihan et al., 2010). For poor farmers the challenges of climate change fold into ongoing conflicts over access to key resources such as land. This is because although khas land (fallow/unused land owned by the government) should be legally redistributed to landless households for agricultural purposes (known popularly as the ‘Land Law’), local elites tend to be in control of the land distribution process: local authorities overlook illegal possession of land by large landowners or consolidate their own rights to it. In response to these conditions the Bangladesh Krishok (farmer) Federation (BKF) and the Bangladesh Kishani Sabha (women’s association, BKS) have

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emerged as the largest rural-based peasant movements in the country, organising landless people to occupy fallow land across Bangladesh and articulating climate justice claims. The BKF was established in 1976, and the BKS in 1990. Together, they are now estimated to have 1,500,000 members (interviews, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2011). Both social movements are national in terms of their scope of operations (their joint office being located in Dhaka), while focused around specific place-based occupations throughout Bangladesh. This chapter draws upon my ethnographic and collaborative engagement over 15 years with the BKF and BKS. I first started working with the movements in 2002 in my role as one of the facilitators of People’s Global Action (Asia) (PGA Asia) – one of the regional networks of the international alter-globalisation network of social movements, People’s Global Action, in which the BKF and BKS participated (Routledge, 2003). My research strategy continues to involve politically engaged and committed research that is practice-based and conducted in horizontal collaboration with social movements (Juris, 2008; Routledge, 2002). This has meant participating with the BKF and BKS in research visits to Bangladesh in 2002, 2004 (twice) and 2009; helping to organise solidarity-building activities such as an international PGA Asia conference that took place in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2004 (Routledge, 2008); and in 2011, participating in a Climate Change, Gender and Food Sovereignty Caravan organised and devised by the BKF, BKS and the international peasant farmers’ network La Via Campesina (the peasant way, LVC) (see Routledge, 2015a). In particular, I have developed ongoing work and trust relations with the President of the BKF and some of the key activist cadres who perform important mobilising roles in the process of land occupation. While in Bangladesh, I have travelled with these cadres to land occupation sites; attended organising meetings concerning land occupation with them; and used their English language skills for interpreting some of my interviews with BKF and BKS members. However, I am acutely aware of my privileged positionality as a white, male, able, Western scholar-activist in such contexts, not least the pronounced differences in physical mobility across space, access to resources such as money and technology, ability to leave when I chose to do so and so on, between me and most of those whom I interviewed. As such, the peasants of the BKF and BKS can only, in this chapter, be represented through my contacts’ and my own interpretations (Spivak, 1988).

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CLIMATE JUSTICE AND SPATIAL POLITICS IN BANGLADESH Briefly defined, climate justice positions politics in relation to the unequal and contested geographies of power. Climate justice refers to principles of democratic accountability and participation, ecological sustainability and social justice and their combined ability to provide solutions to climate change. Such a notion focuses on the interrelationships between, and addresses the roots causes of, the social injustice, ecological destruction and economic domination perpetrated by the underlying logics of pro-growth capitalism. In particular, climate justice articulates a rejection of capitalist solutions to climate change (e.g. carbon markets) and foregrounds the uneven and persistent patterns of eco-imperalism and ‘ecological debt’ as a result of the historical legacy of uneven use of fossil fuels and exploitation of raw materials, offshoring, and export of waste (see Martinez-Alier, 2002; Muradian & Martinez-Alier, 2001). Climate justice actions around the world are politicising climate change through making capitalist business-as-usual localisable and contestable. They produce a set of political interventions that can usefully be described as ‘environmentalisms of the poor’ that contest assumptions that environmental alliances and tactics are a middle-class privilege (Martinez-Alier, 2002; see also Featherstone, 2008; Martinez-Alier & Temper, 2007). They generate perspectives that are antithetical to further capital expansion, and develop movements that do not just want to tackle climate change, but also want to challenge the unequal social and environmental relations and carbon emissions that are embedded in the broader crisis of contemporary capitalism. In Bangladesh, climate justice is primarily articulated through practices of land occupation and food sovereignty. Land occupation represents an attempt by poor peasants to adapt to the challenges caused by landlessness and climate change; as a BKF activist told me in 2012: ‘occupation is our response to climate change, since we cannot rely on the government to help the poor adapt’ (interview with BKF activist, Kathmandu, Nepal, 2012). Since 1992, the BKF and BKS have organised landless people to occupy approximately 76,000 acres of khas land across Bangladesh, enabling the distribution of land to more than 107,000 of the poorest men and women living in the countryside (interviews, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2011). Recent work on social movement practices concerning resource scarcity and social justice conceive of territory as the crucial space in which such counter-hegemonic politics are fashioned (Escobar, 2008; Zibechi, 2012). For Zibechi (2010, 2012), territorial control of specific physical spaces by social movements and the attendant securing of resources such as land enables move-

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ment members to meet their own subsistence needs, which in turn enables a dispersal of power from the state and capital. Practices of climate justice politics by the poor are concerned with both material territory (involving struggles over the access, control, use and configuration of environmental resources such as land, soil, water and biodiversity, as well as the physical territory of communities, infrastructure etc.) and immaterial territory (involving struggles over ideas, knowledges, beliefs, conceptions of the world etc.) (see also Bauman, 2003 on the importance of grounded relationships, and Fernandes, 2009 discussed in Rosset and Martinez-Torres, 2012). The claiming of territory through land occupation, and the associated socio-ecological transformations that it potentially prefigures, represents an ethical response to the challenges of climate change. Such an ethics of intervention is both strategic and adaptive: Bangladeshi farmers deploy particular spatial strategies and sites of activist intervention to constitute spaces of climate justice. First, the BKF and BKS make space – they actively shape places (e.g. by physically transforming the character of, or meanings associated with them) as an integral part, or as an outcome of their actions, creating not only sites of resistance, but also places where alternative imaginaries and symbolic challenges can be made ‘real’. Second, the BKF and BKS know their place through an intimate and useable knowledge of the material conditions of (local) places of work, livelihood and home that generate protests and influence the character of those protests. Third, BKF and BKS activists are able to stay mobile – through strategic movements in and across space, particular places are claimed, defended and strategically used in order to make space. Fourth, the BKF and BKS are able to extend their reach, deploying communications strategies to craft and sustain networks of solidarity (Routledge, 2017). Through these spatial strategies, the BKF and BKS are able to create, defend and reconfigure material territory through at least four key sites of intervention. In land occupations in Bangladesh, territory is fashioned into sites of production (that reflect activists’ struggles to maintain or create sovereignty over the means of livelihood); sites of social reproduction (the activities, responsibilities and relationships that enable and resource social movements, the protests in which they are engaged, and the production of operational infrastructures); sites of potential (that seek to stimulate the imagination concerning possible future scenarios about how to live, and attempt to actualise such alternatives ‘on the ground’); and sites of assumption (that attempt to change how people think and feel about particular issues and necessitate challenging underlying beliefs and controlling mythologies) (Routledge, 2017).

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MAKING SPACE: LAND OCCUPATION IN BANGLADESH ‘The sky has gone to bed’ commented a Bangladeshi friend as we trundled by rickshaw down the dirt road from Bhurungamari, in Bangladesh’s northern Kurigram District in August, 2009. Cloud-filled, the silver-grey sky was reflected in the turgid flow of the Dudkumar river. The Monsoon – late, erratic, increasing unpredictable as the climate changes – had finally arrived. The road disappeared beneath a torrent of water. He turned to me and added: ‘Rain comes, then river.’ The inhabitants of the border town, which is located three kilometres from West Bengal in India, sheltered from the rain. Jute rope hung over the bridges, jute sticks were stacked in inverted cones. The green jungle shimmered in the humid heat. I was travelling with activist cadres of the Bangladesh Krishok (farmer) Federation (BKF), the largest rural-based peasant movement in the country, and the Bangladesh Kishani Sabha (Women Farmers’ Association, BKS). We moved through the rain, mud and jungle. We travelled from village to village, and from meeting to meeting, passing river and padi, flooded fields and peasant huts. Rural roads are poorly maintained and bus services are infrequent, making visits by BKF and BKS cadres to villages important organising events. We stayed in the simple homes of the landless peasants and ate fiery fish curry with rice. We drank well water turned muddy red with oxidising iron, and black chai (tea) scented with cloves. The meetings sought to mobilise landless peasants to occupy land, because as one cadre said to me: ‘in Bangladesh we are adapting to climate change – we are dying’ (interview, Jakarta, Indonesia, 2013). First, through knowing their places of livelihood and habitation, local leaders located in rural communities identify possible sites to occupy and communicate this information to the movement leadership in the BKF/BKS office in Dhaka, either through mobile phone conversations or face-to-face meetings held in the capital. For example, sites have been identified and occupations taken place on four islands in the Ganges river delta (occupied since 1992); disused railway land (occupied since 2004); swampland water bodies (occupied since 2012); and land inundated by salt water from cyclonic storm surges (since 1998) (interviews, Bangladesh, 2011–2014). Second, the BKF and BKS deploy a cadre of young activists who stay mobile, moving from village to village together with national and local BKF and BKS leaders, to generate and reinforce relational power within and between village communities in preparation for land occupation. BKF and BKS leaders and cadres nurture the organisational power of landless peasants by establishing a coordination committee who mobilise resources (people, skills, finances), the grievances associated with landlessness, and the political opportunities

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provided by the Land Law to shape what Wendy Wolford (2004) terms the ‘spatial imaginaries’ of peasants: that land is available and they are legally entitled to occupy it. Activist cadres nurture strong ties between people (such as trust and interpretive frames) through ongoing place-based face-to-face meetings with communities to enable the mobilisation of resources and people to take the physical risks of engaging in land occupations (Nicholls, 2009; Wills, 2013). Third, the process of occupation requires an initial politics of intense mobility by peasant farmers through the physical assembly and movement of peasants en masse to secure material territory by occupying it. In the moment of occupation, armed only with their few belongings, peasant families actively make space by occupying it through weight of numbers. The ‘moment’ of land occupation provides the movement with a public presence and helps the development of solidarity between landless peasants. From an initial mobilisation meeting with a landless community to the physical act of occupation takes six to twelve months. At such meetings, peasants are emotionally moved to act by local leaders and activist cadres through the generation and mobilisation of individual and collective senses of injustice, anger, desperation and hope. Emotions and affective relations generated through the process of organising can be mobilised to produce political effects (Bosco, 2007; Hemmings, 2012; Pulido, 2003; Routledge, 2012), as noted by a peasant activist involved in a BKF-organised occupation of a body of water and the adjacent land: The local government has been trying to privatise this commonly owned resource and then allow local elites to colonise it. Cadres from the BKF and BKS released young fish into the water body so that the local poor could fish there. However, the government has attempted to claim it is illegal for locals to use and fish these common waters. They have issued false documents and tenders to local elites in exchange for bribes in order to colonise these resources. This made people very angry. That is why we occupy this water body. (Peasant testimony, Kurigram District, Bangladesh, 2011, quoted in Routledge, 2015b)

After the physical act of occupation, the necessities of maintaining the occupation and securing livelihoods necessitate an engagement with the politics of place. The material resources appropriated by peasants are sought after by rural elites, and as a result land occupation faces a counter-movement as peasants are confronted by the potential of violence and harassment from wealthy landowners and their private armies as well as corrupt district officials from the moment of occupation: ‘Peasant activists are attacked, beaten, burned, jailed, and their homes are burned. That is the reality that we face’ (interview, BKF activist, Rangpur District, Bangladesh, 2009).3 As a result, the BKF

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and BKS develop necessary organising structures drawing on capacities for resourcefulness, particularly medical and legal knowledges and skills: For a successful land occupation, the movement needs a strong occupation committee, whose leaders can withstand attacks by the landlords’ goondas;4 a strong mass mobilization; a medical team who can provide medical treatment to those who suffer physical attacks; and a legal team to fight the legal cases brought by landlords in the local courts in an attempt to stop the occupation. (Interview, Dinajpur District, Bangladesh, 2009, quoted in Routledge, 2015b)

Fourth, to resist physical assault, occupied territory must be defended. Peasants told me that they arm themselves with brooms and chilli powder and arrange signal systems to warn the community of impending attacks (Routledge, 2008). The occupiers establish flag signals for communication relays. During the night, an attack is signalled by a hurricane lamp on top of a bamboo pole. During the day, a white flag signals a small problem, while a red flag signals a goonda attack (interview, Charhadi, Bangladesh, 2002). The BKF and BKS have also stayed mobile by organising the simultaneous occupation of five islands in order to spread landlord and goonda resources thinly across multiple locations. Successful defence of the occupation enables peasants to commence the process of reconfiguring space and power relations, that is, making space. Land occupation constitutes places as sites of social reproduction wherein the gendered agency of women is paramount – logistics of where to sleep, eat, wash and defecate precede the construction of homes, the growing of crops (e.g. rice, vegetables, pulses and fruits) and the sheltering of animals (primarily cows) (interviews, Barguna District, 2009; Bogura District, Bangladesh, 2011). While the BKF and BKS seed land occupation through the collective mobilisation of peasants, day-to-day securing of livelihoods depends on peasant famer knowledge and collective activity. However, land occupation is precarious. In addition to the threat of attack, the initial process of occupation is difficult because of the lack of material resources of poor peasants. Through using membership fees, the BKF provides initial support, as a local leader noted: Then we occupy the land. We build makeshift shelters for the occupying families, and provide food relief until the peasants can sow padi (rice). The peasants must drink river water, and many get sick, until we have dug tube wells. (Interview, Barguna District, Bangladesh, 2009, quoted in Routledge, 2015b)

Through the process of occupation, peasants attempt to construct sites of potential: a movement against the interests of agrarian elites and the state (and market-led agrarian policies) in favour of the production and reproduction

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of family labour and towards more equitable and ecologically sustainable practices. For example, the BKF and BKS argue for the importance of food sovereignty practices, as noted by the President of the BKF, Badrul Alam, at an LVC South Asian regional Conference held in Dhaka in 2008: Food sovereignty means the people’s right to produce and consume culturally appropriate and accepted healthy and adequate food and their right to define their own food and agriculture policy … It prioritises the local and national economy, peasants and family farm based agriculture, based on environmental, social and economic sustainability. (Alam, 2008, p. 4, quoted in Routledge, 2015b)

In such agricultural sites of production, the reconfiguration of power relations (away from the state and capital towards poor peasants) that food sovereignty promises is potentially an important force of momentum for social movements occupying land. While definitions of food sovereignty vary between organisations and activist networks, have changed over time, and contain inconsistencies, common themes have emerged such as direct peasant participation in agrarian reform that includes peasant control over territory, biodiversity (commons) and means of (food) production. Food sovereignty farming practices attempt to repair the dynamic and interdependent process that links society to nature through labour, that has been undermined by the exploitation of socio-nature through capitalist agriculture (Wittman, 2009), and enable peasant communities to both mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change, because of the biological resistance of crops, the recovery capacity of land and the interdependent social dynamics between peasants (Altieri, 2010; La Via Campesina, 2009; Patel, 2009; Rosset et al., 2011; Windfuhr & Jonsen, 2005; Wittman, 2009). Food sovereignty ideas and practices circulate through space – for example, through networks such as LVC to which the BKF and BKS belong – but require consolidation in depth in order to embed them in peasant farming practices (Desmarais, 2007). Moreover, there are frequently socio-economic and cultural constraints vitiating against the adoption of food sovereignty, such as the integration of peasant lives with wider monetised economic activities and changing values and knowledge relating to traditional agriculture (Boyer, 2010; Trauger, 2014).5 Such processes cast into sharp relief the difficulties faced by social movement struggles to constitute territories differently from those dominated by capital or state interests. The politics of place – in particular the precariousness of life in the land occupation sites – necessitates the securing of peasants’ livelihoods and this requires articulation with the state and capital. As Böhm et al. (2010) argue, while attempts to fashion political autonomy struggle against

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capital accumulation and state and development practices, they nevertheless interact with them (see also Baletti et al., 2008). Indeed, food sovereignty has yet to be widely practised in sites of occupation in Bangladesh. This is because the degree of resourcefulness in peasant communities after occupation has taken place is at times limited. Existing societal structures and relations constrain the ability of peasants to exercise agency. For example, the precariousness of peasant livelihoods necessitates an engagement with capital relations in the form of agricultural input markets and credit. Through lack of funds, some BKF and BKS peasants must take loans from local landlords and moneylenders to buy livestock and tools to cultivate the land, which is then repaid in padi (interview, Ganges delta, Bangladesh, 2002). One peasant farmer put it thus: ‘as crops fail, we need to take out loans and get into debt. We have a lack of land, money and recognition’ (interview, Rangpur District, Bangladesh, 2011). Such vulnerabilities are further exacerbated by extreme weather events. In Satkhira District, where 12,000 families have occupied land since 1998, flooding caused by Cyclone Aila in 2009 inundated the land with salt water, necessitating shrimp cultivation as a means of peasant livelihood. As sites of potential, attempts to practise food sovereignty are precarious. In each of the occupations I have visited, everyday life has been an ongoing struggle against dispossession by landlords, the vagaries of the weather (especially as the climate changes) and attempts to fashion sustainable livelihoods under conditions of relative poverty. As one BKS activist told me on the occupied island of Charhadi: On some islands, people have been dispossessed of their land by landlords from the mainland … [D]espite successfully remaining on the island for ten years, people still have no education or health care, and no flood shelters for their cattle when the river floods during the Monsoon. Since the occupation nearly one hundred, mostly children, have died. (quoted in Routledge, 2008, p. 208)

However, despite these hardships and difficulties, the BKF and BKS continue to represent the best chance for landless peasants to transform their lives. Through their occupation of land and the subsequent attempts to fashion sites of production, social reproduction and potential, peasants challenge everyday understandings of landless peasants. As such, land occupations are also sites of assumption: their very existence challenges assumptions that poor farmers can only be understood as passive victims of development and climate change.

EXTENDING THE REACH OF SOLIDARITY Finally, the BKF and BKS have been able to extend their reach. The BKF and BKS participate in a variety of networks that are based upon ‘maps of

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grievance’ (Featherstone, 2003) that developed in response to the threats posed to peasant livelihoods by neoliberal globalisation. These include the Aaht Sangathan (the Eight Organisations, which include migrant labour and indigenous peoples’ organisations) in Bangladesh, and the international peasant farmers’ network La Via Campesina (‘the peasants’ way’ or LVC), the Asia Peasants Coalition, the South Asia Peasants Coalition, and the People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty as well as the Asian Social Forum and World Social Forum processes (interviews, Dhaka, Bangladesh 2009).6 This enables the BKF and BKS to draw upon a more extensive set of material resources, knowledge, skills and organisational structures. Land occupations connect with and generate relations with other social movement struggles within and beyond Bangladesh, which in turn produce political activity that territorialises translocal connections. The BKF and BKS combine various practices of struggle, for example demonstrations, rallies, caravans, to territorialise and translocalise themselves in multiple sites and place ongoing pressure upon governments officials. An action in one place has the potential to empower an action in another place, and such practices of struggle enable the landless peasants to meet each other and forge and reinforce connections, further territorialising land struggles (Davies, 2012). For example, in 2011, the BKF and BKS in alliance with LVC devised and organised a Climate Caravan to educate vulnerable peasant communities engaged in land occupations about food sovereignty and the effects of climate change, and facilitate networking connections in the form of movement-to-movement communication and sharing of experiences and strategies, and in so doing deepen and extend solidarity networks of grassroots movements in South Asia (see Routledge, 2015a). The Climate Caravan embodied a politics of mobility generating place-based encounters and connections between differentially positioned activists. The Caravan comprised three buses containing 80 activists – 55 BKF and BKS activists from various districts in Bangladesh and 25 activists, including a Maoist member of the Nepali government, from various grassroots movements and groups beyond Bangladesh7 – meeting with BKF/BKS-organised peasant and indigenous communities in 18 villages in 12 districts of Northern and Southern Bangladesh, involving a total of approximately three thousand peasant farmers. Activist cadres of the BKF and BKS participated with local movement leaders in mobilising land occupation communities to host the Caravan, organising the food to be eaten on the Caravan and accommodation for the participants prior to the Caravan, and conducting ongoing logistical support during the Caravan (interviews, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2011). For example, during the Caravan I witnessed cadres cooking food for Caravan participants, arranging sleeping quarters and rigging up electricity connections.

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Particular relational encounters fashioned through the political activities of the Caravan, such as workshops, seminars and rallies (but also informal encounters such as during meals and travel on the buses), promoted dialogue, mutual learning, trust and the sharing of informational resources (Barvosa-Carter, 2001). They produced connections through which movement ideas could be diffused or transmitted, regarding grievances, goals of social change, organisational development, strategic assessment and so on (Snow & Benford, 1999). Through such communication, cooperation and coordination with peasant communities the BKF and BKS seek to territorialise the movement both within and beyond the immediate spaces of a particular occupation. Here, the practice of solidarity is at once specific enough to mobilise and empower at specific territories of occupation, and fluid enough to generate common ground between communities nationally and internationally (Katz, 2001). Clearly, differential powers and mobilities are involved in such encounters. There are pronounced differences in physical mobility across space and access to resources (e.g. information, education, time, money, technology) between participants. Poor land-occupying peasants are less resourced than movement activists crossing national borders to participate in the Caravan, national BKF and BKS leaders based in Dhaka, and activist cadres. Some circulate more freely and extensively than others, and are differentially empowered, and these are more than just relational effects that accrue to networking dynamics. There are specific causes of such power relations that reflect class and caste hierarchies within South Asian societies (see Routledge, 2008). The Climate Caravan acted to inform, consolidate and extend territories of occupation in different ways. First, the connections forged as a result of it developed the organisational strength of the BKF and BKS through the increased cohesion between movement members from different districts in the country (interview, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2011). This was facilitated through local leaders and some peasant farmers from different Northern territories of occupation joining the Caravan and in so doing meeting activists from Southern territories of occupation and discussing their experiences during the Caravan’s events. As one BKF activist commented: ‘The Caravan was able to make a bridge between people in the North and South … to facilitate greater mutual understanding’ (interview, Barisal District, 2011). Second, the participation of activists from farmers’ movements from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and the Philippines on the Caravan provided an opportunity for peasants to share experiences from their different movements’ struggles and national contexts; meet with Bangladeshi peasants; explore how they might create bilateral campaigns with the BKF and BKS; fashion joint campaigns with other movements; and take their experiences back to their own countries and struggles (interviews, North and South Bangladesh, 2011). Such connections enabled the translocal diffusion of ideas, tactics, strategies and so

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on between different sites and social actors, bridging cultural and geographic divides (Bandy & Smith, 2005), and facilitated solidarity between movements. As an Indian activist commented: We have formed relationships, deepened networking ties, and we have begun to plan future actions together. I think it was encouraging for communities to see an international presence, and that others care about the problems of people in Bangladesh and want to learn from them. This is solidarity. (Interview, Satkhira District, 2011, quoted in Routledge, 2015a)

ETHICAL POLITICS IN THE ANTHROPOCENE In Bangladesh, the claiming of territory through land occupation by poor landless peasant farmers, and the associated socio-ecological transformations associated with food sovereignty that it potentially prefigures, represents an ethical response to the challenges of climate change. Such an ethics of intervention is both strategic and adaptive. As I have shown, Bangladeshi farmers deploy particular spatial strategies and sites of activist intervention during the process of claiming territory through land occupation. The BKF and BKS articulate a strategic politics of place: they make space, know their place, stay mobile and extend their reach. Their articulation of climate justice necessitates sites of activist intervention that constitute territory in four key ways. First, land occupation constitutes places as sites of social reproduction concerned with the day-to-day securing of livelihoods. Peasant farmers construct homes, build shelters for their animals, make toilet facilities and fashion ways of securing water provision. Second, land occupation constitutes places as sites of production. Farmer’s deploy agricultural knowledge and collective activity to grow crops (such as rice, vegetables and pulses) and manage animals (such as cows and goats). In so doing, farmers attempt to engage in food sovereignty practices. Third, the act of occupation also constitutes places as sites of potential. Land occupation entails a movement against the interests of agrarian elites and the state in favour of the production and reproduction of family labour and towards more equitable and ecologically sustainable practices. Finally, despite the hardships, constraints and precarity faced by peasant farmers, land occupation also constitutes places as sites of assumption. Everyday understandings of landless peasants are challenged, not least those assumptions that poor farmers can only be understood as passive victims of development and climate change. Rather, the agency of farmers is concerned with securing greater control over their lives. Through these sites of intervention an ethical politics of the Anthropocene is suggested, one that is for human dignity and self-determination requiring social movements’ struggles to materialise it.

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NOTES 1. Cyclone Sidr, in 2007, caused 3,500 deaths (Karim & Mimura, 2008). 2. E.g. Equity and Justice Working Group coalition, and the Oxfam-led Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihood. 3. For example, in October 2012, a key local activist leader of the BKF in northern Bangladesh was murdered by a suspected ‘hired hand’ of local elites (personal communication, October 2012). 4. Hired thugs. 5. See also the 2014 Special Issue: Global agrarian transformations Volume 2: Critical perspectives on food sovereignty, Journal of Peasant Studies, 41(6), 911–1268. 6. The BKF and BKS have participated in the Asian Food Sovereignty Climate Caravan (in 2004); in conferences on gender and globalisation (in Dhaka, 2004), and food sovereignty and peasant rights (in Nepal and Bangladesh in 2007); and in a LVC-organised conference in Dhaka, 2008 on climate change and food sovereignty (interviews, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2009). 7. Participation was from India (Andhra Pradesh Vyavasaya Vruthidarula Union; Karnataka State Farmer’s Association; Institute for Motivating Self-Employment), Nepal (All Nepal Peasants’ Federation; All Nepal Peasants’ Federation (Revolutionary); All Nepal Women’s Association; General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions; Jagaran Nepal), Pakistan (Anjuman Muzareen Punjab [Tenants Association Punjab]), Sri Lanka (Movement for National Land and Agricultural Reform; National Socialist Party) and the Philippines (Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas [KMP, Peasant Movement of the Philippines]), as well as activists from La Via Campesina (South Asia), the UK, Germany and Australia.

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Routledge, P. (2003). Convergence space: Process geographies of grassroots globalization networks. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 28(3), 333–349. Routledge, P. (2008). Acting in the network: ANT and the politics of generating associations. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 26(2), 199–217. https://​ doi​.org/​10​.1068/​d001p. Routledge, P. (2012). Sensuous solidarities: Emotion, politics and performance in the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army. Antipode, 44(2), 428–452. https://​doi​ .org/​10​.1111/​j​.1467​-8330​.2010​.00862​.x. Routledge, P. (2015a). Engendering Gramsci: Gender, the philosophy of praxis, and spaces of encounter in the climate caravan, Bangladesh. Antipode, 47(5), 1321–1345. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1111/​anti​.12145. Routledge, P. (2015b). Territorializing movement: The politics of land occupation in Bangladesh. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 40(4), 445–463. Routledge, P. (2017). Space invaders: Radical geographies of protest. Pluto Press. Seabrook, J. (2013). In the city of hunger: Barisal, Bangladesh. Race and Class, 51(4), 39–58. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​0306396810363047. Snow, D. A., & Benford, R. D. (1999). Alternative types of cross-national diffusion in the social movement arena. In D. della Porta, H. Kriesi & D. Rucht (Eds), Social movements in a globalizing world (pp. 23‒39). St. Martin’s Press. Spivak, G. C. (1988). Can the subaltern speak? In C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (Eds), Marxism and the interpretation of culture (pp. 271‒313). University of Illinois Press. Trauger, A. (2014). Toward a political geography of food sovereignty: Transforming territory, exchange and power in the liberal sovereign state. Journal of Peasant Studies, 41(6), 1131–1152. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​03066150​.2014​.937339. Wills, J. (2013). Place and politics. In D. Featherstone & J. Painter (Eds), Spatial politics: Essays for Doreen Massey (pp. 135‒145). John Wiley & Sons. Windfuhr, M., & Jonsen, J. (2005). Food sovereignty: Towards democracy in localised food systems. Rugby ITDG Publishing. Wittman, H. (2009). Reworking the metabolic rift: La Vía Campesina, agrarian citizenship, and food sovereignty. Journal of Peasant Studies, 36(4), 805‒826. https://​doi​ .org/​10​.1080/​03066150903353991. Wolford, W. (2004). This land is ours now: Spatial imaginaries and the struggle for land in Brazil. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 94(2), 409–424. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1111/​j​.1467​-8306​.2004​.09402015​.x. Zibechi, R. (2010). Dispersing power: Social movements as anti-state forces. AK Press. Zibechi, R. (2012). Territories in resistance: A cartography of Latin American social movements. AK Press.

7. Between extractivism and sacredness: the struggle for environmental inheritances by the Adivasi communities of India Arpita Bisht INTRODUCTION1 The Adivasis (indigenous people) of India, with over 104 million people (Census of India, 2011), are a unique group characterized by a culture and way of living deeply embedded within local ecosystems around them. Adivasi communities often depend upon local ecosystems not only for their livelihood sustenance, but also for their cultural identity, social structure and governance regimes (Nayak, 2010). Many Adivasi communities have a cosmovision of the nature surrounding them, which is distinctly different from the dominant view of nature as a source of monetary value. To them nature has a value in itself. It is an inheritance to be transferred to future generations, the source of their cultural and physical sustenance, a nurturing entity to be protected, and in many cases a form of God thus holding sacred value. As such, the exploration of the Adivasi culture potentially offers an alternative to the techno-growth centric models of sustainable development and green growth by re-introducing deep structural changes in the very perception of ecosystems. In recognition of this, the Indian constitution grants regions with predominantly Adivasi populations special status, with a different set of rights over nature including cultural and inherited rights to local ecosystems, and a substantial degree of autonomy in self-governance (Guha, 2007). However, since they typically reside within densely forested regions, which are also regions with the presence of major minerals, Adivasi people face significant environmental injustices related to growth-centric projects (Bhushan, 2008; Guha, 2007). Adivasis, who make up only 8 per cent of the Indian population, represent close to 55 per cent of the total number of people dispossessed of their land due to development-related projects (Singh, 2015). As such, they are often engaged in defensive social resistances against environmental injustice, often against large extractive 124

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agents. In many incidences, Adivasi resistance movements have been successful in altering patterns of extractivism, or in introducing new legislation in recognition of the rights of indigenous people to forests and ecosystems. In this chapter, I identify and analyse such cases of ecological distribution conflicts (EDCs) over mineral extraction in India. These EDCs are dispersed and small-scale movements in defence of cultural and sacred spaces by Adivasis against mineral extractivism, which is often controlled by economically and politically powerful actors. Major reasons for resistance movements are explored and contextualized against written and oral cultural traditions of co-dependence of forests and human communities. Specific attention has been given to the sacredness of spaces, which are often invaded when mineral extraction spreads to new geographies, and an analysis of how and why people resist the desecration of sacred spaces has been presented. Social resistance movements are indicative of grievances which have gone unacknowledged or are ineffectively addressed by the relevant medium of authority such as the state. Such movements commonly tend to be defensive actions employed by marginalized people in order to protest against a wide range of deprivations, perceived injustice, and threat to survival or identity. These movements can serve as powerful mediators of social transformation and are representative of efforts to ‘assert justice, equality, dignity and rights’ (Shah, 2011). They are an attempt made, through collective action, to ‘mobilize social power appealing to morality, justice, survival and identity’ (Fuentes & Frank, 1989). Here, a social movement is taken to be the mobilization of a group of citizens that endeavours to effect some form of institutional change. The study and examination of such EDCs and subaltern social and environmental justice movements also has implications for greater democratic inclusion of marginalized communities in policy processes. Furthermore, analysis of such social and environmental justice movements, and the solutions that these movements themselves offer, can lead to the development of a better understanding of how peaceful co-existence between communities and ecosystems can be achieved. These solutions can potentially provide socioeconomically and politically bottom-up and decentralized solutions which are likely to be more effective at redressing environmental and social injustices than the predominant centralized, top-down technocratic and capital-heavy approaches to environmental conservation. Thus, such explorations can present new pathways towards achieving the goal of peaceful co-existence between indigenous peoples, ecosystems and the larger national population. I begin this chapter by laying down the conceptual foundations of extractivism, environmental injustices and EDCs, and by examining the linkages between the three. I then explore the linkages between the geographical location of forests, deposits of minerals and Adivasi settlements in India. Next, I present the documentation and analysis of EDCs related to mineral

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extraction, which have involved the defence of ecosystems and environmental inheritances by Adivasi communities across India. Following this, I present a deeper analysis of the sacredness of ecosystems, and potential desecration thereof, as causes of conflict generation. Finally, I propose some first ideas of post-extractive interventions that can be implemented in order to minimize the potential of such conflicts at resource peripheries in India.

EXTRACTIVISM, ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE AND ECOLOGICAL DISTRIBUTION CONFLICTS Extractivism refers to the process of human appropriation of natural resources at rates beyond the regenerative capacities of natural systems primarily for the purpose of export (Svampa, 2013). The appropriation of non-renewable resources such as coal, oil and minerals for the purpose of export are included here because of their inherent non-renewability in reference to a meaningful timeline for human use. However, extractivism can also include activities which have been practised by human society, and at small scales, and slower rates allow for renewability of ecosystem services through natural cycles. These extractivisms include large-scale monocultural agriculture and industrial tree plantations, harvesting aquatic biodiversity through large-scale trawling, and large hydro projects (Gonzáles, 2015; Gerber, 2011; Temper et al., 2015). Owing to the generation of non-renewability and continual depletion of the natural resource base, extractive industries at specific locations are inherently self-diminishing with regard to the availability of resources at existing sites of extraction (Bunker, 1984). As such, increasing resource requirements require the continual expansion of extractivism. The overall increase in total global resource appropriation has been made possible through such a combination of intensification of operations in existing locations of extraction, or expansion of frontiers of commodity extraction to new geospatial locations2 (Bunker, 1984). At least four key characteristics of extractive industries are of particular relevance in the context of environmental, social and economic injustices shifted onto local and often marginalized communities within India. First, since extractivism often occurs at large scales, it typically involves powerful actors that can afford inputs of high capital and energy into the appropriation of resources. This can introduce asymmetric power dynamics in spaces of commodity extraction (Bunker, 1984; Svampa, 2013). Second, extractive industries result in large-scale ecological degradation and the generation of negative environmental externalities. Given the asymmetric dynamics of agents of extractivism and local populations, cost-shifting onto local people is frequent (Harvey, 2005). Third, since the products of extractive industries often feed into national or global markets and are controlled by powerful actors, the value of natural resources as well as the products thereof are often

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not proportionately accrued by local populations. Lastly, extractive industries are often characterized by monoproductive systems. This leads to a lack of incentives and opportunities for diversification of the local economic system. Given the self-depleting nature of extractive industries, local populations, even if they are deriving benefits from and are well integrated into extractive ecosystems, can no longer sustain themselves socioeconomically if the industry shifts to other geospatial locations (Bunker, 1984; Svampa, 2013). As such, extractivism can often transform into what Gudynas (2013) has called ‘predatory extractivism’ – a process whereby extractive activities generate considerable social and environmental impacts and costs are externalized onto local populations. Given these characteristics of extractivism, and given the need for continual expansion of commodity frontiers, extractivism is highly likely to generate environmental injustices, deprive people access to environmental inheritances, and result in infringement upon rights to ecosystems (Martinez-Alier, 2002). Furthermore, there are issues of cost shifting the burden of pollution, disproportionate imposition of environmental risks, and disproportionate acquisition of the wealth of natural resource appropriation. Such environmental injustices frequently lead to conflicts between agents of extractivism and sufferers of environmental injustices. These conflicts which arise of out altering patterns of access to natural resources are referred to as ecological distribution conflicts (EDCs) (Martinez-Alier, 2002). These EDCs or resistance movements are a defence against encroachment upon ecosystems, lands and natural resources by local people. The identification and analysis of such movements allows for the examination of cultural, livelihood-based, environmental justice as well as social justice aspects of environmentalism.

FORESTS, ADIVASIS AND EDCS IN INDIA In India, locations of important deposits of minerals often coincide with dense forests (Bhushan, 2008). For instance, among the 50 major mineral producing districts of the country, the total forest cover stands at 11,890,400 hectares, which accounts for almost 18 per cent of the total forest cover in the country. These 50 districts have an average forest cover of 28 per cent, with 31 having forest cover higher than the national average, and six of them having over 50 per cent forest cover. For example, the two mining districts of Goa, with over a hundred mining leases in each, have 51 per cent and 65 per cent forest cover each. The district of Korba – the largest producer of coal in the country – in Chhattisgarh has 51 per cent forest cover (Bhushan, 2008). Forests provide access to life and livelihood sustaining ecosystems for a large section of India’s rural, Adivasi and income poor population, thus

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making the destruction of forests an existential threat to them (Sukhdev et al., 2010). In many cases tribal communities inhabit such dense forest areas.3 Given the location of mineral deposits, the largest number of people affected by mining projects tend to be Adivasis – many of whom have cultural and traditional connections with the land and the ecosystems they inhabit. In recognition of the historical location of Adivasi people, and in order to protect and safeguard these, the Indian constitution has several provisions such as the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA),4 the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006, commonly known as the Forest Rights Act (FRA),5 and Schedule V and VI6 of the Constitution of India. To these communities, the destruction of local ecosystems represents a form of loss of their social and cultural roots. This includes Tribals, and Primitive Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PTGs) – communities that have lived within the forests and are highly dependent upon them for a variety of needs. One specific example is that of Odisha. The state of Odisha is one of India’s largest producers of metals. It has the most diverse metallic mineral portfolio in the country, some of the largest deposits/reserves, and is one of the largest producers/ extractors. In terms of reserves, of the total reserves in India it accounts for 94 per cent of chromite, 92 per cent of nickel, 69 per cent of cobalt, 52 per cent of bauxite, 44 per cent of manganese and 33 per cent of iron ore (hematite). In terms of production, it accounts for the largest share of production/extraction of bauxite, chromite, graphite, manganese ore and iron ore. Cobalt and nickel reserves are not currently extracted, but give its reserves, Odisha is likely to also be the largest producer of these minerals too if extraction begins. Close to 22 per cent of the total population – belonging to Adivasi (aboriginal), Vanabasi (forest dweller) and Girijana (mountain dweller) communities (Nayak, 2010). Of the 74 PTGs recognized in India to date, 13 PTGs are located within Odisha. The lives and livelihoods of the PTGs are still very closely intertwined with the local forests. The biotic and abiotic components of the local forest serve as a source of fulfilment of the ‘socioeconomic, bio-social, religio-cultural, and psycho-social needs’ of the PTGs (Nayak, 2010). Produce from forests is used during birth, cultural gatherings, spiritual activity, marriage, illness and death. For example, among other uses of forest produce, the Santhal tribe in West Bengal uses the wood of Sal in house construction and during marriage and death; the dry leaf of Sal as fuel; the flower of Sal during festivals; the seed of the Sal for oil extraction; the fruit of the Mahua for liquor production; the flower of the Mahua for food and for marriage ceremonies; the bodies of mushrooms for food consumption and for making brooms; and the Alkushi, Babla and Bichhuti for spiritual activity and for various ethno-medicinal uses7 (Saha & Sengupta, 2014). As such, when a forest or a hill is destroyed in order

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129

to provide space for extractivism, the impacts often extend far beyond what is, or can be, compensated for purely by money.

EDCS AGAINST MINERAL EXTRACTIVISM INVOLVING ADIVASI COMMUNITIES The following table presents a list of EDCs against mineral extractivism, which have involved the active participation of Adivasi communities across different regions and against different types of minerals in India. Of the 27 documented cases, 33 per cent were related to iron ore mining, 19 per cent to bauxite mining, 7 per cent to mining of other metallic minerals, 26 per cent to sand mining and 15 per cent to mining of other non-metallic minerals. At least 56 per cent of cases involved mining by private agencies, 30 per cent involved illegal extraction and 22 per cent were related to proposed mines. In at least 33 per cent of cases, some form of local organization was formed, whereas in at least 15 per cent of cases a national- or international-level non-governmental organization (NGO) was found to be involved. At least 26 per cent of the total identified cases involved some form of cultural reason for protest, while in at least 15 per cent of cases damage to property was cited as cause of protest, and in at least 85 per cent of conflicts livelihood concerns were mentioned. In at least 15 per cent of cases impacts on wildlife, in at least 37 per cent deforestation, in at least 56 per cent pollution, and in at least 56 per cent access to water was cited as a reason of protest. Given that these movements are often organized by socioeconomically weak, marginalized Adivasi communities, they also represent what Martinez-Alier (2002) refers to as a environmentalism of the poor – a form of environmentalism where indigenous peoples across different places in the world mobilize, resist and defend their local ecosystems and livelihoods thus contributing towards environmental preservation and conservation. Although it is challenging to determine the precise periods of time during which each of the above-mentioned conflicts occurred, I have nevertheless been able to conclude that several of these movements were spread over significantly long time periods. Of the analysed conflicts, all have lasted over one year. Of these, 14, that is, 52 per cent, have lasted over at least five years, and nine, that is, 33 per cent, have lasted over at least ten years. At least 59 per cent of cases involved some form of violence against protesters, whereas death was involved in at least 19 per cent of the cases. For instance, in the iron ore mining conflict in Gadchiroli in Madhya Pradesh – which has lasted for at least ten years – there have been many instances of harassment and intimidation, as well as illegal detainment and arrests by the state police and paramilitary forces. There have also been instances of deaths of local Adivasi men and women who have been branded as ‘Naxals’,9 and

2012–2016

West Godavari

1999 2008–2015

General

Pampa River

2004

Ahmedabad

X

X

Other metallic minerals

Kerala

2013

2007–2017

Cavrem and Quepem

X X

X

X

X

Sand

Tapi

2011 2010–2016

Cavrem

Sattari

X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Illegal extraction

Gujarat

2009–2017 2007–2008

Rowghat

Bicholim

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X X

X

Deforestation

X

X

X

X

Impacts on wildlife

Goa

Iron ore X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Economic

X

X

Cultural

2008–2017

Bauxite X

Private companies X

Access to water

X

Ecological

Reasons for protest

Livelihood

X

Mining agency

X

X

X*

X

Local organizations (* NGOs)

Dantewada

Type of mineral

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X*

X

of activists, or murders (*)

Chhattisgarh

2007–2017

Jerella, Vishakapatnam

Andhra Pradesh

duration

conflict

Minimum

Location

EDCs against mineral extractivism involving Adivasi communities (1992–2017)8

State

Table 7.1 Involving violence, mafia, repression

Damage to property

Pollution (air, water, soil)

Proposed mining leases

Other non-metallic minerals

2009

The Hindu,

PIO, 1999

TOA, 2004

2013

Counterview,

De Souza, 2015

De Souza, 2015

De Souza, 2015

De Souza, 2015

Bisht, 2016e

Bisht, 2016a

Chronicle, 2016

Deccan

2008

BusinessLine,

References

130 Ethics and politics of space for the Anthropocene

2014–2017 2007–2017

Badwani

Gadchiroli

Madhya Pradesh

Kodilipet

hills

Kavyuthi-Veddiyappan

Tiruvannamalai

2013

Sambalpur

2009–2012

2005–2016

2013–2014

2005–2016

Rayagada, Kalahandi

Ugryawas, Jaipur

1993–2017

Kashipur

Rajasthan

2013–2015 2006–2017

X

X

X

X

Bauxite

Koraput

X

X

X

Other non-metallic minerals X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Impacts on wildlife

Mayurbhanj

2005–2017

Iron ore

Kandhadhar, Sundergarh

X

Other metallic minerals

2008–2014

Private companies

2005–2016

X

Deforestation

Ukhrul

x

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Economic

X

X

X

X

X

Cultural

Kamanda

Sand X

Illegal extraction

X

Access to water

X

Ecological

Reasons for protest

Livelihood

X

Mining agency

X

X*

X

X*

X*

Local organizations (* NGOs)

Manipur

Type of mineral

X

X

X*

X*

X*

of activists, or murders (*)

Odisha

duration

conflict

Minimum

Location

State Involving violence, mafia, repression

Damage to property

Pollution (air, water, soil)

Proposed mining leases 2009

Deccan Herald,

Bisht, 2016c

TOI, 2013b

TOI, 2013a

Sahu, 2008

Roy 2019

Goodland, 2007;

Bisht, 2016c

TOI, 2014

YTLNTM, 2016

LCW, 2016

Varah, 2014

Bisht, 2016d

Sabrang, 2017

References

The struggle for environmental inheritances by the Adivasi communities of India 131

7

Cultural

4

(15)

59 (19) 15 85

23 4

15 37

10 15

56 56

15 6

22 30

8 15

56 15

4 2 9

33

2008–2010

2002

Birbhum

Burdwan

duration

West Bengal

Iron ore

Total

5

Bauxite

conflict

Minimum

7

X

Other metallic minerals

Location

Type of mineral

Sand

Percentages

Other non-metallic minerals

X

Private companies

X

Illegal extraction

X

Mining agency

Proposed mining leases

26

X X

Access to water

X

Ecological

Pollution (air, water, soil)

7

Deforestation

19

X X

Livelihood

X

Economic

Damage to property

Impacts on wildlife Reasons for protest

16 (5) 9 (4)

Local organizations (* NGOs)

33

X*

of activists, or murders (*)

X

Involving violence, mafia, repression

26

Tehelka, 2010

References

TEL, 2002

Ethics and politics of space for the Anthropocene

State

132

The struggle for environmental inheritances by the Adivasi communities of India

133

rapes of many local women. Moreover, there are also cases of Naxals inflicting violence, through intimidation and harassment of local Adivasis, and through more direct attacks on members of the CRPF (Central Reserve Police Forces) and on extractive actors. For example, in 2012, in an attack by the Naxals, two representatives of the mining company, including the Vice-President, were killed. Apart from this, there have been various injuries and deaths of Adivasis, state police and paramilitary police, as well as Naxals (Bisht, 2016d). In the cases of social resistance movements over mineral extraction in India which have been explored here, five broad outcomes can be identified. First, the cases where social resistance has been unable to either stop or have a negative impact on the presence or the activities of extractive industries projects. Such a situation can be identified in the cases of sand mining across the country. Second, there are several cases where resistance is currently ongoing, and there is no final outcome yet. This is the case of the difficult and contentious anti-extractive movements surrounding the issue of mining in Saranda forests in Jharkhand, and the Lloyd Steels mine in Madhya Pradesh (Bisht, 2016b, 2016d). Third, the cases where resistance has resulted in direct success – complete withdrawal of the extractive industries project in the approval stages, prior to any ecological, social or cultural externalities being generated. A pertinent example is the well-known case of Vedanta’s bauxite mining project in the Niyamgiri hills in Odisha. Fourth, there are cases of partial success where resistance has resulted in a legal decision seeking to stop (or actually managing to stop) extractive activities. An example of this is the case of iron ore mining in the Kavuthi-Vediyappan hills in Tamil Nadu. Finally, another category of partial success consists of the cases where resistance movements have resulted in some form of temporary suspension of extractive activities. One prominent example of this is the Supreme Court-imposed provisional blanket ban on iron ore extraction in Goa 2012. Even if social resistance movements are unsuccessful in completely preventing mining operations, they help by introducing the issues into the local or national discourse, and help raise awareness of the social and environmental injustices suffered by local communities. There are various features of predatory extractivism present at these locations in India. The value of minerals is often transferred outside the regions of extraction, or to locally powerful actors. Additionally, environmental and social externalities are often borne by local communities. Environmental externalities include dust from mining operations, drying up of rivers, pollution of surface waters with mining waste, reduction of agricultural productivity, noise pollution from trucks transporting minerals, damage to property from dynamite blasts, and so on. Social externalities include the breaking of social and communitarian bonds, separation of extended families during displacement and relocation, and the introduction of anti-social elements into society. This has been evidenced in many cases, and includes, for instance,

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Ethics and politics of space for the Anthropocene

mining mafia. Social life is also disrupted by threats, harassment and intimidation by either the mining mafia or state and paramilitary police, as well as by Naxals. One of the most significant issues with regard to disturbance of daily social life is the Naxal–State conflict within regions of extractivism. Further, detailed examples are provided in the next section.

SACREDNESS AS A DRIVING FORCE BEHIND SOCIAL RESISTANCE Sacredness has been a driving force in ecological protection movements in various cases of EDCs against unsustainable extractivism in India. Many of these are cases where destruction, or potential destruction, of sacred spaces such as forests, or hills which are considered an abode of God, is the direct cause of resistance. For instance, in the case of the proposed iron ore mining operations in Gadchiroli, Madhya Pradesh, a social resistance movement has been going on for at least ten years. Apart from issues of dispossession and displacement, loss of livelihood, and exposure to negative environmental externalities, an important factor is the sacredness of the shrine of Thakurdeo – the God of Gods to the Madia Gond community. This would be destroyed in the proposed mining operations. The Surjagad mountain ranges, which houses Thakurdeo, is the location where people from over 500 neighbouring villages gather every year for celebrations. The destruction of this would hamper cultural interaction between different villages, disturb traditional practices, and result in the inability to organize festivals and so on. Another example is that of the ongoing and further proposed expansion of iron ore mines within the Saranda forests in Jharkhand (Bisht, 2016b). Social resistance within the forests has been going on for at least 12 years. The core area of these forests is also the ancestral home of about 56 villages (Bisht, 2016d), with close to 36,000 people, largely belonging to the Ho and Mundi Adivasis. Over the past several centuries that the tribes have inhabited this area, they have lived sustainably within the forests and played a key role in the maintenance and protection of them (Bera, 2012). Given the long history of close association between the forests and the tribes, the ecology of the forests is closely intertwined with cultural, traditional and spiritual aspects of the lives of the tribes. This integration is so strong that the importance of forests extends from birth to death, with the custom in the Ho community being that burials are required to be conducted under the shade of trees within the Saranda forests (Bisht, 2016b). It is believed that the soul of members of these communities can only attain peace when the burial is conducted under the shade of Saranda trees. Given the potential large-scale destruction of these sacred trees, in an interview a local tribal stated: ‘I just hope they leave some forests for our graves’ (Bera, 2012). The famous case of the 11-year resistance movement against bauxite mining operations in the Niyamgiri range of Odisha is yet another example

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of the significance of nature to Adivasi communities. The Niyamgiri mountains – which possess large deposits of bauxite – are also rich in biodiversity, and have deep religious significance to local communities. Moreover, they are the primary source of livelihood for local communities. The range also houses a migration corridor of elephants, is a part of the territory of the Royal Bengal Tiger, and is home to several diverse species of vulnerable flora and fauna as well as the source of the Vamsadhara river (Sahu, 2008; WP, 2011). Over 8,000 members of the Dongria Kondh tribe inhabit these hills and are dependent on the ecosystem for their livelihood needs. These tribes have resided here for at least 200 years, and have been practising subsistence livelihoods through agriculture, fishing, hunting and gathering (Sahu, 2008). The local Adivasis believe the Niyamgiri hills to be the abode of their primary deity ‘Niyam raja Penu’, and the hills have immense cultural and traditional significance for members of the Dongria and Kutia Kond tribes (Sahu, 2008). Owing to the proposal for a bauxite mine in the region in 2003, a long struggle for the preservation of the Niyamgiri hills by the local tribal people emerged. The case won national and international interest. Eventually, a committee set up by the Ministry of Environment and Forests headed by Dr N.C. Saxena stated that under the Forest Rights Act, the local tribes had rights to cultural and religious practices. Based upon the recommendations of this committee, in 2013 the Supreme Court of India ordered 12 village councils in the area to hold a referendum deciding whether mining should be allowed. The 12 Gram Sabhas unanimously rejected mining in the hills (WP, 2011). After over a decade of persistent protest by the Dongria Khonds, and through backing from members of civil society and urban intellectuals, the prospect of mining in these sacred hills was finally dismissed in 2013. Another example is that of the Kavuthi-Vediyappan hills of Tiruvannamalai region, which have high religious significance. In Tamil literature dating back to the 7th century, these hills have been considered to be an abode of gods. Every year, local villagers along with thousands of devotees from across the country undertake a parikrama10 of over one kilometre around the Tiruvannamalai hills. The proposed mine in this case was to be located at a distance of less than eight kilometres from the parikrama path along the foothills of the holy mountain – the giri valam (Bisht, 2016c). As a result of the resistance movement, a High Court bench in 2015 banned any iron ore mining operations in the hills. Goa is yet another example of conflicts which involve desecration of sacred spaces by extractive mining operations. The Paik dev – or the warrior god – is believed to reside in Paik’s dongor11 (Borkar, 2006). A long-running resistance movement in the region was centred on the destruction of the Paik’s dongor and the waterfall which emerged from the hill. Owing to iron ore mining operations, over half of the hill was eventually destroyed. The resistance movement involved community members, including an 85-year-old woman in a wheelchair, physically guarding

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Ethics and politics of space for the Anthropocene

the route to the hill in order to prevent ore transport, and eventually courting arrest (De Souza, 2015). These cases are just a small representation of the importance of sacredness of local ecosystems as a causal factor in driving social mobilization against extractivism. Further analysis could potentially reveal many more such cases.

FRAMING THE DIALOGUE FOR A POST-EXTRACTIVE FRAMEWORK IN INDIA The ideas of post-growth12 and post-extractivism emerge from the same basic principle of rejecting the idea of the absolute necessity of economic growth as the only means to achieve human well-being and socioeconomic progress. Whereas post-growth is a broader paradigm, post-extractivism focuses on the specific logic of expanding extractivism – often for the purpose of trade – as a means of increasing economic growth and, in turn, translating this growth to broader socioeconomic progress. By introducing this alternative dialogue, post-extractivism offers a platform for moving away from the dominant paradigm which calls for the export of primary commodities or raw materials (Hollender, 2015) to achieve growth. As such, post-growth and post-extractivism represent two different streams of the same ‘cultural transformation’ – a transformation away from a hegemonic neoliberal mode of production, distribution, consumption and society (Acosta, 2016). Post-extractivism recommends neither a ban on, nor or a sudden termination of, all extractive industries or activities. Rather, it calls for ‘a substantial downsizing whereby the only ones left are those that are genuinely necessary [and] meet social and environmental conditions’ (Gudynas, 2013, p. 175). Post-extractivism originated in Latin America as a response to the large-scale extractive operations that the region has witnessed over the past few decades. Traditionally, Latin American perspectives on post-growth and post-extractivism are founded upon indigenous cultures, which are similar in principle to those of the Adivasi cultures, traditions, cosmovisions and livelihoods.13 It is important to note that there are significant differences between the two in terms of political economy and political regimes, sizes of economies, trade relationships and processes of extractivism. As such, although the broader conceptual framework of post-extractivism still applies, it needs to be adapted to the Indian context. For instance, in the context of Latin America, post-extractivism requires that the ‘global export orientation is reduced to a minimum, and the trade in these products concentrates mainly on continental markets’ (Gudynas, 2013, p. 173). In the case of India, this is a condition that already exists, with most trade being concentrated within the country. Instead, in India, the major issue is that of an ‘internal colonialism’, wherein certain states and regions with higher political and economic clout are net importers of raw materials at low prices from socioeconomically weaker states, especially from districts

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which have higher concentrations of indigenous communities. However, despite the differences in specificities, there are similarities in the overall processes and modalities of extractivism. As evidenced by a general comparison of cases across Africa (Hargreaves, 2016), Latin America (Svampa, 2013) and India, and following the theoretical underpinnings of the dynamics of extractivism, several similarities can be identified across extractive frontiers in India. These include, among others, power asymmetries, large-scale ecological degradation, cost shifting of ecological and social externalities, and generation of monoproductive economic systems. For the various currents of convergence on, and points of divergence against, extractive theories emerging out of Latin America and Africa, the extractivism in India needs to be analysed against both local and national scales as well as within specific political, economic and social contexts. Most recent academic literature on post-growth thinking over the past few decades has emerged from the Global North. However, post-growth thinking has been developed – without utilization of the specific terminology – in the works of various scholars in India (and elsewhere in the ‘Global South’), sometimes dating to more than a century ago. In India, there is a vast body of literature which has yet to be explored in the context of framing the dialogue for post-growth-based socioeconomic progress of resource peripheries where extractivism has generated much conflict, and which can inform a post-extractive narrative for India. In this section I will discuss some such literature. Thoughts on alternative socioeconomic frameworks can found in works dating back to pre-independent India, including in the writings of authors such as Rabindranath Tagore, Sarvapallei Radhakrishnan, J. C. Kumarappa, M. K. Gandhi and Radhakamal Mukherjee. Post-growth thinking can also found in the writings of various contemporary scholars such as Kanchan Chopra, Deepak Malghan, Ramachandra Guha, Madhav Gadgil, Vandana Shiva, Debal Deb, Ashish Kothari and Aseem Shrivastava. Beyond the broader growth and development related critique, which fits into a post-growth framework, there is also a body of work by contemporary authors in India that fits into a post-extractive framework. Whereas post-extractivism has its academic foundations in Latin America, there are numerous researchers, activists, members of civil society and people living at the frontiers of resource extraction who can be seen as representing post-extractive thinking in India. The body of literature which could broadly be classified as post-extractive is largely limited to critique of extractivism.14 A second important body of literature is that written by people who have been living in or around commodity frontiers and have seen, first-hand, the impacts of extractivism on local communities, ecosystems and cultures.15 In light of the presence of predatory extractivism at resource peripheries in India, and based upon previous scholarly work, I propose below a first attempt at building a narrative towards post-extractivism, which could lead to a peaceful

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Ethics and politics of space for the Anthropocene

co-existence. The proposed six-point framework is not exhaustive, but only indicative of the pathway to peaceful co-existence between local communities, the state and extractive agents operating in traditionally inhabited regions. 1.

Identification of Resource Peripheries

The first step consists in acknowledging the existence of resources peripheries. Resource peripheries are regions that are tied to the national and/or global markets through economic linkages involving raw materials. These are regions that are rich in resources and serve as sources of supply of primary commodities and raw materials. Whereas research has indicated that such resource peripheries exist within India, further work needs to be done in order to conceptualize and identify such regions all across the country. Resource peripheries can be dynamic in nature, as resources extraction is a response to market demands in regions outside of the peripheries. This has been evidenced in the case of sand mining in India, which has historically been conducted in small amounts, but grew manifold due to the construction boom in the past two decades. The establishment of a database identifying such regions would serve as a repository of information to enable the efficient implementation of the different policies proposed below. One way in which such a database can be created is by maintaining a social media based ‘live’ database where the citizens involved could list potential areas that could be identified as resource peripheries. Such a programme could potentially be initiated by either national, state-level government bodies, or by international, or national-level NGOs. 2.

Documentation of Cultural, Religious and Other Non-Use Values of Local Ecosystems

The second step consists in understanding what is being threatened or destroyed. Given the socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds of people residing at current and potential resource peripheries, and the deep ecological interlinkages that have been identified on the basis of case studies, it is essential to develop a deeper understanding of the various non-monetary values that ecosystems have for local communities. Such an exercise could potentially include the identification of sacred spaces – such as groves, meadows, trees, flowers, animals and their associated habitats, and water bodies – as well as other culturally or spiritually important sites of birth, marriage, burial or festivities and so on. One example is that of the Ho and Mund Adivasis residing within the Saranda forests of Jharkhand. These communities hold the belief that in order to attain peace in the afterlife, it essential for their dead to be buried under the shade of the trees of the Saranda forest (Bera, 2012). Many communities across India consider sacred groves to be significant to their

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culture. One example is the sacred groves in Goa (Borkar, 2006). In other cases, ties to local hills or mountains are so deeply intertwined with cultural practices, beliefs and traditions that the loss of these sacred spaces results in a loss of their very culture and identity. As an example, this deep cultural and spatial loss, and disenfranchisement from their sense of place, was what was under threat in the case of the destruction of the Niyamgiri hills (Temper & Martinez-Alier, 2013). Potentially, many more such forms of non-monetary valuations can be discovered from developing a more nuanced understanding of these regions. However, there are limitations to secondary literature here, since much of this knowledge might not be in textual form. As such, there is a need to collect information through oral history and other forms of non-written communication. 3.

Assessment of Local Needs

The post-growth framework focuses on sufficiency and needs rather than on excesses and luxuries. Extractive industries are often established on the pretext of bringing development to ‘backward’ regions, without thorough consideration of what the needs of local residents actually are. As such, careful examination needs to be carried out as to what the needs of local communities are prior to the establishment of extractive industries. This includes, but is not limited to, assessing energy needs, employment needs, healthcare needs and infrastructure needs for these regions through a transparent process, and through participatory dialogue with local residents. For instance, as has been observed in various cases related to large hydro projects, the energy generated is many times in excess of needs. Eventually, this energy is either sold off to other states or to extractive or manufacturing industries nearby, often leaving local communities still deprived of energy needs (Padel & Das, 2010). This is also the case with employment. Whereas employment within extractive industries is promised to local people, there are various issues with the manner in which people are employed (Bisht, 2018). More often than not, employment opportunities for local people are (a) in very small numbers, since most mines are highly mechanized; (b) in manual and labour-intensive jobs, which are both physically taxing and do not enhance the skill set of workers; (c) in daily wage contractual or sub-contractual arrangements, thus leaving many workers vulnerable to exploitation by contractors and other middle men, as well as resulting in no economic security for workers; (d) in monoproductive systems, thus resulting in the loss of diverse economic skills, which makes workers susceptible to loss of employment when the extractive frontier eventually shifts to a different location; and (e) in jobs that require specific skill sets often lacking among locals, such as driving trucks for transportation. This often results in extractive regions opening up to massive labour influxes from other regions and states. Given these contradictions, the assumptions that extractive activities eventually result in local socioeconomic

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Ethics and politics of space for the Anthropocene

progress need to be serious reconsidered. Instead, a more meaningful approach would be to first determine what local needs are, at what scales of operation those needs can be fulfilled, at what scales the negative impacts outweigh positive ones, and how the accumulated value of extractivism is distributed. These are important considerations prior to the establishment or expansion of extractivism. 4.

Public Dissemination of Constitutional Rights at Current or Potential Regions of Extractivism

As has been observed in various cases in India, resource-rich regions are highly susceptible to violations of constitutional rights given that such regions are inhabited by socioeconomically disadvantaged, marginalized Adivasi communities. In many cases, people might be unaware of their constitutional rights to their local natural resources. In other cases, they are deprived of these rights even if they have knowledge of them. As such, there needs to be effective dissemination of relevant information on constitutional rights in regions that are either currently, or are likely to become, extractive industries. Although dissemination of information on constitutional rights and legislative provisions to ensure safeguarding the same has been observed in several cases explored above, this practice has been limited to being undertaken by individuals and activists, rather than through institutional mechanisms supported by the state. These current forms of knowledge dissemination need to be institutionalized by regular interaction of local people with relevant authorities such as Judges. Video recordings of such interactions being placed in the public domain would further add to building trust between communities and state/central authorities, as well as hold such authorities accountable to the larger national public. This inclusive, participatory and transparent approach at each step of the decision-making is important from both an ecological and social justice perspective. 5.

Exploring and Disseminating Alternatives for the Generation of Diverse Livelihood Opportunities in Regions of Current or Potential Extractivism

Based upon the needs and existing skill sets of local populations, all potential alternatives to extractivism that could help attain the identified needs of local populations need to be explored. For instance, many tribal communities residing in resource peripheries have handicrafts, which could potentially be supported by state governments to enhance creative employment opportunities, preserve cultural heritage and art forms, and provide livelihood opportunities. An example of such enterprises emerged in discussions with Jitu Jakaka,16 the local tribal youth leader of the Dongria Kond community in the Niyamgiri hills of Odisha. The region traditionally grows organic pineapples. As an alternative

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to mining, he proposes the setting up of a community-run and cooperatively owned pineapple juice plant under the brand name of ‘Niyamgiri’. This would help the community preserve its local ecosystem, while expanding income and employment generation opportunities, and help prevent out-migration of local men in the region. Although this plan has not yet come to fruition, it shows that if the end goal is improving socioeconomic conditions and empowering local communities, there are alternatives to destructive extractive industries. Yet another example is that of dams. In many locations, especially in the Himalayan mountain ranges, micro or mini hydro projects could suffice in fulfilment of energy needs rather than large hydro dams. Similarly, sand extraction carried out in a regulated, legal manner, through cooperatively run small-scale operations, and sold in local legal markets, could help in the development of necessary local infrastructure such as schools, clinics and hospitals, while also providing livelihood-supplementing income sources for local citizens. With regard to agriculture, site-specific multi-cropping organic systems with local seed varieties might suffice for local food security and economic needs rather than industrial agriculture or intensive agriculture which requires the purchase of expensive seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. These alternatives should be based on a combination of modern science and local traditional ecological knowledge. This would help minimize resource inflow from external spaces, while limiting impacts on local/tribal communities, and enable self-dependencies within local socioeconomic systems. Large-scale extractive operations tend to be monoproductive in nature, and often result in the elimination of alternative sources of livelihood generation in their vicinity. In any case of expansion of extractivism, or establishment of extractive operations, care must be taken to prevent the establishment of such monoproductive economic systems. Such systems leave stakeholders vulnerable to loss of employment and means of livelihood generation, and dependent upon agents of extractivism. This vulnerability also makes them susceptible to exploitative labour. An effective institutional setup needs to be implemented to ensure that a diverse range of economic opportunities is available to local people to choose from. As such, prior to expansion or setup of any extractive industry, multiple alternative livelihood options need to be ensured. This would also be a step towards ensuring that people work in extractive industries out of individual preference and choice, rather than through a lack of alternative sources of income generation. 6.

Exploration of Alternative Mechanisms of Resource Appropriation

There is a possibility of incidents where local communities actually support small-scale extractive operations to meet their local needs. In such locations where

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communities desire the presence of extractive industries such as mining, alternative ownership and distribution systems must be explored. For instance, mining does not necessarily have to be conducted by non-local, powerful actors. A system of locally and cooperatively owned mining could benefit local communities to a larger degree, help supply the national market at fair prices, and prevent the exposure of communities to various social, economic and environmental externalities. Such a proposal for cooperative mining has been presented by tribal communities in Goa to the state government.17 However, to date, the government has not accepted this proposal. There could potentially be other alternative ownership, management or distribution systems that are possible with regard to extractivism. In cases where extractive operations are desired by local communities, and upon fulfilment of the criteria of right-sizing of operations, such alternatives need to be explored, disseminated and institutionalized. Given that mining, unless it is Artisanal and Small-scale Mining (ASM), can require technological inputs, it is necessary to introduce a regulatory framework for such cooperatively run operations with inputs from outside players, in order to avoid exploitative practices by extractive agents.

CONCLUSION Ecological distribution conflicts (EDCs) against resource extraction in India have increased significantly over the past two decades. During this period, extraction in India has shown staggering growth. Given that India is largely self-sufficient in mineral resources, this has entailed intra-national expansion of commodity frontiers to new lands and spaces. This is leading to increasing ecological degradation and, as a result, to conflicts between Adivasis historically inhabiting spaces of commodity expansion and private or state actors. Social resistances by local Adivasi communities against extractivism in India can be, and in many cases have been, a powerful tool in preventing further expansion of commodity frontiers and large-scale ecological degradation, as well as in preserving local biodiversity. In these movements, sacredness represents a powerful medium of communication of the losses that communities face when local ecosystems are degraded. Given that these movements are often organized by socioeconomically weaker and marginalized people, they also represent a unique form of environmentalism – an environmentalism of the poor. Analysis of cases shows that mineral extractivism in India has led to the generation of many negative impacts, which include, but are not limited to, degradation of ecosystems, social bonds, indigenous cultures and ecologically sustainable patterns of living. Further identification and analysis of such cases can indicate all the various manners in which social resistance has already lead to institutional changes, and, moreover, could lead to further such changes to preserve ecosystems and ensure social and environmental justice at current or potential extractive fron-

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tiers. Taking cognizance of indigenous people and developing an understanding of them and their knowledge systems can contribute to enabling development of existing heterogeneous, socially and ecologically conscious notions of progress. In exploring such alternatives, in this chapter I have only discussed a few key proposals, which are by no means all-inclusive. Given India’s immense cultural, biological and geographical diversity, and a history of post-growth thinking and living, there is much scope for expansion of proposals as well as actions in the context of post-extractive alternatives for India. Furthermore, given the past two decades of growth-centric development which have resulted in severe environmental degradation, as well as social injustices against indigenous people, India also faces an urgent need for discourse around, as well as implementation of, culturally, socially, economically and geographically relevant post-growth proposals. There are several limitations to this study, some of which are pointed out next. First, this chapter has not presented a detailed analysis of the outcome of each conflict, although this would be extremely useful in terms of developing an understanding of the processes that lead to successes and failures of conflicts. Such analysis would require detailed study of each conflict, whereas in this chapter an overview of conflicts, their location and actors involved has been presented. In order to develop an understanding of the process and causal factors determining the success and/or failure of each conflict, in-depth field-based studies would also need to be carried out, and the archival methods primarily used here would have to be complemented with ethnographic studies. Second, the database presented above only includes an archival collection of English-language information sources. I recognize this to be a severe limitation given that the collection of non-English-language newspapers (including regional and Hindi newspapers) would potentially uncover many more EDCs and also provide deeper understanding of each case. This is because English newspapers are only likely to report larger-scale EDCs, and because they are unlikely to report cases of regional EDCs as frequently as regional or Hindi-language newspapers. Third, the role of gender in EDCs has not been highlighted in this chapter. This again is an important limitation, further research on which could lead to significant contributions towards understanding of how gender interacts with, contributes to, and drives or enhances environmental justice movements. This study also provides only a limited analysis of the sociocultural, religious and traditional causes of social resistance by non-mainstream communities. Much further work on uncovering, understanding and mainstreaming such non-monetary causes of discontent of these communities is an extremely important next step in managing, avoiding and providing compensation to communities which have suffered the shifted costs of extractive operations. Finally, there is a need to further study the solutions that such social and environmental resistance movements themselves offer. A study of such solutions has the potential to achieve environmental sustainability in a socially, ecologically and economically viable and just manner.

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NOTES 1. This work is based on research conducted as a part of the author’s PhD thesis, and additional information can be found at: Bisht, A. (2018). Ecological distribution conflicts against mineral extractivism at resource peripheries in India. TERI School of Advanced Studies, New Delhi. The author has received funding for this chapter from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 707404. The opinions expressed in the chapter reflect only the author’s view. The European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. 2. Expansion of commodity frontiers refers to the forward movement of the capitalistic system into previously uncommodified spaces in terms of geographical space or land (Moore, 2000). 3. Some examples of these are as follows: Keonjhar, Odisha with 39 per cent forest cover and 45 per cent Adivasi population; Dantewada, Chhattisgarh with 62 per cent forest cover and 79 per cent Adivasi population; West Singhbhum, Jharkhand with 39 per cent forest cover and 66 per cent Adivasi population (Bhushan, 2008; Bisht & Gerber, 2017). 4. PESA empowers communities to actively participate in a transparent manner in self-governance of land-use patterns in their local areas. PESA mandates that public hearings be conducted and recorded on video, and permission obtained from village assemblies (Gram Sabhas) prior to any project-related forest clearances or other land-use changes. As such, this act vests village-level governing bodies such as Gram Sabhas and Panchayats with considerable powers, and especially empowers Adivasi communities (PESA, 1996). 5. The key objective of FRA (2006) is to ‘recognize and vest rights for habitation and occupation in forest land for forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes (STs) as well as Other traditional forest dwellers (OTFDs) who have been residing in such forests for generations but whose rights could not be recorded’ (FRA, 2006, Introduction, p. 1). It is a legislation designed and intended to address ‘historical injustice to the forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers who are integral to the very survival and sustainability of the forest ecosystem’ (FRA, 2006, Introduction, p. 1). This Act recognizes peoples’ right to the forest and forest produce and grants people from Adivasi communities inalienable, non-transferrable, heritable individual and collective rights to forests near their traditional areas of habitation (FRA, 2006). It is a formal recognition of Adivasi belief systems, customs, practices, socioeconomics, and ways of living, and enables preservation of the Adivasi culture by ensuring rights of access to forest-based ecosystem services (FRA, 2006). 6. The Fifth and the Sixth Schedules of the Indian Constitution, applicable to the north-east India and the rest of India respectively, grant recognition of and rights to lands historically occupied by the Adivasi communities. 7. A more detailed description of ethno-medicinal uses of plants is provided in Saha and Sengupta (2014). 8. For Details on more EDCs, as well as further references on EDCs please see Bisht & Gerber (2017). 9. Naxalism is a violent manifestation of social resistance against dispossession and destruction of ways of life, livelihoods and culture created by extractive opera-

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10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15.

16. 17.

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tions in India. Failure of the state to uphold the constitutional rights of citizens, and large-scale dispossessions, coercion, harassment and intimidation, as well as failure to resolve conflicts at resource peripheries, resulted in the creation of this group which is an armed insurgency or rebellion particularly active in the mining belts on Central India. Given the armed insurgency, many resource frontiers witness the presence of four prominent players: the state (police and paramilitary); corporate/business security personnel/guards; self-organized (allegedly state/ corporate funded) vigilante groups; and finally anti-extractivist and/or pro-Adivasi groups (one being Naxals). Naxalism is an extremely complex and contentious issue, and cannot be fully covered in this limited description. A religious walk that involves circumambulating the sacred mountain, or a temple. A small hill. Post-growth literature critiques the assumption of the necessity of ever-increasing economic growth (typically measured in terms of national GDP) with respect to its purported goals of enhancing socioeconomic progress, managing the global environmental crisis and ensuring environmental preservation. Broadly, post-growth proposes moving away from the growth paradigm from three different but interconnected perspectives: ecological (e.g. Rockström et al., 2009), cultural and social (e.g. Hirsch, 1977), and economic (e.g. Meadows et al., 1972). Buen Vivir in Bolivia, Ubuntu in South Africa and Gandhian philosophy and Kumarappas’ Economy of Permanence in India (D’Alisa et al., 2015). These include prominent scholars such as Arundhati Roy, Nandini Sundar, Felix Padel and Samarendra Das. This group is composed of researchers, activists, lawyers, local citizens and tribal people who have been directly involved in extractive conflicts. These include Gladson Dungdung, Hartman De Souza, Achyut and Vidhya Das, Himanshu Sekhar Patra, Rahul Basu, and Helena Norberg Hodge, to name just a few. This is a result of my personal discussions with Jitu during my two-week visit to the Niyamgiri hills in June 2016 to conduct ethnographic fieldwork on the Dongira Kond peoples of the region. Personal communication with leaders of an Adivasi resistance movement in Goa, specifically with Mr Ravindra Velip, who I stayed with over a period of two weeks in March 2016 as a part of ethnographic fieldwork in order to understand the nature, causes and impacts of iron ore mining in Goa.

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PART III

Law and technology

8. Beyond the Capitalocene: an ecocentric perspective for the energy transition Giovanni Frigo INTRODUCTION The topic of energy is interwoven with fundamental economic, socio-political and ecological dimensions. While the first two have received considerable attention by energy researchers, the last has been disregarded or considered as a secondary concern. However, in this chapter I aim to show that there are in fact essential links between most energy-related issues on the one hand, and both ecological knowledge and environmental ethics on the other. So, where does this carelessness for the nonhuman world come from? Of course, there could be several root causes, but, ultimately, I propose that it is connected to a tenacious anthropocentrism, the persistent tendency to follow human-centred motives and concerns above all others. Consider for example the following well-known fact: planet Earth is limited in terms of spaces and resources, and humans need to share these with many other species, yet a considerable part of humanity constantly overshoots its environment, consuming way beyond what is regenerated and thus ecologically sustainable. This and similar facts imply that we cannot talk about energy generally – let alone the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable and sustainable energy sources – without a deeper ecological understanding of the functioning and the well-being of the ecosphere of which we are also a part. Moreover, the fact that humans extract from the environment all kinds of materials and living beings implies a myriad of considerations that pertain to the field of environmental ethics. For many years now, reports and studies by organizations such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the World Bank or the United Nations (UN) have been alerting the public about the dangers of several, interconnected environmental crises. However, more scientific knowledge about the problems facing the planet does not seem effective in eliciting the needed change of trajectory. The question is, besides more 150

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scientific knowledge, what else can help us move further in the direction of strong sustainable societies (Bonnedahl & Heikkurinen, 2018)? I propose that what is needed to achieve a just and ecologically sustainable energy transition, along with more holistic ecological understanding and technoscientific improvements, is a switch of mentality: reimagining the human–energy–nature nexus according to an ecocentric perspective. In short, the radical claim is that ecocentric thinking provides the type of conceptual update the sustainability discourse has been searching for. The chapter sits at the crossroads of environmental ethics and energy studies. Even though the energy transition is often perceived and framed as a great technoscientific challenge (essentially a conundrum for technoscience and engineering), an increasing body of research suggests that it is actually a complex sociotechnical problem (Büscher et al., 2019; Geels et al., 2017). Understanding that the low-carbon transition is a complex transformation of energy systems (Ghosh & Prelas, 2009, 2011) as well as energy cultures (Pfister et al., 2017; Rüdiger, 2008; Stephenson et al., 2010; Strauss et al., 2013) suggests that it is a dynamic, plural, lengthy work-in-progress intertwined, once again, with economic, gendered, religious, socio-political and ecological dimensions. So, how shall we tackle such a complex low-carbon transition? Most energy researchers agree that collaborations and open dialogue across the disciplines are not only praiseworthy, but essential for understanding the current situation and moving forward. What is often argued is that energy transition research needs holistic approaches, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaborations among researchers and stakeholders (practitioners, citizens, politicians, policymakers, etc.). This means, for example, that while the work of engineers and natural scientists is fundamental to develop low-carbon technologies and pursue the concrete transformation of complex energy systems, that of social scientists and humanists is needed to understand and inform the parallel evolution of the practices, lifestyles, actions, behaviours and habits of millions of people, or in short their ethics. Moreover, another essential factor that is commonly underlined is the participation of citizens and socio-political organizations (from grassroot movements to institutional powers) in the processes that lead to the implementation of renewable energy projects. The good news is that over the past decade, a significant amount of work in this direction has already been done, especially by social scientists. For example, many researchers stress that the transition ought to be just (Jones et al., 2015; Heffron & McCauley, 2018; Jenkins et al., 2018) with regard to the many different aspects of the notion of ‘justice’ (distribution, participation, process, retribution, restoration, recognition, etc.). Recognizing the different stakeholders and applying principles of procedural and participative justice seem particularly important for a just energy transition for they would account

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for the distribution of benefits and burdens among different actors while engaging stakeholders in participatory and transparent processes. This is also why transdisciplinary approaches are often favoured over disciplinary ones (Pohl et al., 2017; Popa et al., 2015; Thomas et al., 2018). But what can philosophy, and particularly here the field of (environmental) ethics, tell us about the low-carbon energy transition? The short answer is that, because the debate regarding the energy transition is based on a nuanced ideology (a system of ideas) and is intrinsically linked to how the nonhuman world is conceptualized (environmental ethics), ethical reasoning is very helpful for disentangling and analysing its foundations. For this reason, I claim throughout that there is a set of conceptual assumptions that lie in the background of the discussions shared among researchers, practitioners and stakeholders working in the area of energy transition. Here, my claim is that such a ‘conceptual background’ – or at the very least some aspects of it – is often taken for granted and overlooked by those who are interested in the more practical, nitty-gritty details. In the core of the chapter, I propose to employ a philosophical perspective to look at these conceptual foundations with the goal of reimagining alternative ways of thinking and acting in relation to energy and nature. I will use the expression ‘human–energy–nature nexus’ (or sometimes ‘relationship’) to describe the complex system of relations between individuals/ societies/cultures and both biological and ecosystemic elements. It is worth repeating once again that because all energy (fuels, materials, food, etc.), or to use the language of physicists and engineers, all work, is obtained by some anthropic transformation of nature, it should be conceived not only in technical terms but also as a bio- or eco-cultural construct. The overall goal of this chapter is to suggest a philosophical update of the human–energy–nature nexus that moves beyond anthropocentrism and is attuned to an ecocentric perspective instead. The reasoning of the chapter follows the initial steps of a simple problem-solving model.1 The first task consists in (1) identifying, diagnosing and describing the problem(s). For the case at hand, this means becoming aware of multiple environmental crises, socio-ecological threats and inequalities. Accordingly, the second section illustrates the urgency of a deeper ethical reflection through a summary of descriptive facts that will also serve as general grounding assumptions for the following reasoning. The third section (2) identifies one of the main root causes of the environmental crises and the relative slowness of the energy transition in a flawed, short-sighted conceptualization of the human–energy–nature nexus. As anticipated, I propose that a rather specific understanding of this relationship has substantially influenced the way many humans have been thinking and acting towards the environment and its resources. To challenge this prevalent view, I suggest a philosophical critique of the anthropocentric, mechanistic and instrumental traits of the

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human–energy–nature relationship along with a careful re-examination of popular long-standing notions such as human exceptionalism and perpetual economic growth. While in the fourth section I engage with, and respond to, the ecomodernist stance, the fifth section presents the constructive part of the chapter: (3) generating alternative solutions. So, after the description of the problem (1) and the identification of one of its key causes (2), this step suggests a conceptual update and an ethical reorientation of the human–energy–nature relationship. But how do we achieve that? Simply put, through a new type of education at all levels of society that updates the conceptual assumptions of the human–energy–nature nexus in ecocentric terms. In conclusion, this chapter engages the challenging task of this volume – ‘reimagining ethics and politics of space’ – by looking at the energy transition through a philosophical lens. On the theoretical side, it contributes to the areas of energy ethics and political ecology. That is, a reflection on the past – or what we can call a ‘nafthology’ (Salminen & Vadén, 2015) – is accompanied by a vision about possible sustainable energy futures (Burke & Stephens, 2018; Parfit, 2010). On the practical side, some possible consequences of a wider adoption of an ecocentric perspective in energy policy and environmental law are discussed in the last section. This chapter is primarily directed to researchers, practitioners and policymakers who are willing to envision an energy transition that is not only technologically adequate but also ecologically sound and just, and not only for humans.

CURRENT EVIDENCE FOR CONCERN: WHEN DESCRIPTIONS SUGGEST PRESCRIPTIONS The following list of (rather well-known) descriptive facts will help ground the moral reasoning that will be presented below. First, the human population has increased by almost four times over the past century, reaching in 2020 the staggering number of 7.8 billion people and counting.2 This growth, along with ever-increasing consumerism, is impacting the Earth’s biosphere at an unprecedented rate. Over the past two centuries, but especially after World War II, humans have overexploited the planet: its materials and the existence of millions of nonhuman beings have been used for work, food and various animal products (Price, 1995). Today, most key environmental concerns are clear and, in fact, transboundary: global climate change (IPCC, 2018), irreversible biodiversity loss (Ceballos et al., 2017; IPBES, 2019; Kolbert, 2014; Wilson, 1985; Worm et al., 2006), resource depletion and scarcity along with several types of anthropogenic pollution (atmospheric, surface and ground waters, land and so forth). It goes without saying that these issues are threatening both human and nonhuman lives in alarming ways. It is true, however, that some efforts are leading to partial good news, such as many effective conservation

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programmes (e.g. in 2018, Chile established five new national parks) and probable ‘greening’ of some areas of the planet (increment of net primary production of biomass) due to the increased function of plants as carbon sinks (Barichivich et al., 2013; Sitch et al., 2013).3 In any case, more holistic assessments are needed to determine the actual state of our ecosystems. And, when taking broader assessments of global ecosystems’ health, it seems undoubtable that anthropogenic actions have severe negative effects on many components of the ecosystems beyond vegetation (IPBES, 2019). These alarming facts beg serious questions of environmental and specifically interspecies justice. The second relevant fact is more specifically connected to energy production, transformation, consumption and waste. Especially over the last century, many countries developed infrastructural path dependencies based on fossil fuels. These are at the basis of what Ivan Illich called ‘high energy societies’ (2013), or human assemblages based on a sociotechnical apparatus that is highly energivorous (i.e. requires a lot of energy). For example, we can take average annual amounts of energy consumption per capita as a proxy to assess availability and access to power. According to data collected by the World Bank, during 2016 an average inhabitant of China used about 90 GJ/a, one of Germany about 158 GJ/a (whereas the EU average is about 134 GJ/a) and a Northern American around 280–290 GJ/a. To really point out the astonishing level of inequality in energy consumption, these numbers should be compared to the world average of about 85 GJ/a that still includes countries (e.g. Haiti, Yemen, Ethiopia) with values as low as 10–20 GJ/a. Therefore, key issues of distributive energy justice need to be urgently addressed (Finley-Brook & Holloman, 2016; Jenkins et al., 2017; Jenkins et al., 2018; McCauley et al., 2013; Sovacool et al., 2016). Third, consider the point already sketched above about the ecological footprint. According to the Global Footprint Network, the Earth Overshoot Day (EOD) for 2019 was 29 July and it was August 22 in 2020 only due to the coronavirus pandemic. This represents the date on which humanity’s resource consumption for the years 2019 and 2020 exceeded Earth’s biocapacity to regenerate those resources that same year, or precisely when human population overshoots its environment.4 Why is this relevant for the topic of energy? Different levels of resources exploitation can be illustrated in terms of average country-based ecological footprint, or ‘how much stuff’ (i.e. how many global hectares per year, or gha) is required to sustain the standard of living of a particular nation. The results are impressive and show great social, economic and ecosystemic disparities.5 For example, even if we leave aside fossil fuels guzzlers such as the United States, Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates (all in great biocapacity deficit with values > -4.8 gha), it is troubling to consider that during the period between 1965 and 2014 the average annual ecological footprint of the official 28 members of the European Union increased from 3.4

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to 4.5 gha per person whereas the region’s biocapacity only rose from 2.1 to 2.2 gha per capita. In short, this means that the standards of living of the EU28 – we may add, one of the geographical areas where sustainability it taken more seriously – requires around 2.79 Earths to be sustained.6 Compare this to the values for individual ecological footprint, biocapacity and ‘Earths needed’ of countries such as fast-growing Brazil (footprint of 3.08 gha, biocapacity of 8.9 gha, 1.83 Earths) or the Central African Republic (footprint 1.2 gha, biocapacity of 7.4 gha and only 0.67 Earths) and the picture becomes clearer. Morally speaking, the conclusion seems clear: people who reside in countries that are consuming resources well beyond what is ecologically sustainable bear more responsibility for the current biospheric conditions. Consequently, and even though the conversation about sustainability concerns everyone, the debate about reducing levels of consumption should begin within more unsustainable nations. A fourth way of looking at these problems is to consider human impact over time (Wilkinson, 2005).7 In the last two decades, there has been a rich intellectual debate concerning how to name the period of greatest human impact on planet Earth. The nomenclature abounds, with neologisms such as Anthropocene (Crutzen, 2002; Crutzen & Stoermer, 2000), Capitalocene (Moore, 2016), Plantationocene, Gynocene, Chthulucene (Demos, 2016; Haraway, 2015, 2016), Anthrobscene (Parikka, 2014), Anthropo-obScene (Swyngedouw & Ernstson, 2018), Econocene (Norgaard, 2013), Technocene (Hornborg, 2015), Misanthropocene (Patel, 2013), Manthropocene (Raworth, 2014), the Great Acceleration (Steffen et al., 2015) and others. This ‘naming debate’ should not be considered trivial intellectualism or a mere bio-geological reflection. Semantics is important, and carefully considering how to distinguish and designate this period is crucial to better understand the types and degrees of impacts as well as the different levels of responsibility. Without diminishing the merits of the other formulations, let me briefly consider here two of the most popular notions: Anthropocene and Capitalocene. The first term was initially proposed by atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen and biologist Eugene Stoermer almost 20 years ago (2000). Their reasoning was straightforward: because human activity – mankind as a ‘major geological force’ – has been fundamentally transforming the biosphere, a new conceptualization of geological time is needed. Since the term was introduced, much of the debate has been focused on when such great impact started. On this, I tend to agree with other scholars in identifying the dawn of the Anthropocene in the late 19th century, when the population started growing at unprecedented rates and Western industrialism bloomed. The second notion, Capitalocene, was coined around 2011 by Swedish author Andreas Malm and then adopted by others (Malm & Hornborg, 2014). In his introduction to the edited volume Anthropocene or Capitalocene?, sociologist Jason W. Moore (2016) suggests

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that the notion of Capitalocene is endowed with more explanatory power than the ‘vaguer’ Anthropocene: ‘Capitalocene does not stand for capitalism as an economic and social system. … Rather, the Capitalocene signifies capitalism as a way of organizing nature – as a multispecies, situated, capitalist world-ecology’ (p. 6). There is no doubt that capitalism has not been the only economic ideology that has been detrimental to the environment (Dominick, 1998; Mazurski, 1991). But Moore (2016) explains that the term is more appropriate and contextual because it ‘captures the basic historical modern pattern of world history as the “Age of Capital” – and the era of capitalism as a world-ecology of power, capital, and nature’ (p. 6). Finally, let me conclude with a point about the urgency to address the key issue connected to the energy transition: global climate change. At the end of 2018, hundreds of grassroot organizations along with a new IPPC report (IPCC, 2018) and the latest Conference of the Parties (COP24 in Katowice, Poland) alerted people once again about unavoidable climate change as well as many other critical environmental issues. It is in plain sight that, despite these warnings, the systemic reshaping of public policies, governmental decision-making and lifestyles moves too slowly. Many countries simply lag behind in terms of both awareness and proactivity towards achievable targets such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As writer Roy Scranton (2015) remarks, the issue has become one of adaptation rather than mitigation so that ‘the concern is not whether global warming exists or how we might prevent it, but how we are going to adapt to life in the hot, volatile world we’ve created’ (p. 12). Despite the ongoing energy transition and numerous improvements, changes in lifestyles and sustainability-oriented programmes implemented all over the world, individual and local actions are probably limited when it comes to achieving the SDGs within the expected timeframe, let alone more ambitious projects of strong sustainability (Neumayer, 2013; Pelenc & Ballet, 2015). No matter how tragic the situation and apocalyptic the future may be, adding more scientific knowledge in merely incremental ways seems insufficient to really solve the problems.

THE FLAWS IN THE OLD HUMAN RELATION TO ENERGY AND NATURE Three interwoven arguments will clarify the claim that the current understanding of the human–energy–nature nexus is conceptually flawed. First, it is important to understand that the notions of energy and nature that are commonly used and taken for granted were born in a specific context. Drawing from similar analysis started in environmental ethics (Moncrief, 1970; White, 1967), I suggest that it is especially since the scientific and then industrial revolutions that the powers and capacities of technoscience allowed the gradual

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emergence of the idea that human beings can dominate nature. During the modern period, reverential, fear-based, animistic and vitalistic views of nature are being progressively replaced by the idea that the biosphere is nothing more than an inanimate reservoir of resources at human disposal. As I have already shown elsewhere (Frigo, 2017), the modern, Western conceptualization of energy depends on the scientific, quantitative and mechanistic approach of the natural sciences and engineering which partially operated at the service of the economic and socio-cultural forces characteristic of that period. The result is that an anthropocentric philosophy of energy and nature became culturally dominant, reinforcing the ontological equivalence between matters useful to produce power and nature-energy itself (it should now be clearer in which sense I employ the expression ‘human–energy–nature nexus/relationship’). Despite its modern, industrial and European origins, this paradigmatic way of understanding nature-energy has been very influential, for good and bad, at a planetary level. Even though this claim can be viewed as a rough generalization, for the purpose of the present cultural critique it is useful to identify such ‘mentality’ as a sort of organic ideology, an offshoot of the modern European-Western worldview grounded in technoscience, industrialization and belief in progress. Second, and related, some humans started to perceive and theorize nature as something distinct from humanity. To some extent, it is understandable that people had to learn how to neatly separate what is wild, untamed and uncertain from what is proper, civil and readily available for the sake of their emancipation and survivorship. What is surprising, however, is that some human groups developed strong desires to dominate nature, extend their sovereignty over the entire planet by cherishing human exceptionalism and swiftly conceptualizing many natural entities and beings as ‘resources’ intended predominantly for human benefit. But the issue here goes beyond survivorship so that what emerges is a dangerous estrangement from natural environments paired, at the same time, with arrogance and greed towards them. The issue of being ‘separated from nature’ is especially paradoxical in the case of people that are living energivorous and commodious lifestyles (Borgmann, 1984). Because their standards of living require a lot of ‘nature-energy’, they are the creatures that most depend on the nonhuman world but are also the most removed from it. These problematic notions of human autonomy, independence from nature and exceptionalism are commonly thought of as positive human traits and are often coupled with a rhetoric based on the values of individualism, competitiveness and security. In other terms, the theoretical basis of the Capitalocene – capitalist and (neo)liberal ideologies (Monbiot, 2016) – becomes visible in the case of the anthropocentric commodification of the nonhuman world. In the capitalist market of nature, biological and ecological functions are considered valuable

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if they can be monetized as ‘goods and services’ for exclusive human benefit (this is the leitmotif of most current policies). These, among others, are the main reasons why the traditional human– energy–nature relationship is fundamentally flawed. What should appear as extremely surprising is that not only the Capitalocene and its traditional petrocultures (Petrocultures Research Group, 2016) but also the current transition to renewables remain grounded on a similar reductive understanding. In fact, neither energy policy generally, nor the two most promising avenues of socio-political research – energy justice and energy democracy – have been able to consider biocentrism or ecocentrism as serious starting points for reimagining the human relation to energy and nature.

ETHICS AND POLITICS OF SPACE: THE CHALLENGE OF ECOMODERNISM But before moving on with my theoretical proposal, we shall address ecomodernism (Asafu-Adjaye et al., 2015). This is a quite recent and influential techno-fix perspective that directly challenges the content and aims of this chapter. Essentially, ecomodernists argue that humans can protect nature and grow economically and demographically by using technology to ‘decouple’ them from the ecological footprint. Although there are some merits to such a ecomodernist view, such as the stress on achieving higher efficiencies and implementing more sustainable engineering design, other arguments are problematic. For instance, ecomodernists linked to the Oakland-based Breakthrough Institute claim that humans can bring about a ‘great Anthropocene’ or that the Earth is necessarily going to become ‘our [i.e. humans’] high-energy planet’ (Caine et al., 2014). The pulp of this philosophy can be found in the pamphlet entitled An Ecomodernist Manifesto (Asafu-Adjaye et al., 2015) where a group of notable scholars clarify their scepticism regarding ‘extreme’ environmental catastrophism and advocate for an optimistic reliance on technoscience: As scholars, scientists, campaigners, and citizens, we write with the conviction that knowledge and technology, applied with wisdom, might allow for a good, or even great, Anthropocene. A good Anthropocene demands that humans use their growing social, economic, and technological powers to make life better for people, stabilize the climate, and protect the natural world. In this, we affirm one long-standing environmental ideal, that humanity must shrink its impacts on the environment to make more room for nature, while we reject another, that human societies must harmonize with nature to avoid economic and ecological collapse. (p. 6)

As the last sentence underlines, for ecomodernists an ecocentric turn in the human–energy–nature relationship would be superfluous if not even counterproductive. Their argument is intelligently ambivalent: on the one hand, they

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acknowledge that humans are the main cause of the countless environmental issues facing planet Earth. On the other hand, they problematically rely on the assumption that humans will use their growing social, economic and technological powers to solve all problems. Ecomodernists do not think that we need to change our mindset, but rather become better techno-fixers, greener architects and smarter climate stabilizers. This directly contradicts the ecocentric argument supported here. Because I identify in anthropocentrism, mechanization and instrumentality of nature the major flaws of the Anthropocene/Capitalocene, I argue that a change of mentality is not only needed, but also valuable and actually possible through a widespread ecocentric education and a renovated attention to some of the voices (e.g. indigenous, ecofeminist) that have been ignored in the energy debate so far. For example, these are the alternative narratives of the peoples who have been living in a more sustainable and/or less destructive way, caring differently and thinking about the human–energy–nature relationship ecocentrically. But these are also the voices of the nonhuman beings (animals, plants, ecosystems) that cannot communicate their concerns in human language but nonetheless possess interests and are capable of displaying them, if and when human actions improve or worsen their conditions and well-being. This change of approach requires, of course, the acknowledgement that animals have interests in surviving and flourishing too, a premise that some researchers dismiss or do not fully consider related to energy issues. The possibility for such expansion of the circle of moral considerability has been extensively examined through a sensiocentric animal ethics such as that of Peter Singer (2015) or Tom Regan’s notion of animals as ‘subjects of a life’ (Regan, 1987). Furthermore, defending the idea that non-sentient entities such as plants, rivers and the like (those that do not possess the ability to perceive suffering, i.e. nervous system) also deserve moral considerability – let alone that they should also possess interests and be attributed rights – requires another, even more radical philosophical leap. To do that we need to embrace a biocentric or ecocentric outlook supported, in any case, by the findings of the ecological sciences. A cultural shift can occur, and humans could abandon the hubris of controlling nature and embrace instead a different environmental ethics. Unsurprisingly, this can be done in collaboration with an updated version of technoscience that understands and respects ecological boundaries. This would be a more adequate way to become the ecological companions of other beings, their stewards (Chapin et al., 2011; Rozzi et al., 2012; Welchman, 2012) and tutors (Frigo, 2016) rather than their guardians, controllers or dominators (Bourdeau, 2004). In conclusion, since research, public discourse and the work of energy practitioners have been monopolized by the language of engineers and economists, taking ecocentrism seriously into account demands constructively criticizing

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the modern Western worldview and agreeing to a philosophical paradigm shift. Embracing an ecocentric perspective requires a recognition that other species (plants, animals, etc.) and ecological entities (waters, soils, etc.) possess intrinsic worth, ‘interests’ of their own, and thus require space and resources too. In the following section, I will concentrate on the main features of an ecocentric philosophy of energy for the reshaping of the human–energy–nature relationship.

THE THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF AN ECOCENTRIC PHILOSOPHY OF ENERGY We have seen above that the predominant understanding of energy depends on broader economic, socio-cultural and philosophical assumptions which are often overlooked by energy and policy practitioners. I argued that the modern conceptualization of energy is intimately linked to the progressive devaluation of nature. The following are four possible theoretical foundations of an ecocentric version of the human–energy–nature nexus. First, following the Gaia hypothesis developed by James Lovelock (2000, 2007, 2009), an ecocentric position may support the ontological and normative idea that the Earth should be understood as a complex living organism. Although resilient and capable of self-regulatory functions, Gaia is finite and currently threatened by human exploitation and hubris. The approach of the Capitalocene does not work because we reached a point of irreversible damage such as in the case of biodiversity loss and ecosystems’ degradation. Second, although the philosophical position defended criticizes the Capitalocene, it is not necessarily in contrast with the approach of natural scientists and engineers. My proposal is, rather, integrative: the limitless consumption of nature made possible undisputable achievements, granting modern humans plenty of conveniences and commodities, countless inventions and groundbreaking improvements in health, transportation, electrification, intellectual and fine arts, and general material conditions. However, technoscience can be separated from the ideologies of the Capitalocene and integrated with ecological understanding and thus contribute to an ecocentric philosophy of energy. Third, systemic and infrastructural energy and environmental challenges are complex and require innovative reflections on ontological, moral, religious, gendered, socio-economic and political dimensions. For example, the location, size and functioning of a coal mine in China (Andrews-Speed & Ma, 2008; Smil, 2004), a wind farm in the Netherlands (Rasch & Köhne, 2017) or Texas (Swofford & Slattery, 2010), or a biofuel industry in Brazil (La Rovere et al., 2011; Wilkinson & Herrera, 2010) may impact the lives of both people and nonhuman beings very differently. Even in the apparently non-problematic

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case of renewable energy projects such as wind or solar farms, issues concerning their social acceptance (Bauwens & Devine-Wright, 2018; Wüstenhagen et al., 2007), economic feasibility and ecological impact may constitute constraining factors. Therefore, I support the argument (developed in the area of philosophy of technology) that sociotechnical systems and artefacts incorporate social values and preferences (Verbeek, 2011). It follows that an adequate energy transition should account for such values and integrate ecocentric concerns into the design of artefacts and policies while expounding those that are incompatible with an ecocentric outlook. The fourth possible foundation of this updated philosophy of energy concerns ethical praxis. I maintain that the way specific actors think about something, such as energy and nature, is likely (but not necessarily) to become visible in their concrete actions. For instance, if I think about the forest near my town solely as a wild place where I can drive my rugged SUV and not instead as the home of countless other species, it is rather likely that, if I do go to that forest, I will use it for my own driving enjoyment rather than recognizing the intrinsic well-being, aims and purposes of the ecosystem. I must acknowledge, however, that this assumption remains weak unless it is understood within a virtue ethics perspective. In fact, one might argue that there are many cases in which humans do not act according to the best or most preferable choice even though they know what it is. For instance, even though many humans know what healthy nutritional habits are, some do not act accordingly and prefer to consume junk food. So, how can we prove that because people will know what is right – an ecocentric perspective is conceptually more adequate – they will then also act according to it? In all honesty, such a claim cannot be made. The only acceptable version of this assumption posits that there should be a causal connection between moral virtues (knowing what is good) and action (doing what is good) precisely because the goal of the moral praxis is indeed to become a virtuous person. Virtue ethics does not ask ‘What is the right thing to do in situation “x”?’ but rather ‘What kind of person should I become so that my action will be good?’ Therefore, the milder version of this fourth point becomes: people who think in ecocentric terms are also more likely to act ecocentrically.

PROPOSING AN ALTERNATIVE: TOWARDS AN ECOCENTRIC OUTLOOK The following section sketches the contours of an ecocentric philosophy of energy that extends beyond anthropocentrism to include the nonhuman world. I will limit my discussion to three traits of an ecocentric human–energy–nature relationship which mirror the critique presented above in the third section: (1) ecocentrism as opposed to anthropocentrism, (2) a broader recognition

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of intrinsic values in the nonhuman world as opposed to the monopoly of instrumental concerns, and finally (3) a holistic, ecologically oriented view in contrast to a mechanistic one. Anthropocentrism, Ecology and Ecocentrism In their collection of studies, Donato Bergandi et al. have convincingly shown that there are structural links between ecology, evolution and ethics (Bergandi, 2013). Similarly, here I argue that there are fundamental links between human life, energy and the nonhuman world. As discussed earlier, energy in nature can be understood in a materialistic and mechanistic way and ecological sciences already account for it. But ecology and ecocentrism are two different things. A brief clarification of how ecology has been studying energy may be helpful to fully grasp the importance of an ecocentric outlook. The study of philosophy of ecology indicates that the approach of ecological sciences has drawn largely from physics in terms of its conceptualization of energy (Chapman et al., 2015). The representation created by ecologists typically portrays the different species as members of a ‘pyramid of life’ or the elements of a ‘food web’. These are structured according to different levels of biological organization: simpler elements (subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, organelles) provide the basis for life (cells, tissues, organs, organ systems). Then, at the individual level, we find all the different organisms classified according to taxonomy. Assemblages of different species constitute populations, communities and hence biomes (a large naturally occurring community of flora and fauna). Finally, biomes and the so-called inanimate components of the ecosystem (waters, minerals, soils, airs) are part of the broadest system that can be conceived on a planetary basis, that is the biosphere, or ecosphere (Mader, 2010). An important point is that all living and non-living beings share throughout the system an abundant, although limited, flow of energy as nutrients. Many ecologists still understand and study energy in ecosystems mainly as a ‘flux of matter’ between different trophic levels measured, for instance, through the calculation of the primary (gross and net) productivity of biomass. But because this approach is also grounded in the old paradigm, it ignores other philosophical implications of an ecological understanding (Callicott, 1986). Nonetheless, there are examples of moral thinking connected to energy via an ecological understanding. One exemplar case is that of American environmentalist and conservation manager Aldo Leopold. In his famous essay The Land Ethic, he writes: Land, then, is not merely soil; it is a fountain of energy flowing through circuit of soils, plants, and animals. Food chains are the living channels which conduct energy

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upward; death and decay return it to the soil. … It is a sustained circuit, like a slowly augmented revolving fund of life. (Leopold, 1949, pp. 182–183)

From the recognition of the role of energy within the structural complexity of the land, Leopold (1949) derives a moral principle: ‘A thing is right if it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong if it tends otherwise’ (p. 189). The derivation of this moral principle from the ecological understanding demonstrates that it is possible to infer moral guidance – practical moral consequences – from descriptive facts.8 For Leopold, human beings need to step down from the self-constructed pedestal at the top of the chain of being to embrace their role as part of the biotic community. If we follow a perspective such as the land ethic, and accordingly we understand the fluxes of energy throughout the ecosphere in this more interdependent and relational way, then ecocentrism may take root and bloom. Generally speaking, and at least in the Western world, the environmental movement began in the 1960s in parallel with the so-called second wave of feminism and the civil rights movement. While the latter two focused on the oppression experienced by women and minorities respectively, environmental activism and scholarship were initially aimed at changing and moving beyond cultural narratives which have been supporting the oppression of nature. The emergence of environmental philosophy can thus be seen as one of the most successful academic responses to the impending environmental crises. Since the 1970s, for example, several environmental ethicists developed complex analyses of the possible ethical positions one can follow in relation to nature. Strong anthropocentrism, weak anthropocentrism, sensiocentrism, biocentrism and ecocentrism are some of the most recognizable of such perspectives (Pojman & Pojman, 2012). In the Western academic world, different ecocentric positions were developed by environmental thinkers such as Aldo Leopold, Arne Naess, Val Plumwood, Holmes Rolston III, J. Baird Callicott and Karen Warren. A common trait among ecocentrists is the attempt to derive the most radical philosophical implications from the findings of ecological sciences and environmental studies (and sometimes also address the situation of oppressed groups of humans such as in the case of ecofeminism). Ecocentrism ‘is based on an ecologically informed philosophy of internal relatedness, according to which all organisms are not simply interrelated with their environment but also constituted by those very environmental interrelationships’ (Eckersley 1992, p. 49, emphasis in original). Ecocentrism borrows from ecology the notion that, in each ecosystem, there is a myriad of different beings (animals, plants, decomposers or detritivores, minerals, soils, waters, airs9) who are constantly born or formed, live, die, decay and are cyclically transformed as part of the biosphere functioning. Ecocentrist thinkers typically pose a great ontological

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and metaphysical challenge: rather than considering mankind at the top of ontological and ecological hierarchies, they propose to redefine and reposition human beings and their role within ecosystemic functioning (Callicott, 1986). They maintain that modern humans, despite their technoscientific powers, are still fundamentally dependent on the ecosystems of which they are part and, paradoxically, still know so little about. An ecocentric perspective challenges the idea that the Earth is necessarily destined to become a ‘human planet’ as the ecomodernists propose. Instead, humans are considered ‘special animals’ in the sense that their ability to develop effective extrasomatic adaptations made them capable of changing the natural environment. In this way, human power is acknowledged upfront and, because of it, humans are envisioned as ecological companions, as co-inhabitants rather than managerial guardians or mere conquerors or exploiters of nature (de Groot et al., 2011). Because it decentres humans and repositions them within an ecological understanding, it can be said that ecocentrism represents, conceptually, a paradigm shift similar to that which occurred in the 16th century from a geocentric model to a heliocentric one. It goes without saying that, if taken seriously, the consequences of this change of perspective could be groundbreaking. The Necessary Balance between Instrumental and Intrinsic Values The second characteristic of an ecocentric philosophy of energy and nature is the radical expansion of moral considerability to include the nonhuman world, namely the increased recognition of its intrinsic value for other beings and entities (Callicott, 1984; McShane, 2007a, 2007b). Although it is a philosophical position, the ecocentric argument is in agreement with the scientific findings of both ecological and thermodynamic sciences. These latter acknowledge that there are thresholds and limitations inherent to the functioning of the ecosphere as well as the technosphere (e.g. space is limited and all machines have efficiency limits). These limitations eventually affect both humans and nonhuman life. All beings share a finite amount of space and resources, that is, the ecosystemic energy either coming into the system as solar radiation or already converted solar radiation (e.g. fossil fuels). Of course, some reasonable use of nature for human ends is inevitable, but the new mentality advocated here implies a completely different degree of attention and care towards the nonhuman world. A Holistic View of Energy Contrary to the mechanistic view of energy promoted by the old human– energy–nature relationship, an ecocentric philosophy of energy is built on a more holistic approach. Energy has been understood in multifaceted ways: in

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its most material form as fuels and geo-chemical compounds, bio-chemically as the flux of nutrients within organic and inorganic life, metabolically as the transformation of food into movement and heat. However, an ecocentric view suggests that there may exist immaterial, spiritual or relational ways of experiencing and understand energy which fall through the cracks of the old paradigm. This is because they are not epistemologically relevant or objectively measurable; in other words, they are non-quantitative and non-mathematizable. These are other types of non-quantitative accounts of energy that people (and perhaps also other beings) can experience. Isn’t it true that we often speak about a particularly energetic atmosphere in a room, of a special energy in a relationship, or the energy that one can perceive while meditating alone in the middle of a forest? The neuroscientist may still attempt to reduce these phenomena to ‘states of the mind’ related to specific chemicals and electric impulses in the brain, but that explanation could be argued to be, again, a form of reductionism dependent on a mechanistic and quantitative view. Since these and other similar phenomena are not completely reducible to a quantitative/measurable form, scientific studies have disregarded or simply ignored them. However, other areas of human knowledge such as philosophy, ethics (Frigo, 2018b), literature or poetry are sometimes capable of intercepting these phenomena (Frigo, 2018a). The key point is that these and other more qualitative dimensions of the human–energy–nature relationship are somehow empirical and relevant so that they should become part of the current debate about energy transition along with quantitative and statistical research. For instance, we can find examples of this kind of work in the emerging field of energy humanities (Boyer & Szeman, 2014; Diamanti & Bellamy, 2016; Moezzi et al., 2017; Szeman & Boyer, 2017), but also in the work of naturalistic poets such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Consider for instance Thoreau’s poem Nature and notice how it merges the theme of intimate connection with the environment with a call for human humility: O Nature! I do not aspire To be the highest in thy choir, – To be a meteor in thy sky, Or comet that may range on high; Only a zephyr that may blow Among the reeds by the river low; Give me thy most privy place Where to run my airy race. In some withdrawn, unpublic mead Let me sigh upon a reed, Or in the woods, with leafy din, Whisper the still evening in:

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Some still work give me to do, – Only – be it near to you! For I’d rather be thy child And pupil, in the forest wild, Than be the king of men elsewhere, And most sovereign slave of care; To have one moment of thy dawn, Than share the city’s year forlorn. Borrowing again Leopold’s (1949) ecocentric perspective, it can be said that an ecocentric philosophy of energy ‘enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land’ (p. 173). At the same time it decentres human beings and ‘charges’ them with the responsibility of acting as co-inhabitants, companions and tutors of the nonhuman world.

CONCLUSION: PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS OF AN ECOCENTRIC HUMAN–ENERGY–NATURE RELATIONSHIP In energy policy, the use of a precautionary principle of non-action should be privileged whenever the consequences are unclear or possibly dangerous (COMEST, 2005; Cooney 2004; deFur & Kaszuba, 2002; Kriebel et al., 2001; Sandin, 2004). This does not mean embracing technological conservatism, but rather considering more radically the interests and well-being of humans as well as those of other ecosystemic entities and beings to avoid further biodiversity loss and ecological destruction. As I claimed repeatedly, nature-energy should not be merely conceptualized as means to be exploited. The recognition of intrinsic value of the nonhuman sphere becomes a priority, leading to concrete actions aimed at its protection. This would imply, and thus prescribe, that ideals of equality and justice will be implemented by treating nonhuman needs as being as important as those of humans. However, it seems reasonable to assume that in exceptional and seemingly extremely rare cases (when one absolutely excludes the other), human needs should be privileged over those of the nonhuman world. Consider the following possible effects in environmental law. One consequence could be an extension of legal consideration beyond humans through the language of rights and moral agency (as is already happening in many legal systems worldwide). Second, sanctions towards people who harm the nonhuman world (with the due exceptions such as cases of self-defence) might become more severe. Third, forms of temporary and permanent tutorship of nonhuman interests could be established. Fourth, anti-natalist policies might

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be enacted on a voluntaristic basis or through policies of incentives/sanctions (i.e. more than two children would imply higher costs, the contrary more subsidies). That would resemble the opposite of what happens in many countries today. Undoubtedly, this remains a very controversial subject that would require extensive discussion. However, it remains true that human population is one of the main factors of ecological impact and a serious debate about population policy is needed. Here, it suffices to say that limiting such growth represents one of the possible implications of an ecocentric outlook. Of course, this is not an exhaustive list. It only provides some conclusive examples that follow from the attempt to reimagine the human–energy–nature nexus in non-anthropocentric terms for the sake of diminishing the exploitation of the nonhuman world. To avoid the bleak future forecasted by doomsayers (Heinberg, 2003; Scranton, 2015), but without embracing doomslayers’ optimism (Lomborg, 2001, 2007; Regis, 2016), let me conclude by quoting the suggestion of French philosopher-engineer Jean-Pierre Dupuy (2014): Our responsibility is all the more enormous as we are the sole cause of what will happen to us. And yet there is a danger that our sense of our own responsibility will increase, rather than diminish, the very arrogance that gave rise to it. Once we have persuaded ourselves that the salvation of the world is in our hands, there is a risk we will throw ourselves with renewed energy into a headlong rush toward the abyss – that fatal impulse compounded of pride and panic, which with every passing day comes nearer to being the outstanding emblems of our age. (p. 7)

Hopefully the teachings of ecocentrism can provide a renewed impulse to reimagine our responsibility and move beyond the Capitalocene.

NOTES 1. Here, I follow a standard six-steps problem-solving model: (1) identify, diagnose and describe the problem; (2) determine the root cause(s) of the problem; (3) generate alternative solutions (4) evaluate and then select the option(s); (5) implement the solution(s) and (6) follow up with monitoring and further evaluations of the outcome. In this chapter I will discuss only steps 1–3, namely the part of the process that begins with the diagnosis of the problem and ends with the development of alternatives. My role and expertise do not allow me to move further. 2. More precisely: 1 billion in 1804, 2 in 1927, 3 in 1960, 4 in 1974, 5 in 1987, 6 in 1999 and 7 in October 2011. Interestingly, it took 123 years to move from 1 billion (1804) to 2 billion people (1927) but only 12 years to move from 6 (1999) to 7 (2011). Source: United Nations Secretariat, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. 3. For instance, bio-geoscientific studies by Sitch et al. (2013) using Dynamic Global Vegetation Models (DGVMs) show that there is a trend in the land sink of CO2 driven by increasing net primary production (NPP) from natural ecosystems in the

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4. 5.

6.

7.

8. 9.

tropics. Similarly, Barichivich et al. (2013) have discovered that a ‘lengthening and intensification of the photosynthetic growing season, manifested principally over Eurasia rather than North America, is associated with a long-term increase (22.2% since 1972, P < 0.01) in the amplitude of the CO2 annual cycle at northern latitudes.’ Yet, this supposed ‘greening’ was proposed with caution and could actually be misleading because it is an indirect effect of higher CO2 accumulation rather than a significant improvement of ecosystemic conditions. That is, you could have more canopy but ‘emptier’ ecosystems because of the loss of animals. You can calculate your personal overshoot day at http://​www​.footprintcalculator​ .org/​. It is widely known that, as the United Nations Development Programme stated again and again, a minority of the world’s population (around 17 per cent) consume most of the world’s resources (80 per cent), leaving the rest with the remaining 20 per cent. Even though there has been marked progress on reducing poverty over the past decades, more than 4 billion people are still struggling to survive, on the threshold of poverty and deprivation, living without the very basic necessities of life – food, water, housing and sanitation. Currently, about 8 per cent of world population, or half a billion people, still live in extreme poverty. For the sake of comparison as well as for the following discussion, it can be useful to note that according to the Global Footprint Network, in 2014 the United States had an ecological footprint of 8.4 gha/person against a biocapacity of 3.76 gha/ person, thus 1.8 times more impact but only 1.7 times more biocapacity than average EU-28 countries. Simply put, if everyone on the planet in 2014 had the same ecological footprint as the average resident of the United States or Europe, we would need respectively 4.97 and 2.79 Earths to support our demands on nature. See: http://​data​.footprintnetwork​.org. Periodization is the attempt to categorize the past into discrete, quantified blocks of time that are named according to specific events or characteristics. It is based on the possibility to find relatively stable features/traits within periods of time whose beginning and end are often arbitrary or up for debate. Following the work of geologists and historians, we have become acquainted with terms such as Holocene, Jurassic, or Enlightenment and Modernity respectively. Here I will not delve into the problematic issue of deriving prescriptions from descriptions. I refer the reader interested in that debate to (Callicott, 1982; Callicott, 2013, pp. 70–78). To stress the variety and plurality of existences, I intentionally borrow from Leopold the use of plurals.

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9. Temporality, technology and justice in Hannah Arendt: a critical approach Jana Lozanoska INTRODUCTION This chapter proposes Hannah Arendt’s political theory as a basis for analysing the intersection between temporality, technology and justice in the Anthropocene, as an attempt to uncover the challenges and the threats thereof. In particular, the purpose of the chapter is to critically examine these aspects in light of growing technological developments and their relationship with mass society. Today we are witnessing a ‘boom’ in information technology (big data), artificial intelligence, robotics and genetics. Such developments have shifted the conventional conception of ‘human’ and humanity by simultaneously giving rise to consequences which affect the earth and the society alike. In that direction, the relevance of Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) as a political theorist is multiple. Her unorthodox approach, included in the central volume The Human Condition (Arendt, 1958/1998), will mostly be employed in the analysis of this chapter. Interestingly, Arendt initially intended to name this book Amor Mundi, or ‘For the Love of the World’ (Kohler & Saner, 1992). In the Prologue (Arendt, 1958/1998) she comments on several issues which are relevant for the discussion at hand. Firstly, she remarks on the launch of Sputnik (the first artificial satellite), as she attempts to depict metaphorically the constant human need to conquer the earth and space and thus strive for immortality. Secondly, she provides a distinction between the earth as a natural habitat and society as a human artifice (Arendt, 1958/1998; Berkowitz, 2018). This basic distinction offered by Arendt could serve as a useful tool for analysing the growing field of the Anthropocene (Harari, 2016; Zwier & Blok, 2017). On the one hand, for Arendt earth is the ‘quintessence of the human condition, and the earthly nature’ where human beings alongside other species live and exist through biological processes; on the other hand, she explores the ‘artificial world’ as a human artifice which separates humans from animals and other living creatures (1958/1998, p. 2). 175

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As someone who was fascinated by science and technology, Arendt considered that they bring ‘worldly alienation’ (Arendt, 1958/1998, Chapter VI). From this perspective, she discusses the arising implications of science and technology for the earth and humanity and is eager to uncover their ‘darker’ side, something that will be explored in further in this chapter by offering a phenomenology of the ‘evil’. Furthermore, in the Prologue (1958/1998) Arendt makes very powerful predictions of the future progress of science and technology. She criticizes the presence of the military on the occasion of Sputnik’s launch, and predicts – in a work published more than 60 years ago – the possibility of cloning and robotics. Arendt foresees automation replacing human labour and she talks about the rise of the computing age. Lastly, she questions the ‘political judgement’ of the ‘strict scientists’ who developed the atomic bomb, knowing that it could be used for extermination. According to Arendt, two of the most dangerous consequences of science and technology are the losses of the meaning of ‘labour’ and of ‘speech’ due to automatization. Through automatization, speech loses its significance, and for Arendt, speech along with political action holds immense political meaning that relates us to ‘others’ as a part of reality and politics. ‘Worldly alienation’ is a continuation of Arendt’s reflections on the dangers of loneliness in the Origins of Totalitarianism, and it is discussed in the last chapter of The Human Condition as it tackles questions on truth, knowledge, technology and science. The Human Condition, as a central pillar of Arendt’s political theory, represents a historical critique of science and technology and opposes progress. It is against this background, along with the rise of the atomic era, that Arendt’s preoccupations were not only surrounded by fear, but also by uneasy anticipation of future technological developments. Hence, she does not offer answers but a reconsideration of the ‘human condition’ through the proposal: ‘to think what we are doing’ (Arendt, 1958/1998). This central premise or ‘ethics’ proposed by Arendt will serve as a leading argument to the chapter. Initially, the chapter will discuss the current debates on technology and its implications for the public space and therefore for political action. Subsequently, it will tackle the challenges and threats that technology poses for the public space through instigating loneliness. Furthermore, the chapter will explore the ways humanity could rediscover and re-establish itself by examining the least explored concept in Arendt’s work: the concept of ‘non-time space’. It is in this small crack of time and space that temporality of judgement occurs for Arendt, and it is related to her idea of justice. Lastly, the chapter will discuss the idea of justice as a truthfulness that includes both impartiality and objectivity, before offering a brief comparison of the conceptions offered by contemporary authors writing today such as Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum.

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TECHNOLOGY, SPACES AND TEMPORALITY Technology, the Disappearance of the Public Space, and Loneliness In the middle of the twentieth century, Turing’s computing algorithm is said to have ended one of the most atrocious wars ever seen, namely World War II, by intercepting enemy communications and simultaneously cracking their codes. With Turing commenced the new era of computing and of machine– human relationships that has changed forever the way humanity conducts itself (Watson, 2012). The design of human-like machines and the employment of artificial intelligence for the purpose of automatizing not only labour but human life, including the political space, are things that transhumanists are advocating for. Rightfully, even in the last century, Arendt feared the advent of transhumanism, something that is reaffirmed by Harari (2016) in Homo Deus, Brief History of Tomorrow. In order to understand accurately these concerns, we must examine the role of technology and science in the twenty-first century as a political question. These concerns are tackled by Arendt in a comprehensive manner in The Human Condition, since she deems that the implications of technology and science cannot be answered by scientists and politicians alone. These implications, according to Arendt, are several. One concerns biological life and the earth, as it is related to labour. Another is related to the role of technology and science within society and politics, and in particular its implications for action and speech. Arendt considers the human condition of life and biological processes to represent labour, while speech and action are a representation of the human condition of plurality (1958/1998, Prologue). Two of the main human activities of the human condition, namely labour and speech, are affected by the advent of technology, and Arendt is quite wary of this impact. Another distinguishing feature of Arendt’s work worth mentioning is that for her, human beings are conditioned by the earth, as we are ‘earthbound’, or within politics through political organization, a reason why she elaborated on the human condition as opposed to human nature (1958/1998). In the literature, technology has been discussed from a variety of approaches and disciplines, and the field is vast. A definition of technology, despite the vast amount of scholarly writings, is inconclusive. Many contemporary scholars have examined Heidegger’s philosophy regarding technology and his concept of ‘techne’, by attempting to broaden it up and re-conceptualizing technology as a ‘practice’ (Heikkurinen, 2017; Zwier & Blok, 2017). Arendt, on the other hand, criticizes Heidegger and attempts to move away from his concept (Yaqoob, 2014).

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Overall, it is not easy to summarize existing trends and developments. In ethics, technology has been looked at through the prisms of ‘good’ and ‘evil’, an approach this chapter will similarly adopt by focusing on Arendt. Arendt examines the character of ‘evil’, which for her is not mystical but real (An exchange of letters, 1963) and includes the inability to think (Arendt, 1963/2006). Recently, Haraway (2014), in her lecture on the Anthropocene, Capitolocene and Chthulocene, has called on scholars to delve into the question of whether we are all Eichmann, referring to the increasing destruction of our planet and world and the crimes committed as a result of it. Other scholars discuss at length the utilitarian nature of technology, especially as it is relevant to the sustainability and developments goals (Kanade, 2017). The United Nations, initially in the Millennium Development Goals (2015) and subsequently in the (2030) Sustainability Agenda (United Nations, 2015), relies on technology to reach its targets by juxtaposing it with sustainability and the environment. While there are other authors like Heikkurinen (2016) who criticize the eco-modernist for relying on technology in tackling ecological problems. However, the interest of the chapter is quite opposite to the United Nations or eco-modernist approach. The main aim of the chapter is to discuss how technology relates to the public space, politics and justice itself, and the implications thereof. Arendt fears that technology and science, as they develop in modernity, will stretch up to the era of world alienation – the present and future – and reinforce earth alienation or make earth artificial as opposed to the natural and biological life and processes that are within. The culprits of the ‘unnatural growth of the natural’ were, and still are, modernization, industrialization and automatization, as these processes have increased consumption and production levels and by that the destruction of life on earth, including nature (Arendt, 1958/1998, XIV, 47). A recent scholarly trend as a response to the growth economies is the ‘degrowth’ movement towards achieving sustainability and preventing further destruction (Heikkurinen, 2016, p. 1655). The destruction of Earth as a natural habitat for humans produces consequences for the public space as well, which is a part of the human artifice (Arendt, 1958/1998, p. 57). Human beings according to Arendt, despite being ‘earthbound’, are conditioned beings, although not absolutely, and live in an artificial world which is characterized by three human activities: labour, work and action. All three are related to birth and death, natality and mortality. Grant (1986), in the chapter titled ‘Thinking on Technology’ in his volume Technology and Justice, talks about the etymological but also the contentious aspects of technology. He distinguishes two acts related to technology – knowing and making – with the end result representing some kind of ‘novelty’. Conversely to Grant, this kind of role of novelty Arendt gives only to political action. Haraway (1991), on the other hand, takes a less conservative approach

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than Grant by discussing the relationship between cyborgs and humans, and the natural world in between – a debate that marked the twentieth century but extends into the twenty-first. Both Grant (1986) and Haraway (1991) develop their thinking subsequent to Arendt, who had already started the debate on technology and the sciences. However, Arendt differs from that of both Grant and Haraway. Grant (1986), in his volume, does not make a distinction between work and labour as Arendt conceptualizes it, that on the other hand is relevant for understanding the role of the technology (1958/1998). Grant’s (1986) conceptualization of ‘making’ through ‘technology’ and activities related to it would fit in between labour and work in the Arendtian sense. Labour for Arendt is one of the oldest human activities and is related to the necessities of the biological processes of life and death, a reason why she fears its automatization through technology. Work, on the other hand, is characterized by fabrication. Homo faber for Arendt is a destroyer of nature, the opposite to animal laborian, because the processes of fabrication and production require it. The work of homo faber solidifies and makes durable the human artifice through the unnatural processes of fabrication by providing at the same time the final shape of the things (Arendt, 1958/1998, p. 139). Even though the questions of labour and the consequences of automatization are quite relevant today, the focus of this chapter is the political action in Arendt (1958/1998), primarily because it is related to plurality and new beginnings of political change (natality) and because it is memorable. The memorability of political action counteracts the constant quest for immortality brought about by the advent of science and technology and the aim of creating a ‘superior’ human-machine (Berkowitz, 2018; Harari, 2016). Furthermore, political action is the only human activity that takes places directly between humans, without intermediary things or objects, and it implies the exclusion of technology. Plurality is crucial for politics and political action because it gathers together different persons who are interrelated by their distinctness rather than through things and objects, and in that manner allows for political equality. By employing this approach, Arendt makes sure that no in-between objects and things interfere with or automatize political action and speech (Arendt, 1958/1998, pp. 8, 175). Taking into consideration overall technological developments, a question arises which is both anthropocentric and transhumanist as to what extent machines and cyborgs might be used in politics? Although this proposition belongs to the future, or the time ‘yet to come’, since Arendt understands political action conventionally, as a human-based activity, a recent article in MIT Technology Review (Larson, 2018) discusses the possibility of the Chinese government creating by 2030 big data and algorithms based artificial intelligence for the purposes of politics and governance. A similar article (Wright,

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2018) discusses how artificial intelligence and the ‘new industrial revolution’ could become an important part of society and politics. If artificial intelligence and algorithms, as developments suggest, take over politics and public space/s, one of the greatest problems in this kind of situation for Arendt is that there would not be room for uniqueness and freedom. The latter two characteristics are related to action and speech as the only human activities that are at the same time part and parcel of the public space. Political action is related to the ‘plurality’ of unique persons who in singular appear and reveal themselves, without any hidden motives, in the public space through speech and action, and represents a crucial element of politics. It is the unpredictability of political action that has the potential to bring new beginnings and novelty amid the darkness and horrors (Arendt, 1958/1998, p. 7). Arendt, in her work, maintains a clear-cut division between the three realms of private, social and public. Public space is our common world which gathers but also separates us, by drawing clearly the boundaries of the spaces of appearance. Public space in Arendt’s work is dynamic, multidimensional and multi-contextual, and it is both permanent and temporary. The permanence is reflected in the creating of stable institutions (an aspect where technology nowadays is utilized), which on the other hand should aim at fostering freedom for acting and speaking together. Contrarily, the temporality belongs to the public space of unpredictability and freedom, where action and speech are spontaneous and miraculous, and hence have the potential of bringing novelty and political change (Arendt, 1958/1998). On the other hand, Arendt problematizes social space as being responsible for blurring the boundaries between public and private and thus weakening the public space. Benhabib (1996/2003, pp. 138‒170) criticizes Arendt’s clear-cut divisions between social and political space and considers this as inconclusive. Some scholars have made a distinction only between the public and private space. They have placed politics within the public sphere by incorporating the spatiality and rethinking of the Greek polis and agora through utilizing information technology (Low & Smith, 2006). Furthermore, there are direct attempts to treat the internet as a public space and examine its implications in relation to information governance and public policies (Camp & Chien, 2000). Arendt’s distinction between public, social and private space is important due to the fact that, for her, the pre-totalitarian or pre-political aspects that had led to totalitarianism occurred with the rise of the social (Arendt, 1958/1998, pp. 38‒49) or development of society through ‘housekeeping’ and ‘households’. The social, by blurring the boundaries between the private and public space, had modified the understanding between an individual and the citizen, something that could also happen today with the rise of information technology and the treatment of the internet as a public space. One of the main reasons why Arendt insists on her central concept of plurality composed of

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unique person/s distinguishable in their role as citizens through both speech and action is to draw clearly the boundaries between the private and public space. On the other hand, the blurring of the boundaries of different spaces represents the main cause for totalitarianism, which had resulted in creating an abstract individual rather than a citizen. The former belongs to the masses and is prone to manipulation by following the dogmatic leaders through loyalty (Berkowitz, 2017). Canovan (1992/1995, pp. 55, 117) looks at Arendt’s not so easy to grasp critique on the ‘social’ and notes the character of such a society – a society that is based on mass loneliness and mass production and consumption, excluding diversity and uniqueness which is crucial for fostering interest in public matters. While production and consumption bind people together still, these interests are related to the private sphere and not the common public world. Furthermore, Canovan (1992/1995) deems Arendt ‘anxious’ from making ‘human beings to uniform species’. In a situation of growing automatization and computerization (Chang & McGrath, 2018), one should be quite wary of not only the tendencies brought about by technology, but also the tendencies of mass society. Both are closely linked and might easily become an acute threat for shrinking and eroding completely the public space where free and genuine expression should ideally take place. Mass society is what Arendt is concerned with, and this has two aspects. The first one is related to economic needs, consumption and production, and the second one to culture (Canovan, 1992/1995, p. 119). What characterizes mass society and mass person, Arendt writes in her essay ‘The Crisis in Culture’ in the book Between Past and Future (Arendt, 1954/1961, p. 199; Canovan, 1992/1995, p. 117), are loneliness, lack of standards, increasing capacity for consumption with an inability to judge and distinguish, along with features such as conformity and egocentricity. Mass society, mass consumerism, inability to think, judge and distinguish within masses of people erodes the public space and represents one step towards the most extreme form government called totalitarianism. Arendt also makes a distinction between isolation and loneliness, and according to her the first leads to the second. Correspondingly, isolation begins in the mass society, leading to loneliness as an extremely dangerous phenomenon. Mass loneliness has the consequences of ‘uprootedness’ and ‘superfluousness’, and has been a precursor for the rise of ideologies of ‘terror’, including the rise of totalitarian movements through propaganda (Arendt, 1951/1985, pp. 474, 475; Canovan 1992/1995, p. 91). For Arendt, loneliness affects one’s ability to judge reality and distinguish within that a precondition for politics and worldliness, because everything one does and speaks requires reaffirmation from ‘others’. Mass loneliness and mass society are counterintuitive to the affirmative concepts Arendt attempts to develop as plurality, belonging to the political community, action

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and speech, judgement and so on. By speaking and acting we appear to the others, and at the same time distinguish ourselves from them. Loneliness is related to the deep sense of rootlessness of not belonging to the world by way of alienating us from others and from the ‘common world’ which is inhabited by other people. Thus, it is more than a lack of human relationships (Arendt, 1951/1985, pp. 465, 466, 474; Arendt, 1958/1998; Canovan, 1992/1995, p. 92); rather, it represents loneliness from the world and an absence from being with the others (Arendt, 1951/1985, pp. 474‒479). Mass loneliness was clearly something that had led to totalitarianism, and Arendt’s concerns about it in the Origins of Totalitarianism (1951/1985), of it spreading like a virus and consuming our existence, are strikingly accurate even today. An illustration of what Arendt has been fearful of is the recent institution by the UK government of the ‘ministry of loneliness’ (Mead, 2018). Mass loneliness, which is simultaneously a result and a consequence of the shrinking of the public space, could, however, offer us a hint as to where technology actually belongs. It could be that the rise of technology is proportional to the increase of mass loneliness, and this link could suggest that technology belongs primarily within the social space. Hence, the relevant question is whether technology should be examined within the ambit of the public space and the common world, and if so, what would be the implications of placing it here. Like Arendt, the author of this chapter is also reluctant to blur these boundaries. The only space where truly political equality could be achieved without discrimination is the public/political space as a common world that promotes differences which are ingrained in the ‘plurality’. On the other hand, Arendt (2003, pp. 193‒213) considers that social space is a place where discrimination is legitimate. For her, the problem is how to prevent this discrimination in the social sphere from reaching the political realm, where it could actually erode it. Subsequent to the pre-totalitarian reasons for the erosion of the public sphere of differences, uniqueness and appearance, is the technology of progress and the destruction that is rooted in totalitarianism. For Arendt, the latter, however, is a result of imperialism and racist ideologies. The most extreme form of totalitarianism took place through the technology of concentration camps, and this is the character of evil Arendt talks about in The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951/1985). In her analysis of how racist ideologies operate, Arendt begins first by looking at the phenomenon of ‘race thinking’, which in itself she considers expansionist and based on the superiority of ‘one’ over ‘another’. Race thinking based on individual stereotypes and prejudices (Berkowitz, 2017). On the other hand, through the construction and design of racist ideologies, those individual sentiments and actions are incorporated and grounded in the evil side of politics, with an aim of destroying political life and dehumanizing everything that is human. The examples she examines are numerous and

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related to various power relations. The main aim of racist ideologies is to create dogmatic systems of the understanding of reality and society, which are based on exclusivity rather than the inclusion of various realities and differences. It is interesting that Arendt notes that racist ideologies could have grounds in theoretical doctrines, for which she criticizes Hobbs (Arendt, 1951/1985, pp.  139‒145, 170‒180, 463) and also Darwin as, unwittingly or not, being proponents of race doctrines. However, those doctrines would not find relevance if they were not transposed to political life (1951/1985, p. 159). For Arendt, the dangerous side of political life thus relies on a constant lookout for justifications, which are represented as ultimate ‘truths’, something that will be discussed below. In this sense, Arendt warns us of one subtle phenomenon which still persists today. That is, of how scientific and theoretical discourse is employed in politics as a political weapon, including its persuasive role as a tool for the justification of dangerous ideologies, through its alleged objectivity of science and knowledge. From today’s perspective of how doctrines and ideologies get translated into politics, it is an even more relevant question. Canovan (1992/1995, pp. 26, 17, 18) explains that ideologies, and especially totalitarian ones, become so because some kind of ‘ultimate logical truth’ which attempts to give answers from the past and predict the future. In politics, this justification takes place mainly through methods of persuasion, while previously designed logical truths exclude dialogue and debate and focus on the prediction of and for the future. These serve as elements on which totalitarian ideologies rely in securing legitimacy and providing justifications to the public for implementing certain policies to the public, policies that usually turn out to be annihilating, spreading and infecting the world and politics with their ‘infectious’ and ‘evil’ practices. Conversely, for Arendt, objectivity and public opinion are created as a part of a broader and inclusive debate which represents and relies on a variety of viewpoints rather than ultimate truths and the logical explanations behind them (Arendt, 1967/2005, pp. 306, 310). Arendt argues that the boomerang effect of racism is made possible by race thinking, including doctrines and theories, which are actualized through the politics of the ‘nation’ domineering over the state. Most European states were built upon this kind of politics and basis, regardless of their constitutional proclamations. Bureaucracy, as a form of government, grew out of lawlessness or the erosion of legal systems within the milieu of growing racism and nationalism. Racism, at its core, denies political ‘equality’ and ‘solidarity’, and thus destroys the relationships between people within society (1951/1985, p. 161). A lack of political equality implies no possibility for a variety of representations of opinions and positions. This leads not only to the deformation of politics, but to its complete destruction. For counteracting the evil which was real and not mythical, Arendt is concerned with action and speech on the

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one hand, and thinking on the other, with judgement representing an integral aspect of her theoretical work (1951/1985, pp. 300, 301). Non-Time Space – Tradition and Rediscovery Time is a complex category and cannot exist by itself. Time requires space, and space – public, social and private – is something that Arendt has elaborated on in detail both in The Human Condition and subsequently in The Life of the Mind (Arendt, 1971/1981). The first set of human activities, as mentioned previously, consists of labour, work and action, and the second one of thinking, willing and judging. ‘Judging’ in Arendt’s work proves to be puzzling for scholars from various fields and disciplines. It is the missing chapter in her last volume The Life of the Mind, published posthumously. As a result of her sudden death it included chapters on thinking and willing, but unfortunately, the last part on ‘judging’ was never written. Just a blank piece of paper with a title was left behind (Arendt, 1971/1981, p. 241, Editors Postface). For this reason, it is even more challenging to explore the theme of ‘judgement’, and do justice to the thought and theoretical work of one of the most significant theorists of the twentieth century. The complexity of ‘judgement’ itself should not be underestimated, particularly because of its role in integrating her two separate theories of ‘vita activa’ and ‘vita contemplativa’ (Yar, 2000). Arendt believed she would need less time compared to thinking and willing to wrap up this last chapter of her ‘vita contemplativa’ compared to thinking and willing. Ironically, however, time prevented her even from starting it, let alone finishing it. In Arendt’s life and work, ‘time’, both metaphorically and physically, was involved, especially in the last chapter on ‘Judgement’ in the volume The Life of the Mind, as time prevented her from even commencing this important and integrating segment of her overall theoretical work, as she left the ‘world of appearances’. She passed away before uncovering the last puzzle on judging, having only written the title, so scholars have been offering various interpretations on this segment. Paradoxically enough, time is the most important element in her work related to ‘judgement’ and hence justice (Arendt, 1971/1981). By considering time and judgement simultaneously, one might understand the overall approach and method used by Arendt, which is basically present in one of her most important volumes, Between Past and Future (Arendt, 1954/1961). Not only is this volume relevant in elaborating on ‘judgement’ in terms of methodological approach, but it is also important because of its substantive examination, since some scholars consider that Arendt started her reflection on judging in several chapters of this volume. Arendt’s work on ‘judgement’ is the most important and integrating segment of her political

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theory, although not systematized in a separate chapter, as it is of great importance for understanding the realities of the twenty-first century. Arendt’s work on judgement is crucial for gaining a better understanding of her main theory on ‘plurality’ and thus ‘natality’. One could only imagine what she might have written in this important chapter that could have provided us with many answers regarding the ‘inherent tension’ of what she called ‘thinking’ and ‘action’ (2003, p. 105). Secondary scholarship considers that Arendt offers a mediating link between thinking and action through her later writings on ‘judgement’ (Villa, 2000/2002, p. 17). Her interest in thinking and judgement more systematically rose from the Eichmann trial, where she initially coined the phrase ‘banality of evil’ (1963/2006), subsequently fiercely criticized due to misinterpretation. Eichmann was one of the main figures in organizing and carrying out the Holocaust. He invoked Kant’s Categorical Imperative of ‘ends to means’ to justify to himself the horrendous crimes he had committed. As (Butler, 2011) concedes in her article, Arendt was ‘infuriated by Eichmann’s invocation of Kant’, and inspired by this misinterpretation she offered a response to the Eichmann trial seven years later with the Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy (Arendt, 1982/1992). A common denominator of thinking and action is not the judgement itself but the element of time. In that sense, the concept of time should be understood as a ‘bridge’ for addressing various existing concepts in Arendt’s political theory that at first sight seem completely insurmountable (Canovan, 1992/1995, p. 198). However, this is not an easy task, and the crucial question to pose is how is time related to ‘judgement’ and justice if in the present there is no ‘time’ as such? The segment of ‘time’ is quite hidden in Arendt’s work. One has to dig as deep as a ‘pearl diver’ to be able to trace the links and the small and sometimes less apparent elements of Arendt’s work that make the picture complete. In the conclusion of the interpretative essay in Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy (Arendt, 1982/1992), Ronald Beiner deems that time raises more questions and that Arendt tries to ‘subdue’ temporality. However, Beiner errs in his interpretation as Arendt attempts to understand how time is related to, and thus operates in, both the public sphere of politics and the private space of thinking. Temporality, according to Beiner, offers not only a bridge between both, but also through the elements of permanence and remembrance within the public space relating to her considerations on ‘judgement’. Without these elements, everything would vanish through time (Arendt, 1982/1992, p. 155). The ‘temporality’ in Arendt’s work is the element least examined by secondary scholarship. Only Birmingham (2006, pp. 17‒23) has elaborated on it in more detail, mainly by looking at ‘natality’, but still not concretely in relation to judgement and to Arendt’s overall work. In Berkowitz and Storey (2017, pp. 9‒36), one of the most unique and accurate interpretations of judgement has recently been offered.

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Temporality in the theoretical work of Arendt, as with every other aspect, is not straightforward. It is multifaceted, multi-contentious and multi-contextual. It is defined by the gap ‘between past and future’ (1954/1961) or, as stated in another essay, represents ‘No Longer and Not Yet’ (Arendt, 1994, pp. 157‒162). Arendt’s writing on time refers to the thinking being and the Kafka parable (1954/1961, p. 7). By these, Arendt intends to metaphorically depict the loss of tradition, and by that the loss of authority, that the French and American revolutions accelerated and deepened (Arendt, 1963/1990). Loss of tradition meant that there was a break in time, a crack that had set humanity on a roller-coaster ride. The riddle for Arendt was that everything stable and built, including principles and values, was lost in this crack. No manual for further usage was left behind for the generations to come. As she said: ‘our inheritance was left to us with no testament’ (1954/1961, p. 7). And this gap has deepened, especially with the advent of sciences and technology. The loss of tradition that denotes ‘lost treasure’ (which at some point refers to the illuminations from poets and writers) has created an ‘abyss’ or ‘gap’ in the continuity of humanity, which was and is difficult to overcome. Loss of tradition had the consequence of loss of political reality, which for Arendt was replaced with illusions of technological progress and equality (Arendt, 1954/1961, p. 5; 1955/1968, p. 193). To describe how this loss of tradition implied loss of reality she commences in Between Past and Future with the Kafka parable as an example of the incessant antagonistic struggle with oneself; of how to free oneself of the chains of time and retrieve one’s meaning and connection with reality: ‘Only because man is inserted into time and only to the extent he stands his ground does the flow of the indifferent time break into tenses’ (1954/1961, p. 11). Referring to Kafka’s parable of constant battle, time according to Arendt commences with every ‘new beginning’ and is incumbent upon natality. Natality is discussed in The Human Condition and represents a second birth which inserts someone into the political sphere through action and speech. It is composed of two principles which are inextricable. One is the principle of givenness and the other is the principle of beginning (Arendt, 1951/1985, p.  291; 1958/1998, p.  9; 1963/2006, pp.  62‒103,72‒74). In natality, time ceases to be linear and starts to be an antagonizing and paradoxical force in one’s life, pulling one back and forth between an infinite past and future. There is constant fighting that is intrinsic in every new beginning and natality, which seems more like a ‘battlefield than a home’ (1954/1961). The notion of ‘home’ and belonging is crucial in Arendt’s political theory; it implies being at home in the world and with oneself. The dynamic of being in the home, on the one hand, and of homelessness, which implies loneliness, on the other, offers to the past and future a reversed and paradoxical character. For example, Arendt claims that the past is the one that pulls forward and the future brings one back to the past. Amid these two, Arendt finds that there is

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a third force which is different from the two antagonizing forces. She deems it the ‘diagonal force’, which commences through the clash of past and future but is a ‘deflection’ of the clash of these antagonizing forces, possessing an infinite ending. She considers that for the past and future, no beginning exists; however, the end, she deems, is where they clash. This ‘gap’ between past and future allows one to distance oneself and judge impartially the antagonizing and infinite forces of the past and future. In this ‘gap’, in which she uses physics (i.e. the ‘parallelogram of forces’), Arendt considers that judging and thinking happen naturally without being pushed for (1954/1961). Birmingham (2006, p. 22), the only contemporary scholar who discusses temporality in Arendt, considers that judgement and action do not occur in the past but take place in this ‘deflective present’, which is the ‘gap between the past and future’. To contextualize this in relation to her concerns for loss of tradition – tradition as something which roots us into reality, since it is very much related to remembrance – the pertinent question is how can time and the gap between past and future be set into motion or be in juxtaposition over again? Arendt indicates that this gap applies to the ‘contemporary condition of thought’ and not historical and biological time. With the loss of tradition, which is also her way of explaining how philosophy shifted from metaphysics to action within existentialism, Arendt (1954/1961, p. 13) had interrupted the gap between past and future and their incessant exchange, thus giving rise to the deflected force, called ‘present’. In another essay, Arendt calls this ‘the abyss of empty space between no longer and not yet’, which is real and deepening, and had led to the ‘dead factories’, since the loss of tradition meant loss of the illuminations from poets and writers, the greatest ‘judges’ and storytellers of the present. The deflected force between past and future is metaphorically present for Arendt, out of which this ‘constant fighting’ keeps in motion. The gap and its motion between past and future is dependent on continuity. And this is exactly what Arendt is fearful of – the loss of continuity and the deepening of the ‘abyss’ in the times to come – as she presents it as a warning (Arendt, 1954/1961, pp. 10‒13; 1994, p. 158). Yet, such discontinuity of the gap between the past and future could set something new in motion. This new is unpredictable and it could be either dark and destructive, or illuminating and hopeful. It is located within the ‘heart of time’, or as she calls it ‘non-time space’. This proposition merits asking whether Arendt is suggesting that the loss of tradition, and the strong perpetual forces of the past and future, even though they bring technological progress, would not only deepen the abyss but be responsible for mass destruction. It is only a hypothesis, that requires rethinking and contextualizing; however, such a proposition should not be underestimated. It is not entirely clear what this ‘non-time space’ represents even though Arendt offers a hint, as it is the only

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place where ‘truth’ reveals itself (1954/1961, pp. 13‒14). This is in contrast to her other writings on truth, because primarily truth for Arendt is ‘despotic’. What perhaps she is suggesting is the notion of truthfulness and judgement, that is ingrained in the present, or in the gap between past and future. Still, it would not do justice to her work to assume what this ‘small non-time space’ entails, which is of enormous importance for understanding even the times we live in. Apparently, Arendt provided some hints, but it is indeed puzzling since she suggests that it is not something that can be inherited from the past. Therefore, it is not history or tradition, nor is it a result of modernity, but it is something that each generation must rediscover all over again. By taking into consideration her overall theoretical work and concern for humanity (Arendt, 1963/2006, p. 3), and notwithstanding all the critiques on the lack of normative force behind these ideas (Benhabib,1996/2003, p. 185; Canovan, 1978), several authors including Birmingham (2006) consider that the ‘ideal of humanity’ is what she is referring to. Humanity is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, Arendt considered humanity as a ‘common ground’ (Arendt, 1951/1985, p. 235) of solidarity with ‘common responsibility’, and on the other, she was not enthusiastic of the ideal of humanity (Arendt, 1951/1985, p. 236). As Birmingham (2006) rightly notes, Arendt was quite pessimistic since she deemed that the knowledge and understanding of each other makes us deny the same ideal of humanity that should reinforce us. Despite her pessimism, she found somewhat of a ‘light’, an understanding for humanity which she located in this ‘non-time space’ as an elastic and ‘treasure’-like opportunity offered to each new generation, which establishes, or more precisely sets, the temporality all over again, but as well offers unchained ‘freedom’ from the chains of time and burdens of the past (Adams, 2014). It is indeed appealing to note the great hope and meaning Arendt assigns to both action and natality and therefore to the human condition and political life. Justice as Truthfulness In the technological, automatized, rational mass society that oscillates between human, nature and machine, various scholars have been concerned with how political equality and justice can be achieved. Oftentimes what perplexes thinkers is the character and meaning of justice itself. As far as the general idea of justice as ‘fairness’ is concerned, it is predominantly addressed along with the social system and its structures (Rawls, 1971). Many contemporary scholars pursue this kind of conceptualization, overlapping it with the placement of technology into the social space. So, it would seem that technology and justice not only exist within a similar space, but therein reinforce each other.

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Very few recent scholars have explored the notion of justice along with temporality (Alvarez-Nakagawa, 2018; Bevernage, 2012). Temporality finds applicability in the field of transitional justice that is a combination of legal and non-legal measures (Hayner, 2011). Relying on Berkowitz’s claim that the idea of justice has been separated from the law, Alvarez-Nakagawa (2018) correctly raises the question of the relationship between time and justice, or ‘when justice is done’, reducing at the same time its abstractedness. For example, in the administration of criminal justice, even in the operation of international criminal courts/tribunals for the persecution of mass crimes, technology has been employed in managing the caseload (Pimentel, 2004). In some cases of internal criminal justice, technology and artificial intelligence have been employed in the pre-trial procedures by installing algorithms that determine whether someone should be detained or not. Interestingly, the role of these algorithms is multiple. They counteract what would normally be a human bias, hence represent a superior replacement for the faculty of human judgement, carry out electronic monitoring of incarceration and calculate the incidence of criminality (Forbes, 2017). Not only do technological developments of the twenty-first century increase the automatization and technologization of the justice system, but they also replace the human faculty of judgement, which the judiciary and everyone involved in the justice system should exercise to their highest capacity. From that perspective, the work of Arendt is quite relevant. The first and more general reason is that she places justice in the political sphere instead of the social one, and attempts to juxtapose it with politics through her notion of truthfulness or judgement. The second, more specific, reason pertains to the actual application of the faculty of judgement, especially of how judges think and actually judge. In both the general and specific aspects, Arendt insists on impartiality and objectivity that could be represented by her notion of truthfulness (1967/2005). Contemporary critical scholars like Nussbaum (2013) and Sen (2009) also look at the notion of justice, proposing two different approaches. Nussbaum (2013), in her volume titled Political Emotions, considers that ‘love’ is relevant for justice. Sen (2009), on the other hand, in his Idea of Justice, considers objectivity and impartiality by criticizing Rawls’s (1971) concept of social structuralism in relation to justice. Both Sen and Nussbaum are closer to Arendt than to Rawls. This subsection will discuss Arendt’s understanding of truthfulness as justice by briefly addressing these two approaches. Notably, how could one think, judge and act politically with objectivity and impartiality, that is, without relying on emotions? By rejecting rationality? One of the reasons Arendt rejects rationality is her insistence on understanding political reality with her relational and in-depth thinking. Conversely, rationality for her is part and parcel of the social sciences along with mathematical thinking and

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calculations, which do not allow for miracles and for the unexpected to take place in politics (Arendt, 1958/1998, p. 172; Berkowitz, 2018; Yaqoob, 2014). Along similar lines to Arendt, Heikkurinen (2017) analyses and criticizes the advent of social sciences by focusing on Von Wright’s humanism. The challenge in the twenty-first century, but also for Arendt, is how to avoid becoming an automatized individual within society as far as acting and speaking are concerned, and at the same time lay off the emotion which is detrimental to objectivity and impartiality. Or, more importantly, how to balance emotion and the quest for justice, and yet remain objective and impartial, in the era of speedy technological developments where rationality takes over. Let us first look at the aspect of emotion. For Arendt, ‘love’ is anti-political and belongs to the private space (An exchange of letters, 1963). By the same token, any other emotion or sentiment in politics and justice would be anti-political, including love’s antipode ‘hate’. ‘Hatred’ on the other hand, is reflected in the exterminating policies and practices of totalitarianism, and did not rise without the increase of mass loneliness, propaganda, control and terror that were preceded by an ideology (1951/1985). As a result of these destructive phenomena, Arendt paid a lot of attention on the ‘Love of the World’ which, according to Berkowitz (2017), is ‘reconciling with the world as it is’, including with all the evil. For Arendt, emotions do not belong to the space of politics; nevertheless, she talks about miracles, novelty, new beginnings, public happiness in acting and speaking with others, solidarity, reconciliation and remembrance (1951/1985, p. 478). All these correspond and are interrelated with her very potent concept of ‘plurality’, which is a precondition for politics. The public space is of utmost importance since this is the space and place where the freedom to act and speak reinforces plurality or our belonging to a political community, which according to Arendt should not be based on ‘love’ but on freedom and spontaneity of political action and speech, and through that reaffirming the reality (1958/1998, pp. 178‒179). Even though Arendt was not in favour of political emotions, she rejected rationality and logic, including the notion of ‘truth’. Instead, she focused on the importance of ‘judging’ as forming an opinion through ‘truthfulness’ as tantamount to public debate. On several occasions, she makes distinctions between factual truths and emotions in politics, but also between types of truths such as factual and rational. Rational truths have contributed to the mixing of philosophy and politics and blurred the boundaries of private and public space. Hence, for Arendt, the irreconcilable conflict between truth and politics stems from the rational truths (1967/2005). Arendt is interested in seeing how factual truths and opinions interact and emphasizes the importance of the truthfulness of facts, something which is of relevance for both the political and legal sphere. However, the reality is somewhat different, since politics and truth do not go hand in hand. The importance

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of factual truths and truthfulness in politics which pertain to ‘judgement’ is dealt with in her essays that phenomenologically tackle various aspects of both ‘truth’ and ‘lying’. It is her intention to portray what real politics consists of and explain why relying on the absurdity of rational facts and ‘truths’ is dangerous for both politics and justice (Arendt, 1967/2005; Arendt, 1969/1972, pp.  1‒48; Arendt, 1951/1985, p.  471). For Arendt, truth is coercive and tyrannical, and precludes debate, and by that token should be distinguished from ‘truthfulness’. What had made totalitarian movements so powerful ‘is that they distorted reality through facts (through the art of lying and manipulation of facts), and through the charm of propaganda, by mobilizing masses into “blinded” followers of dogmatic and dangerous ideologies’ (Arendt, 1951/1985, pp. 297‒303, 470‒471; Arendt, 1958/1998, p. 58). On the other hand, the concept of truth represents an inseparable part of the idea of justice, but also of the formal justice system. For John Rawls (1971, pp. 3, 109), justice represents the main characteristic of society and its institutions, while truth is part of the thought system, which converges into the principle of fairness based mainly on Kant’s and Rousseau’s works. Yet Rawls places at the centre the fairness of the social system and institutions. Correctly, Amartya Sen (2009) is critical of Rawls’s idea of justice, which represents ‘justice as fairness’, or what the system had actually constructed as institutions for justice. He dedicates a whole volume to this criticism, along with considerations of objectivity and impartiality, through looking at the works of Adam Smith and Kant, which are based on morality and reason. He identifies an ‘impartial spectator’ by looking at Smith, something that in Arendt is the faculty of ‘judgement’ and spectatorship. One quite serious problem in Arendt’s conception of judging is when the political actor shifts to become a spectator, something that is hard to grasp completely, and represents a lacuna in her thought (Yar, 2000). Amartya Sen (2009, p. 126) is a proponent of an anti-parochial understanding of justice, which goes in line with Kantian ‘enlarged mentality’. Arendt departs from Kant and his moral philosophy by replacing practical reason with thinking and judging (Canovan, 1992/1995, p. 198). In addition, she moves beyond Smith’s ‘impartial spectator’, as Sen is suggesting, since, by focusing on plurality, Arendt provides a path to, and a practical example of, ‘reality’. Reality for her is created through political equality and freedom, through creating relationships through spontaneity and freedom, including permanent and stable institutions (1958/1998; 1963/1990). Impartiality and objectivity are not identical, yet both belong to truthfulness and judgement in the work of Arendt. Plurality in Arendt’s work consists of unique persons who distinguish themselves with differing opinions and views in the political and public space, and who ideally, through critical thinking, do not allow for parochialism, and test continuously the nature of truth itself by

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creating opinions or judgements (1955/1968, p. 29). Impartiality is related to the actual judgement and objectivity to ‘reality’ or, in relation to ‘others’, to events which shape the reality (Rasmussen & Uyl, 2013). By that analogy, as with technology, ‘truth’ similarly should be questioned and re-examined all over again. Only in this way would ‘truth’ as truthfulness be devoid of its ‘despotism’ and open portals for debate and dialogue. The main precondition for this is critical thinking and judging which is represented at its core by involving the standpoints of the others. For this reason, Arendt insists on objectivity and judgement which is crucial for both politics and law. One cannot judge and thus create various opinions on public and political matters if one is ‘blinded’ by emotion, or if one is presented with distorted facts without testing them in public through the relationships with the others. Impartiality and objectivity represent the most relevant tools for evaluating facts and situations through reinforcing plurality by the creating of the common world and institutions (Arendt, 1955/1968, p. 29; 1958/1998, pp. 51, 57; 1967/2005, p. 312).

CONCLUSION Arendt’s work possesses profoundly humanistic considerations, as she was concerned with humanity throughout her whole theoretical life, offering a unique insight into the intersection between technology, politics and justice. Her entire theoretical work was focused on these aspects, even though they often arise indirectly. The central volumes, The Human Condition, The Origins of Totalitarianism and Between Past and Future, represent a critique of technological progress which is for her both pre-totalitarian and totalitarian. Arendt developed a systematic critique, even though not a normative one, for which some commentators criticize her, of the threats mass society is posing to politics and the law, and by that, on justice. The first, pre-totalitarian, aspect comprises mass consumption and production, including the mass culture of technological development and progress. The second aspect, the totalitarian one, is carried out by installing racist ideologies which are based on superiority and power and whose direct consequence is the technology of the concentration camps (Arendt, 1951/1985; Yaqoob, 2014). In contrast to some scholars who examine technology as such, for Arendt, only political action through the new beginnings of natality brings novelty and the possibility for change. Technology according to Arendtian analysis belongs to the social space, where discrimination is legitimate, and in a sense change is impossible. Social space, on the other hand, has been responsible for eroding the public space and mixing it up with the private. Another characteristic of technology is that it creates uniformity, thus undermining the possibility for people to distinguish themselves and be unique persons in society. This leads to mass loneliness as a precursor for totalitarianism. Furthermore,

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Arendt questions the character of truth, which she considers despotic, and discusses two types of truths – rational and factual. For her, the difficulties arising from technology and science are multilayered but nonetheless inextricable from each other. Rational truth is linked to the criticism of social sciences as a way to explain politics and justice, and therefore the problematic side of rational truths streaming out of social sciences, mathematics and philosophy. Factual truth is linked to her understanding of racism and race thinking as rooted in imperialism and carried out through technology and the progress of totalitarianism. Rational truths resulting from the sciences and philosophy have contributed to the erosion of the public space, but have also blurred the lines between philosophy and politics. Nonetheless, Arendt is quite interested in examining how factual truths and public opinions interact and should be placed under public scrutiny through discussion and dialogue. For that aim, she develops impartiality and objectivity, which are related to her considerations of justice as truthfulness or judgement, and not mere truth. Lastly, Arendt’s deeply humanistic approach and concerns are relevant for re-examining the scientific approach behind the Anthropocene and transhumanism. The former should refrain from remaining only within the rational and technical explanation of the geological era, although some scholarly considerations within the humanities have been explored as well (Heikkurinen, 2017). Anthropocene studies and approaches could benefit from Arendt in understanding the broader implications of technology and science for the earth through labour and establishing a link with the industrialization and globalization of the modern era, and by that reducing the disagreement between scholars who have been focusing on the implications of both the Anthropocene and Capitalocene. Another benefit would be an understanding of how politics operate through action and speech and establish a link with the ongoing reality. The employment of an interdisciplinary approach is of paramount importance when moving towards an in-depth understanding of the Anthropocene (Champlin, 2015). This involves taking into consideration many of the threats Arendt discusses in relation to the destruction of the earth and of our common political world. For Arendt, even amid destruction there is hope for new beginnings and political change. This miracle counters the calculations and predictability that are part and parcel of rationality, technology and science. Miraculous and unpredictable new beginnings are a crucial part of our human condition of plurality, which is characterized by apolitical freedom and political equality, and this is what Arendt attempts to teach us.

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10. The Anthropocene and climate change in the post-Paris Agreement debate1 Paolo Davide Farah and Marek Prityi SETTING THE SCENE: THE ANTHROPOCENE AND CLIMATE CHANGE The regular meetings of the Parties to the United Nations Climate Change Conference offer perfect opportunities for members of the international com Part of the research leading to this result received funding from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under REA grant agreement n° 317767 – Acronym of the Project: LIBEAC (2013–2016) entitled “Lib­eralism in between Europe and China” within the results of gLAWcal – Global Law Initiatives for Sustainable Development (United Kingdom). Corresponding Author Email Addresses: paolofarah@​ yahoo​.com; paolo.farah@​glawcal​.org​.uk. Paolo Davide Farah, West Virginia University, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, John D. Rockefeller IV School of Policy and Politics, Department of Public Administration; West Virginia University, Energy Institute; West Virginia University, Center for Innovation in Gas Research and Utilization (CIGRU); West Virginia University, Institute of Water Security and Science (IWSS). Founder, President, Director, Principal Investigator and Senior Research Fellow at gLAWcal – Global Law Initiatives for Sustainable Development (United Kingdom). Co-Principal Investigator of EU commission Marie Curie Project LIBEAC at gLAWcal – Global Law Initiatives for Sustainable Development. Senior Fellow at the IIEL – Institute of International Economic Law, Georgetown University Law Center. EU Commission Marie Curie Fellow in the LIBEAC Project at Tsinghua University Law School, at the School of Public Policy and Management and at the Department of Philosophy and at Peking University School of Government and Law School. Editor-in-Chief for the gLAWcal Book Series “Global Law and Sustainable Development” and for the gLAWcal Book Series “Transnational Law and Governance” published by Routledge Publishing (New York/London). Dual PhD in International Law from Aix-Marseille University (France) and University of Milan (Italy), LLM in European Legal Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges (Belgium), Maitrise (J.D.) in International and European Law from Paris Ouest La Defense Nanterre University (France). Marek Prityi, Ministry of Environment, Directorate for Environmental Policy, EU and International Relations, Department of International Relations (Slovak Republic). gLAWcal – Global Law Initiatives for Sustainable Development (United Kingdom). Dr. iur. (PhD) and LLM, University of Cologne, Germany; J.D., Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. EU Commission Marie Curie Fellow in the LIBEAC Project at Tsinghua University Law School, at the School of Public Policy and Management and at the Department of Philosophy. The views and interpretations are those of the author and do not represent the official position of the Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic. 1

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munity (government delegates, scientists, and representatives from the civil society) to discuss issues pertaining to the never-ending fight against climate change. Such a sense of urgency, as generally underscored by the scientific community, is severely lacking within the political realm, as insufficient political promises and compromises only partially ensure concrete action against climate change. Scientific knowledge indeed evolves, and repeated calls for action are more acutely felt each and every year. The year 2019 was certainly no exception, with several reports underscoring the urgent need for specific action addressing climate change. These reports have established a narrative for the present discourse on the Anthropocene, underscoring the urgency, complexity, and uncertainties related therewith (see in general: Heikkurinen, 2017). Narratives are powerful, as they contextually ground complex matters with many distinct features (Young, 2018). However, it is necessary to identify and combat any narrative fallacies that may gain broad support, which sometimes arise as a result of political pressures that seek to denounce scientifically-proven reports (see in general: Taleb, 2008). Timothy M. Lenton et al., in their report in Nature (Lenton et al., 2019), have established valid arguments indicating that the Earth may be nearing irreversible damage1 a lot sooner than originally expected. Rapidly developing symptoms that only affirm the current state of climate change include ice melt2 and the blending of biospheric boundaries. Such symptoms may lead to a “global cascade of tipping points that lead to a new and non-habitable ‘hothouse’ state; thus, a warmed and inhabitable Earth” (Lenton et al., 2019). Many of these impacts will be, and already are, unequally dispersed across various regions around the globe, only affirming the climate-related disparities of the North– South divide. Take, for example, oceanic acidification – climate’s natural state is already warming, deoxidizing, and raising the levels of the sea. All that said, human activity is only speeding up such harmful processes – the continued emissions of CO2 only contribute to the ocean’s destruction (Biermann et al., 2016, p. 344). Nevertheless, agile and immediate action may help to reduce the CO2 emissions that have only sped up such harmful process. Thus, reducing CO2 emissions could help to slow the changes produced by natural climate change (Lenton et al., 2019; see also Biermann et al., 2016). Even still, many of these symptoms are not observable in large quantities, which only contributes to the uncertainty and unpredictability behind the general and overall acceptance of climate change and the changes it may, therefore, bring to governance (Berkes, 2017, pp. 1–2). All that said, it is worthwhile noting that, in accordance with the latest available data, CO2 emissions continue to rise. As noted by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), “[t]here is no sign of a slowdown, let alone a decline, in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere despite all the commitments [made] under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change”

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(World Meteorological Organization, 2019). According to WMO data, “globally averaged concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) reached 407.8 parts per million in 2018, up from 405.5 parts per million (ppm) in 2017” (World Meteorological Organization, 2019). Such conclusions reveal that CO2 emissions are only steadily rising. That said, and perhaps even more alarmingly, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has affirmed that – even if the provisions made under the Paris Agreement were being respected – the globe is set for a temperature increase of about 3.2°C (UNEP, 2019). In order to reach the overall goal of the Paris Agreement – of limiting the temperature increase to only 1.5°C – there are measures that must be taken to ensure that “global greenhouse gas emissions fall by 7.6% each year between 2020 and 2030” (UNEP, 2019). Science speaks using an undeniable language. The international community is quite attuned to said language, but the overall fight against climate change is one that progresses quite slowly, with many individual states taking one step forward then two steps back. Said difficulties lie within changes that must be made within the economy, and within overall governance. The following definition of climate change (IPCC, 2018) is one commonly used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g. by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings such as modulations of the solar cycles, volcanic eruptions, and persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use. (IPCC, 2018)

This wording only slightly differs from the definition used by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which defines climate change as, “a change of climate which is attributed [either] directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and that is, in addition to natural climate variability, observed over comparable time periods” (Art. 1 (2), UNFCC, 1992). The IPCC’s definition of climate change is perhaps more swayed towards the acceptance of human influence on the global climate (IPCC, 1995, p. 5). Despite these slight differences, the IPCC has clearly warned of the dangers associated with climate change. However, said warnings have not been fully considered and implemented within the developments of international law (Richardson, 2017, p. 368).

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THE DEMAND FOR AGILE GOVERNANCE IN THE AGE OF ANTHROPOCENE To a certain extent, the abovementioned definitions represent a quite understandable compromise between science and politics (with their contradictions resting within the complexity of interrelated issues). At the same time, these definitions chiefly recognize the most significant issue, part of a larger narrative, behind the fight against climate change: human begins and the values they hold dear, and the decisions made that have led to the Anthropocene. That said, addressing such an issue proves more than difficult, as humans’ rising standards of living – the “needs” that humans are consuming vast quantities of resources to fulfill at this very moment – are the primary causes of accelerated changes in the Earth System, a process that began around 1945 at the end of World War II (Burch et al., 2019, p. 5; Richardson, 2017). Such a time period, however, has produced benefits that are hard to undervalue – since 1981, extreme poverty has reduced from 42 percent to only 10 percent in 2015 (European Environment Agency, 2019, p. 6). That said, economic growth and emissions reduction have not progressed hand in hand; rather, economic growth has historically meant large amounts of harmful emissions (Burch et al., 2019, p. 2). Such an observance questions the very capability of achieving the goals as outlined by the 7th Environment Action Programme, a document that intends for “a safe and sustainable society” by 2050 (European Environment Agency, 2019). As noted by scholars researching the problems of sustainability, politics and sustainability have become undivorceable, and transformations towards sustainability must also be seen this way (Burch et al., 2019, p. 4). Apparently, humans can no longer rely on our socio-legal systems to combat the external factors that have harmed our ways of life; thus, institutional change, by itself, is merely insufficient (Berkes, 2017, p. 5). Humans may no longer be able to accept new norms of living, while quickly re-emerging back to their former ways of life (Richardson, 2017, p. 73). Hence, transformative change may be the only rational response for countering humanity’s overwhelmed adaptive capacities, considering that our current systems are now unable to provide the answers for seemingly irreversible climate change.3 If the worst climate change scenarios do materialize, then humanity will be unable to restore degraded environments so as to protect any otherwise unharmed ecosystems (Richardson, 2017, p. 38). Such deep societal transformation – an approach typically championed by scientists – must be realized at all levels of society and by all forms of governance (Stout & Love, 2019). Such transformation can only occur collaboratively, utilizing both bottom-up and top-down approaches to governance (Burch et al., 2019, p. 4). In order to achieve the many global objectives as articulated, for example by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, there must

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be a combination of both bottom-up and top-down governance (Burch et al., 2019, p. 4). Ironically, such deep transformations must be accepted and implemented by the nations (and the institutions) who are chiefly responsible for the deteriorations and issues associated with the Anthropocene, many of which are considered developed nations (Burch et al., 2019, p. 5). Perhaps one of the greatest fallacies regarding the discussion of the Anthropocene is that mankind, as one “global, unified, geological force”, is responsible for accelerated climate change (Biermann et al., 2016, p. 342). Yet, one of the greatest challenges in combatting climate change lies within the very issue of inequality in humanity, contradicting the very narrative of mankind as monolithic unity. In viewing the Anthropocene as a very complex phenomenon, it is impossible to ignore the technical and societal issues related to “values, equity, and social justice” (Berkes, 2017, p. 7). Such issues are relevant to both the realm of the Anthropocene and the realm of the institutions themselves. Ecologically, these issues may be found within the unequal distribution of environmental harm in the context of the North–South divide. Governmentally, these harms may be the results of a general failure to tackle said ecological issues, mainly because of the power imbalances caused by various interest groups (Burch et al., 2019, p. 5). Thus, it becomes important to apply a rather cross-scalar perspective in considering the many issues at local, regional, and global levels that have contributed to social inequality and injustice (Biermann et al., 2016, p. 342). These issues should be addressed using very pragmatic solutions so as to ensure adaptation and mitigation, with one possible solution being the transfer of technology – a rather contentious topic that truly illustrates the differences between the nations that have the means, and those that do not (Haselip et al., 2015, pp. 363–364). Even within the very context of the global North–South divide, it is becoming ever more important to address the issue of distributive justice, and therefore the management and distribution of environmental and social “costs and benefits across different generations” around the global society (Burch et al., 2019, p. 10). Such a differentiation is important, as it emphasizes the fact that humanity is indeed not unified, but very spacious in a sense that many different generations and groups have made decisions that have now nearly led humanity to the brink of no climatic return (Biermann et al., 2016, p. 342). Technological processes applied by the international community (to achieve social, economic, and environmental objectives) should be perceived in a similar manner – especially considering the applicable and tangible aspects of climate technologies relative to the organizational structures and planning process within the agricultural sector (Haselip et al., 2015, p. 368).

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THE GOVERNANCE OF WICKED PROBLEMS Discussion regarding the age of the Anthropocene generally revolves around the debate as to which form of government is best equipped for providing the most appropriate solutions in combatting accelerated climate change (Stout & Love, 2019). In addition to the cross-scalar perspective mentioned above, one should consider the multiscalar effects associated with the complex issues that challenge the rather traditional forms of governance in an era that has become rather defined by polycentric decision-making (Farah & Rossi, 2011, p. 238). One of the more complex challenges presented by the age of the Anthropocene concerns the notion of “wicked problems”, problems “with no definitive formulation, no stopping rule, and no test for a solution” (Berkes, 2017, p. 7). By their very nature, wicked problems are unstructured, with their causes and effects difficult to identify and predict. Yet, efforts still persist in finding answers to these various issues (Weber & Khademian, 2008, p. 336). Again, the form of governance best suited to combat these issues remains unanswered. As to whether or not democracy, autocracy, or technocracy is best suited to address these issues is unknown to many experts (Burch et al., 2019, p. 8). Perhaps the world’s future will be decided by the seemingly endless competition between the rather autocratic forms of governance and the “democratic” forms of government that some nations (e.g. China4 and Singapore5) often question, especially regarding the environmental outcomes produced as a result of democratic procedures (Burch et al., 2019, p. 8). Or perhaps the complexity of the issues associated with the Anthropocene will force humanity into establishing more collaborative methods of decision-making (Heikkurinen, 2017). Democracy is perhaps the most elastic form of governance, and it is also assessed based on the quality of state institutions and the non-state actors involved in hybrid forms of governance (Burch et al., 2019, p. 8). Democracy is particularly attractive in the context of wicked problems, which “cuts across hierarchy and authority structures within and between organizations and across policy domains, political and administrative jurisdictions, and political ‘group’ interests” (Weber & Khademian, 2008, p. 336). When “wicked problems” begin to become more and more obvious, democracy is perhaps more than equipped in overcoming narrative fallacies that prevent humanity from considering matters otherwise basked in uncertainty (see in general: Taleb, 2008). All this said, as noted by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, perhaps the most reachable goal at this very moment involves the joint efforts of all citizens to recognize narrative fallacies as soon as they arise, and act quickly in order to avoid falling into these traps and continuing the repetitive cycle of history (Kahneman, 2011, pp. 115–117). To a certain extent, participatory and collab-

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orative approaches may very well offer the solutions needed for overcoming such rhetoric and fallacy. Perhaps new discussions may be sparked regarding the very concepts of reflexive and adaptive governance, which are more accommodative by their very natures (Burch et al., 2019, p. 13). Said discussions should reflect and incorporate thoughts on resilience coupled with related concepts of “system change, learning, and adaptation” (Berkes, 2017, p. 2). The very concept of “collaboration” in the age of the Anthropocene, itself may help to counter the fallacies that insist that such an approach may compromise the principles that democratic institutions have, for so long, traditionally championed. These (wicked) challenges, which must be confronted by mankind, also require high degrees of anticipation, which is most properly and effectively applied in democratic settings, “in which societal concerns can be articulated and taken into account in a timely manner” (Richardson, 2017, p. 146). Moreover, resorting to collaboration may compensate for the rather unsuccessful, conventional approaches to science and management that have been applied to counter the complex, uncertain, and unpredictable issues that have arisen via the Anthropocene (Berkes, 2017, p. 6). Simultaneously, resorting to collaboration may better offer the opportunity to “adjust environmental decisions to changing circumstances” (Richardson, 2017, p. 6). During the times in which the status quo is challenged by uncertain and complex situations, humanity, and their forms of governance, must be able to flex and adapt accordingly (Richardson, 2017, p. 146).

CITIES AS ACTORS IN THE CLIMATE CHANGE DISCOURSE Of the many characteristics of the Anthropocene, urbanization is perhaps the most geographically significant (Biermann et al., 2016, p. 345). Thus, cities have become rather new and important players in combining both bottom-up and top-down governance (Burch et al., 2019, p. 12), especially given their access to human, technological, political, and cultural capital. Moreover, urban areas are responsible for about 70 percent of fossil fuel carbon emissions (Biermann et al., 2016, p. 345). Cities and urban areas often find themselves in unique situations pertaining to environmental stewardship, many often arguing that cities should “act as stewards of the planet” (Biermann et al., 2016, p. 345). When cities seize the opportunity, they often establish connections at both regional and global levels, in turn compensating for the negative actions of their respective national governments (Biermann et al., 2016, p. 346). The United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement represents an example of such dynamics. When the United States withdrew from their commitment to globally combat climate change, 12 of the nation’s

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largest cities – which comprise around 7 percent of the nation’s total population – declared their commitment to combat climate change via a federal loophole that would offer cities the authority to do so (C 40/ARUP, 2019). Another approach, deemed “decentralized climate leadership”, is the basis for America’s Pledge (Bloomberg Philanthropies, 2018a). Said initiative includes cities, states, and businesses with the common goal of reducing emissions, as compared to 2005, by 17 percent by 2025 (Bloomberg Philanthropies, 2018b). Moreover, the United States’ formal withdrawal from the Paris Agreement may offer opportunities for new forms of collaboration (at sub-national levels with international partners) in meeting the initial agreements made in the Paris Agreement (H.-B. Zhang et al., 2017, p. 224). By the same token, however, cities and urban areas are perhaps too fragile to adequately offer prolonged and sustained collaboration in meeting these demands, as these areas – especially in developing nations – may perhaps be most subjected to weaker governance systems and institutions and to lack of sufficient financial and human resources (Biermann et al., 2016, p. 345).

COLLABORATIVE APPROACHES IN THE CONTEXT OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE NORTH–SOUTH DIVIDE Collaborative governance is perhaps the most practical approach for addressing wicked problems, especially in the context of climate change. For example, technology transfer should not be a footnote on the agenda; rather, it should be seen as a way to combat both societal and technical inequality. Chapter 34 of Agenda 21 – the latter of which was adopted in 1992 by the Earth Summit (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and is an action plan not legally binding – identifies the most complex and controversial dimensions of technology transfers, where the narrative describes that “technology transfers” should not just be the simple and materialistic exchange of technologies themselves. Rather, adequate exchanges should include the training, the procedures, the goods and services, and the equipment necessary for strong organizational and managerial implementation. Thus, human resource development and capacity-building is quintessential for complete transfers. Environmentally sound technologies should be compatible with nationally determined socio-economic, cultural, and environmental priorities. Technology transfer is thus the combination of both hardware (equipment) and software (training, management, and education), in which said transfers are mutually beneficial for both investors and recipients (Forsyth, 2005, p. 167). Here, collaborative or participatory development may perhaps

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meet the demands for the complete transfer of technology (Forsyth, 2005, pp. 167–168). As noted by Haselip et al., “technology transfer should not be understood as a one-off event, but as an ongoing process that depends upon, and influences, other ongoing domestic processes” (Haselip et al., 2015, p. 369). Various forms of collaborative and cross-sectoral partnerships may even counter the demand for reliance on international partners as an alternative to states in achieving domestic public policy goals (Forsyth, 2010, p. 684). In the context of technology transfers, collaboration between the private sector and various localities may even offer a kind of “development dividend” through integrating climate change mitigation with local development needs (Forsyth, 2005, p. 166). With respect to collaborative governance in the context of the global North–South divide, it is reasonable to bring REDD+ projects into focus. REDD+ projects that focus on carbon sequestration, via reforestation, inherently realize that goals may only be met through the cooperation of a variety of actors that range from localities, to developers, to governments, and ultimately to states themselves (Takacs, 2014, p. 75). These forms of collaborative and cross-sectoral partnerships can be mutually beneficial (Farah, 2016). However, said partnerships should also understand that the inclusion of too many spheres – whether it would be state, business, or civil institutions with differing intentions – may undermine the effectiveness of any given program (Forsyth, 2010, p. 684). The standpoints and mind-sets of any given marginalized locality and international corporations can be, and often are, worlds apart (Forsyth, 2010, p. 687). Even the more dominant institutions, including the World Bank, are often criticized for their fundamental lack of understanding of local situations (Forsyth, 2010, p. 692). When inadequately planned and done incorrectly, international projects may often lead to bad results – for instance, establishing monocultures may often remove “people form their traditional resource” mechanisms (Takacs, 2014, p. 79; see also Farah & Tremolada, 2015). For this reason, projects should be carefully planned and structured in order to adequately connect central and international levels of governments to the localities themselves. Said connections may be affirmed via contractual understandings, with credible reassurance mechanisms, to prevent any challenges and issues from even arising (Forsyth, 2010, pp. 688–690). Properly applied collaborative approaches, such as those between environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and indigenous peoples, can strengthen and contribute to the integrity of such arrangements (Huang, 2016). Using familiar language, properly articulating the benefits for respective stakeholders, and transparently recognizing the political motivations behind such initiatives represent only several variables needed for successful technology transfer projects (Forsyth, 2005, pp. 172–174). Non-state actors should strategically focus on accountability and possible conflicts of interest, as well (Richardson, 2017, p. 148).

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CONCLUSION Tackling the many wicked problems introduced via the age of the Anthropocene requires wide-ranging and holistic action. Collaborative approaches offer fundamental and practical solutions for addressing and countering the ever-changing issues humanity faces every day, while also integrating a variety of stakeholders throughout the decision-making process (Stout & Love, 2019). Complex issues require complex solutions. In other words, the very essence of complexity inherently means uncertainty, and the possibility for failure is quite high. Even though the trial-and-error approach is sometimes unavoidable, humanity should try its best to minimize any risks inherently present while learning from history. The concept of technology transfer demonstrates that it is indeed possible to identify approaches and solutions that work, while recognizing the pitfalls that should be avoided (Forsyth, 2005, pp. 175). At the same time, it also shows that addressing of issues at the local level (while creating meaningful interactions and collaborations between global and local levels) can help to tackle problematic issues in the context of the global North–South divide. In this regard, it is necessary to be aware of the interactions between multilevel, multiscalar, and cross-scalar approaches (Farah & Rossi, 2011), underscoring not only the complexity of the problems and their possible solutions in the era of polycentric governance, but also the interplay between global, national, and local actors in both the public and private sector. With respect to collaboration, it should be understood that such a form of governance bears the risks of fragmentation, which could lead to a potential lack of coordination and escalated conflict (Richardson, 2017, p. 149).

NOTES 1. According to Steffen et al. (2018), when certain planetary thresholds are met, bio-geophysical feedback processes might set the Earth System on a so-called “Hothouse Earth Pathway”, a pathway associated with climate change that is uncontrollable by any ex post measures undertaken by humanity. 2. In this regard it might be worthwhile mentioning the point made by Biermann et al. (2016) that “uncertainties associated with ocean acidification in the polar regions require governance approaches that emphasize precaution and anticipate ecosystem change” (p. 345). 3. As further noted, “[t]ransformability is understood as the ability to create a fundamentally new system when ecological, social, and economic conditions of the old system are no longer tenable” (Berkes, 2017, p. 5). 4. On the potential of renewable energies in autocratic China, see e.g. Deng et al. (2015) and D. Zhang et al. (2017). 5. On the systematic and established practice of foresight in Singapore, see e.g. Kuosa (2011).

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Heikkurinen, P. (Ed.). (2017). Sustainability and peaceful coexistence for the Anthropocene. gLAWcal Book Series, Transnational Law and Governance. Routledge. Huang, Z. (2016). The development of NGOs in China: A case study on their involvement with climate change. In Paolo D. Farah & E. Cima (Eds), China’s influence on non-trade concerns in international economic law (pp. 225–235). Routledge. IPCC. (1995). IPCC second impact assessment report: Climate change. A Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. WMO–UNEP. IPCC. (2018). Glossary: Climate change (Annex I: Glossary). https://​www​.ipcc​.ch/​ sr15/​chapter/​glossary/​. Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Macmillan. Kuosa, T. (2011). Practicing strategic foresight in government: Cases of Finland, Singapore and European Union. S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore. Lenton, T. M., Rockström, J., Gaffney, O., Rahmstorf, S., Richardson, K., Steffen, W., & Schellnhuber, H. J. (2019). Climate tipping points – too risky to bet against. Nature, 575(7784), 592–595. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1038/​d41586​-019​-03595​-0. Richardson, B. J. (2017). Time and environmental law: Telling nature’s time. Cambridge University Press. Steffen, W., Rockström, J., Richardson, K., Lenton, T. M., Folke, C., Liverman, D., Summerhayes, C. P., Barnosky, A. D., Cornell, S. E., Crucifix, M., Donges, J. F., Fetzer, I., Lade, S. J., Scheffer, M., Winkelmann, R., & Schellnhuber, H. J. (2018). Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115(33), 8252–8259. https://​ doi​.org/​10​.1073/​pnas​.1810141115. Stout, M., & Love, J. M. (2019). Integrative governance: Generating sustainable responses to global crises. gLAWcal Book Series, Global Law and Sustainable Development. Routledge. Takacs, D. (2014). Environmental democracy and forest carbon (REDD+). Environmental Law, 44(1), 71–134. Taleb, N. N. (2008). The Black Swan: The impact of the highly improbable. Penguin. UNEP. (2019, November 26). Cut global emissions by 7.6 percent every year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target – UN report. http://​www​.unenvironment​.org/​ news​-and​-stories/​press​-release/​cut​-global​-emissions​-76​-percent​-every​-year​-next​ -decade​-meet​-15degc. UNFCCC. (1992). United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, General Assembly, New York: United Nations (testimony of United Nations). Weber, E. P., & Khademian, A. M. (2008). Wicked problems, knowledge challenges, and collaborative capacity builders in network settings. Public Administration Review, 68(2), 334–349. World Meteorological Organization. (2019, November 25). Greenhouse gas concentrations in atmosphere reach yet another high. World Meteorological Organization. https://​public​.wmo​.int/​en/​media/​press​-release/​greenhouse​-gas​-concentrations​ -atmosphere​-reach​-yet​-another​-high. Young, K. G. (2018). When rights-talk meets queue-talk. In M. Hanne & R. Weisberg (Eds), Narrative and metaphor in the law (pp. 297–318). Cambridge University Press. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1017/​9781108381734​.020. Zhang, D., Wang, J., Lin, Y., Si, Y., Huang, C., Yang, J., Huang, B., & Li, W. (2017). Present situation and future prospect of renewable energy in China. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 76, 865–871.

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PART IV

Conclusive part

11. The role of imagination, marginalized communities, law and technology in building an ethical approach to the Anthropocene1 Paolo Davide Farah When discussing geological epochs such as Pleistocene, Holocene or any other precedent ones, these terms sound rather abstract, vague, and meaningful only for a specialized audience. Anthropocene, a suggested epoch highlighting the impact of “humans” on the Earth, captured much scholarly attention among very diverse academic fields. The focus of humanities on the Anthropocene, Part of the research leading to this result received funding from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under REA grant agreement n° 317767 – Acronym of the Project: LIBEAC (2013–2016) entitled “Liberalism in between Europe and China” within the results of gLAWcal – Global Law Initiatives for Sustainable Development (United Kingdom). Corresponding Author Email Addresses: paolofarah@​yahoo​.com; paolo.farah@​glawcal​.org​.uk. Paolo Davide Farah, West Virginia University, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, John D. Rockefeller IV School of Policy and Politics, Department of Public Administration; West Virginia University, Energy Institute; West Virginia University, Center for Innovation in Gas Research and Utilization (CIGRU); West Virginia University, Institute of Water Security and Science (IWSS). Founder, President, Director, Principal Investigator and Senior Research Fellow at gLAWcal – Global Law Initiatives for Sustainable Development (United Kingdom). Co-Principal Investigator of EU commission Marie Curie Project LIBEAC at gLAWcal – Global Law Initiatives for Sustainable Development. Senior Fellow at the IIEL – Institute of International Economic Law, Georgetown University Law Center. EU Commission Marie Curie Fellow in the LIBEAC Project at Tsinghua University Law School, at the School of Public Policy and Management and at the Department of Philosophy and at Peking University School of Government and Law School. Editor-in-Chief for the gLAWcal Book Series “Global Law and Sustainable Development” and for the gLAWcal Book Series “Transnational Law and Governance” published by Routledge Publishing (New York/London). Dual PhD in International Law from Aix-Marseille University (France) and University of Milan (Italy), LLM in European Legal Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges (Belgium), Maitrise (J.D.) in International and European Law from Paris Ouest La Defense Nanterre University (France). 1

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prompted by the urgency of counteracting sustainability and governance crises (Stout & Love, 2019), is aimed at finding innovative solutions to rethink Earth–humans relations. This book is modeled after this theoretical framework and the authors gave this concept and relationship a new life. By combining quantitative and qualitative data, the authors were able to paint a picture of the epoch by using metaphors and narratives to communicate the concept of Anthropocene in all its facets and dimensions. Even if a definitory approach to the Anthropocene fails in capturing its multifaceted and transdisciplinary nature, a new narrative and a new discourse is what counts the most in the end. We are storytelling creatures, and, as Harari (2015) showed, our ability to tell stories and convene meaning to abstract terms has been a prerequisite for the demonstrated achievements of mankind on many fronts in the course of history. In fact, this ability to create a shared understanding by the means of unifying stories brought us from the stage of hunters and gatherers to a position in which mankind assumed the role of the defining actor shaping the present and future of the Earth systems. This realization was one of the main inspirations for the term “Anthropocene”. For the first time in human history, we do not have to bend before nature – nature is bending before us. Even if it seems that it is working, considering the costs of this alleged victory for the mankind, it is in fact struggling. The more extreme weather patterns are a sign that the equilibrium has been disrupted and that our illusory “victory” can be rather uncomfortable and leave us with a bad taste in our mouths. This example also sheds light on how the economic growth paradigm is not able to cope with these crises. Exploitation of natural resources is now exploitation of humans by nature, especially the ones in least developed countries experiencing extreme climate events on a daily basis. The fragility of our system is much more pronounced than before, as demonstrated by COVID-19. Paradoxically, although limited in the short run, the current global lockdown could have a positive impact on carbon emission reduction and on the most consumeristic and productivism aspects of our society. From this experience, we can draw inspiration and improve our understanding of the Anthropocene. Despite many visible signs and this ongoing process, it might still be difficult for many to connect the dots and see the bigger picture. There are many concrete separate events and examples. However, it might often be more difficult to see the nexus between them and to perceive them in a holistic manner. To put it simply, the Anthropocene is still too abstract, and to give it meaning we need not only data, but also stories and pictures nurturing our imagination and our ability to see separate events as interrelated in a broader context. Only in this way are we able to assess the situation and begin the mentioned indispensable act of imagination, so we do not remain hopeless and helpless. As the professor of physics Max Tegmark (2017) says in his work on the future of artificial intelligence, we should not imagine future based on our fears.

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Rather, we should embrace “mindful optimism” about what the future holds for us. Optimism is also a driver for socio-economic changes and an impetus for a paradigm shift in knowledge. This volume, rather than investigating the Anthropocene,1 is reimagining this epoch by learning from the experience and knowledge of non-Western and marginalized communities. Knowledge production modes in the Anthropocene are equally central in this volume. The deconstruction of the relationship between technology and law offers an example of how to reassert the central role of ethics in times where overisms – overproduction, overconsumption and overpopulation – are destroying humans and non-humans alike. The work of the authors in the present volume contributes to the picture of the Anthropocene and enables us to create stories and build images to understand the facets of this frightening but fascinating epoch. At first, reimagination starts from the ways we communicate, both scientifically and through sharing knowledge. Fables and fairy tales, filled with ethical and moral aspects, have a crucial but often downplayed role in reimagining the discourse on the Anthropocene. The concept of “scientific fable” is an example of how to bring much-needed empathy into scientific discourse, as well as of how to convey a message in an understandable and appealing manner. In general, scientific discourse is often based on different variations of (mainly quantitative) “data fetishism”. However, this makes it inaccessible and incomprehensible for the wider public, which needs something to hold on to, not only on a purely rational basis, but on an emotional one as well. Narratives and metaphors in the storytelling might prove to be decisive in the context of a much-needed societal change, should the epoch of the Anthropocene not become just a purgatory for humankind. Therefore, it is essential for humans to grow and be part of a context, where sustainability is “the” priority and then take over stewardship responsibilities for planet Earth instead of just controlling and using its resources. To do so, the re-establishment of suitable spatial and territorial spaces in the Anthropocene could provide fora to bring back humanity into politics and political dialogue, which in turn would strengthen public participation in the management of local and global public goods. This offers the opportunity for rethinking what meaningful public participation means and how to connect every single person, including marginalized people and indigenous communities. Their integration in a public discourse is essential for the future of the Anthropocene to be truly inclusive. The epoch of Anthropocene has also created its own “have-nots” – new categories of marginalized and disadvantaged people who are in a legal “limbo” without the protection provided by laws, written in the social and political reality of the 20th century. The new category of climate refugees has a potential to create even more considerable challenges than it already has for our legal, political and social systems. It also poses significant moral and ethical

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questions. This is because climate refugees are a crystal-clear consequence of the overexploitation of natural resources, and due to the worsening of environmental conditions, this category opens new spaces for global environmental justice. In fact, least developed countries, which are exemplified by the case studies on Bangladesh and India in this book, are at the forefront of the worldwide battle with climate change. Even though it will be a significant challenge, it gives us the opportunity to redefine the concept of human dignity in the context of the spatial dimension of the Anthropocene. Moreover, the notion of “ecological debt” (also defined as historical contribution to climate change) might be included in the present discussion on bringing justice in the relations between developed and developing countries. The ethical, moral and human-rights-based approaches to climate-change-related issues have the potential to become just as important as the more market, economic and technology-oriented approaches that often dominate the debate not only in the Western global governance institutions but also in recently industrialized economies such as China (Farah & Cima, 2016). The role of marginalized and disadvantaged people in certain spheres of modern life penetrates several chapters as a red line. In addition to the analysis on climate refugees and internally displaced person, this volume places emphasis on the role of indigenous people and local communities in environmental protection. Indigenous people have often found themselves in a situation where they are acting as a natural resistance against the forces of the Anthropocene pushing the planetary limits beyond their natural boundaries, such as the insensitive activities of extractive industries in developing countries. The modern forces of technology and business are not aware of the invisible link between indigenous people and the sacredness of their natural environment. In practice, even the modern concept of sustainable development often emphasizes the economic dimension, while overlooking or not paying enough attention to other aspects, such as human rights or cultural values. For example, an alternative vision of sustainable development can be seen in the concept of Buen Vivir that originated in the Latin American region, and its influence has continued to spread. Law and technology play a pivotal role in guiding the transition towards sustainable development and in integrating ethical considerations in the Anthropocene. For example, if we look at the relations between different stakeholders – such as humans and non-humans – as a form of contractual relationship, we should be aware of the rationale present in certain areas of law, such as labour law, that attempts to establish a form of balance between parties, especially those who are in a more vulnerable position. A possible way of establishing such a balance in complex societal relations is to introduce the idea of collaborative governance, in which the state collaborates with private enterprises, civil society and other relevant groups for the sake of the

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common good. The challenges of the Anthropocene era can prove to be a powerful incentive for shifting our established governance frameworks towards approaches that are more collaborative and inclusive rather than competitive (Farah, 2019). In answering the current challenges, certain risks arise when focusing on the expansion of governance at a global level and the spatial dimension of the Anthropocene. The limitation of individual rights for public goods, such as public health, could put humans in danger. The concept of Ecofascism echoes the painful history of World War II and the concept of “Lebensraum”, which took a prominent place in the expansionist strategy of Nazis and resulted in the de facto colonization of Poland and Baltic states, as well as neighbouring territories. As Timothy Snyder (2015) notes in his book Black Earth, in this regard, Nazi intentions need to be read primarily in the light of their quest for resources and land. The progressing climate change, making habitable land more and more scarce, brings a risk that the ghosts of the past might visit us again. Even more important is the discussion about the new – positive – ethics for the age of Anthropocene. The shift to eco-centrism will always be limited, shaped and compromised by selfish self-preservation of the human beings’ basic needs. References to eco-centrism, deep ecology, and similar concepts must not become an excuse for bringing more division among human beings. For this reason, the discussion about how to achieve sustainability, such as energy transition, represents a useful and vital prerequisite for overcoming the challenges standing before us. If the law could restrain an authoritative turn and enable the transition towards an ecologically oriented and appropriate use of natural resources, technology could help in addressing the centrality of humans and in particular of human rationality in the Anthropocene. As noted by Harari (2017, 2018) and Tegmark (2017), technological developments can lead to a re-interpretation of what it means to be human in the 21st century. Perhaps the focus on these issues might provide a solution on how to emphasize the importance of “anthropo” in the Anthropocene in its most positive interpretation. Hannah Arendt’s (1958) thoughts appear to be rather appealing in the Anthropocene era because they build upon the need for a decisively human rationale to counteract the crises. Arendt was not only a powerful witness of the Eichmann case and the author of the concept of “the banality of evil” (1977), but she also had prophetic moments in expressing her views on the role and impact of technology on humanity (Arendt, 1958). Every possible future that lies in front of us will be shaped by profoundly human elements. It will be shaped by human beings with human minds. As a result, the extent to which humans will be tested and shaped by technology still remains to be seen. Considering our need to communicate, imagine and participate in a public space, the disruptions brought by technology might not only have a positive impact. In the end, since the chaos that is being caused is driven and shaped by

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human beings, it might only have a human solution. This is the schizophrenic nature of the Anthropocene: we are the problem and we are (probably at least a part of) the solution. This volume can be seen as a vital contribution if not to a solution, then at least to a discussion that might lead to it.

NOTE 1. For an in-depth overview of the state-of-the-art literature on the topic and the possible ways forward please refer to Heikkurinen (2017).

REFERENCES Arendt, H. (1958). The human condition. The University of Chicago Press. Arendt, H. (1977). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil. Penguin Books. Farah, P. D. (2019). Foreword. In M. Stout & J. M. Love, Integrative governance: Generating sustainable responses to global crises (pp. xv–xxi). Routledge. Farah, P. D., & Cima, E. (Eds). (2016). China’s influence on non-trade concerns in international economic law. Routledge. Harari, Y. N. (2015). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. Vintage Books. Harari, Y. N. (2017). Homo Deus: A brief history of tomorrow. HarperCollins. Harari, Y. N. (2018). 21 Lessons for the 21st century. Spiegel & Grau. Heikkurinen, P. (Ed.). (2017). Sustainability and peaceful coexistence for the Anthropocene. gLAWcal Book Series, Transnational Law and Governance. Routledge. Snyder, T. (2015). Black Earth: The Holocaust as history and warning. Tim Duggan Books. Stout, M., & Love, J. M. (2019). Integrative governance: Generating sustainable responses to global crises. Routledge. Tegmark, M. (2017). Life 3.0: Being human in the age of artificial intelligence. Knopf.

Index absolute space 27 academia 2, 21–2, 52–3, 93, 137, 211–12 action, thinking and 185 activism 84–5, 89–90, 92–3, 95, 112–13, 114, 117–19, 129, 142–3, 163 see also social movements additive empiricists 53–4 Adivasis people (India) 8, 9, 127–34, 135, 138, 142 Aesop 56 aesthetic attunement 29–32 Africa, extractivism within 137, 155 Agape ethics (Greenway) 64 agency, women and 77, 78 agential separability 39 agile governance 8, 200–201 agriculture 107–8, 115–16, 126, 141, 201 air, pollution of 1, 10 Alaimo, Stacy 43 Alam, Badrul 115 algorithms 179–80 Altamirano, Marco 22 Alvarez-Nakagawa, A. 189 America’s Pledge 204 animals 10, 54–5, 60–62, 135, 159 see also more-than-humans; specific animals Anthropocene aesthetic attunement and 29–32 anonymous space of 32 awareness of 1–2 collaboration within 203 as crisis of thinking 2–4 defined 1, 18 as event 22–3 as hermeneutical concept 19–23 knowledge production modes of 213 levels of meaning of 20–23 narrative of 4–5 origin of 17, 21 public square of 23–9 significance of 17, 27

anthropocentrism 150, 162–4 Arendt, Hannah character of evil and 178 The Human Condition 175, 176, 177, 184, 186, 192 influence of 215 Kafka parable and 186 Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy 185 The Life of the Mind 184 Origins of Totalitarianism 182, 192 Between Past and Future 184–5, 192 predictions of 176 quote of 175, 176 relevance of 175 temporality and 186 viewpoint of 179, 180–81, 182–3, 184–5, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191 Aristotle 51, 62 artificial intelligence 177, 179–80, 189, 212–13 artificial world 175 Asia, South 75, 79 Assistance for Slum Dwellers (ASD) 82–3, 95 automatization 176, 179 Bangladesh see also Dhaka Bangladesh; slum communities (Bangladesh) agriculture within 107–8 climate change and 73 climate justice within 110–11 corruption within 94 culture of fear within 94 cyclones within 107, 108 environmental risk exposure within 108 food sovereignty within 115–16 government policies within 97–8 217

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information revolution within 95 land occupation within 110, 111, 112–16 overview of 7–8, 9 population of 79–80 protests within 87 refugees within 99 sites of intervention within 111, 114–15, 116, 119 spatial politics within 110–11 Bangladesh Association of Women for Self-Empowerment (BAWSE) 91 Bangladesh Kishani Sabha (BKS) 108–9, 110, 111, 112–14, 116–19 Bangladesh Krishok Federation (BKF) 108–9, 110, 111, 112–14, 116–19 Barad, Karen 10, 39 Beiner, Ronald 185 belonging, home and 186 Bergmann, Sigurd 30–31 Beri Badh slum 81, 82, 89, 100 Berkowitz, R. 185, 189, 190 Between Past and Future (Arendt) 184–5, 192 Biermann, Frank 18, 206 bioethics 65 biological organization 162 biological species 19 biomes 162 Birmingham, P. 185, 187, 188 Bisht, Arbita 8 Boat Ghat Bosti slum (India) 81 Bock, Cherice 32–3 Böhm, S. 115–16 Bou Bazar slum unit (India) 80 bureaucracy 183 ‘business-as-usual’ narrative 4–5 butterflies 59–60

cities, climate change and 203–4 Climate Caravan 117–19 climate change agriculture and 108 Anthropocene and 1 Bangladesh and 73 cities and 203–4 Climate Change Conference for 197–8 collaboration for 203, 204–5 defined 199 energy transition and 156 forced migration and 73 governance within 200–201, 202–3 imagination and 31–2 least developed countries and 214 symptoms of 198 weather and 212 Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP) 108 climate justice 110–11 climate refugees 73–4, 213–14 see also forced migration Clingerman, Forrest 6–7 CO2 emissions 167–8, 198, 199 collaboration 8, 203, 204–5, 206, 215 con-distance 26 Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh 97 consumerism 153 corruption 94 criminal justice 189 crisis of thinking 2–4 Crutzen, Paul 1, 17, 20, 155 cultural transformation 136 culture, nature and 2 cyborgs 179 cyclones 107, 108, 116

cadres, activism of 112–13, 117 Camille stories (Haraway) 59–60 Canovan, M. 181, 183 capitalism 2, 8, 28, 156 Capitalocene 21, 155–6, 157, 160 care 39–40, 45, 46, 64, 65 Central African Republic, energy consumption within 155 chada 87 children 38, 54–8 China 154, 179

dams 141 decentralized climate leadership 204 degrowth movement 178 Delanty, G. 26, 29 democracy 202 Despret, Vinciane 53, 54, 61 detachment 39–40, 42–4 development, effects of 79 Dhaka Bangladesh 7–8, 9, 75, 79–80, 81, 83, 84–5 see also slum communities (Bangladesh)

Index

discrimination 182 displacement 74, 79 see also forced migration ‘divide and rule’ structure 86 Dongria Kondh tribe (India) 135, 140–41 Drabinski, John 63 Dupuy, Jean-Pierre 167 Dynamic Global Vegetation Models (DGVMs) 167–8 Earth 2, 37, 153, 160, 199, 206, 213 Earth Overshoot Day (EOD) 154 ecocentrism 151, 161–6, 215 Ecofacism 215 ecological debt 214 ecological distribution conflicts (EDCs) 125, 126–34, 142 ecological footprint 154 ecological sciences 164 ecology 162–4 ecomodernism 158–60 An Ecomodernist Manifesto 158 economic globalization 28 economic growth 200 ecosystems 138–9, 162 education 82–3 Eichmann, Adolf 178, 185 El-Hinnawi, Essam 73 Emerson, Ralph Waldo 165 emissions 167–8, 198, 199, 200, 203–4, 212 emotions 190 empiricists 53–4 emplacement 19, 20, 23 employment 139 energy 11, 139, 141, 154, 156–8, 160–61, 164–8, 203–4 see also fossil fuels energy ethics 161 energy humanities 165 energy justice 154 energy transition 151–2, 156 engagement, environmental aesthetics and 30 entanglement 10–11, 39, 43–4 environmental activism 163 environmental aesthetics 30 environmental concerns 153 environmental ethics 152 environmental hermeneutics 19–23

219

environmental injustice 126–7 environmentalism 129 environmental justice 125 environmental law 166–7 environmental philosophy 163 environmental refugees 73–4 see also forced migration environmental risk exposure 108 environments 17, 20, 25 epistemological approach 9–10 ethical politics 119 ethical saying 62 ethics 31, 39, 40, 43, 44–5, 56, 65, 152, 161, 178 Europe 28, 59, 72 European Union 154, 155, 168 evictions 84–5, 90–91, 100 evil, character of 178 evolutionary narrative 4 exports, non-renewable resources as 126 extinction 1 extractivism 126–7, 129–34, 136–42 fables 54, 55–6, 57, 60, 61 see also scientific fabulation fabrication 179 factual truth 193 Farah, Paolo Davide 8 Finnish Lapland 7, 37, 38 Flight behaviour (Kingsolver) 59–60 flooding 116 food chains 162–3 food sovereignty 115–16 forced migration 72, 73, 74–5, 79 Forest Rights Act (FRA) (India) 128, 135, 144 forests 127–9, 134, 135, 144 fossil fuels 154–5, 203–4 see also energy Frigo, Giovanni 11 Gadchiroli, Madhya Pradesh (India) 129, 133, 134 Gaia 160 gemstone therapy 38 geologic 37, 46–7 geologic layers 28–9 geosocial approach 36, 37–40, 43 Ginn, Franklin 39–40, 43 Glissant, Edouard 63

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globalization 26, 28, 30 global power 27 golden spike 27 government 74–5, 85–6, 97–8, 200–201, 202–3, 204–5, 206, 215 Grant, G. 178 Great Acceleration 4, 17 Greenway, William 64 Grosz, Elisabeth 36 Grusin, R. 9 Gudynas, E. 127 Guiding Principles on internal displacement (United Nations) 74–5, 99 Harari, Yuval Noah 59, 177, 212, 215 Haraway, Donna 53, 54, 59–60, 64, 66–7, 178–9 hartal 87 hatred 190 Heikkurinen, P. 178, 190 hermeneutical circle 19–20, 23–4 hermeneutics, philosophical 22 Höckert, Emily 7, 10 Holocene 17 home, belonging and 186 hope 33 “Hothouse Earth Pathway” 206 human condition 177 The Human Condition (Arendt) 175, 176, 177, 184, 186, 192 Human Development Index (HDI) 76 human-energy-nature relationship 11, 152–3, 156–7, 158, 161–2, 165, 166–7 humans activities of 2, 177, 184, 198 advancements of 160 as biocultural creatures 2–3 carelessness of 150 conditioning of 177 cyborgs and 179 detachment and 42–3 domination of 156–7 ecological dependence by 164 ecological responsibility of 167 as embodied species 19 emplacement of 19, 20, 23 engagement of 19 entanglement of 10–11

environmental change and 17, 20, 23, 29 exploitation by 153 ideal of 188 inequality of 201 more-than-human relationality with 40, 214 nature and 2–3, 23, 156–7 overisms of 213 place interpretation by 24 plastics within 10 population of 153 public square and 24 rock relationalities of 37–40 standards of living of 200 surroundings and 19 Idea of Justice (Sen) 189 imagination 30, 31–3 immaterial territory 111 impartiality 191–2 imperialism 182 India 79, 124, 125, 126–9, 133, 135, 136–42, 144 see also specific places; specific tribes indigenous people 214 indigenous storytelling 58–9 industry, forced migration and 72 inequality 201 infrastructural energy 160–61 inhabitation 43 institutionalisation 93 instrumental values 164 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 150, 199 internally displaced persons (IDPs) 72–3, 74–5, 99 see also forced migration; slum communities (Bangladesh) internal relatedness 163 intrinsic values 164 iron ore mining conflicts 129, 133, 134, 135–6 Isokuru Gorge (Pyhä-Luosto National Park) 38, 41, 43–4 isolation 181 ‘IT city’ (Dhaka) 80, 84 Jakaka, Jitu 140–41

Index

Jharkhand (India) 134 Johnson, Lupita 58 Johnston, Catherine 39, 45 judgement 184–5, 189, 190 justice 11, 188–92 justifications 183 Kafka parable 186 Kant, Immanuel 185, 191 Katz, C. 27–8 Kavuthi-Vediyappan hills (India) 135 Khanam, Afroja 7, 9 Kingsolver, Barbara 59–60 knowledge, theoretical versus empirical 76 Korail slum (Dhaka) 80, 84–5, 87 Kutia Kond tribe (India) 135 labour 177, 179 land, social economy and 28 see also Earth The Land Ethic (Leopold) 162–3 landlessness 108 land occupation 110, 112–16, 117, 119 Latin America, post-extractivism within 136 Latour, Bruno 53 least developed countries, climate change and 214 Lebensraum 215 Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy (Arendt) 185 legislation 74, 85, 128, 135, 144, 166–7, 214 Leopold, Aldo 162–3, 166 Levinas, E. 59, 61–2, 65 liberation pedagogy 33 The Life of the Mind (Arendt) 184 literature, children’s 54–60 see also fables; scientific fabulation local-level activism 8 loneliness 181–2, 192 Long Play (newspaper) 52 Lorimer, Jamie 17 love 189, 190 low-carbon transition 151 machine-human relationships 177 ‘maps of grievance’ 116–17

221

Marie Stopes clinic 82 mass loneliness 181–2, 192 mass society 181 mastaans 86 materialisations 10 material territory 111 media, social movements and 95 mediation 25, 31 medical services, within slum communities 82 melancholy, within storytelling 63 metaphors 27–8, 57 meta-spatial space 25 Metsähallitus 37 micro-plastics 10 migration, forced 72, 73, 74–5, 79 Millennium Development Goals (United Nations) 178 mineral extractivism 125, 129–34, 142 minerals 127, 128 minimal ethics 65 mining see also extractivism; mineral extractivism EDCs and 129–34 environmental externalities of 133 within India 127–9 post-extractivism within 136–42 resistance movements and 134–6 resource appropriation and 141–2 sand 129, 133, 138 social externalities of 133–4 modern aesthetics 30 modernity 26 monoproductive systems 127, 139, 141 Moore, Jason W. 155–6 more-than-humans see also animals; nature care and 45 carelessness of 150 colonising of 55 entanglement of 10–11 ethics of 40 human relationality with 40, 214 moral considerability of 159, 166 narratives within 5–11 need for 3 overisms and 213 primordial responsibility to 65 as protagonists 58–60 speaking by 60–62

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Ethics and politics of space for the Anthropocene

walking methodologies and 41, 42 Moriggi, Angela 60–61 Morton, T. 55, 57, 63 Mota, A. 26, 29 Motta, Sara 9–10, 76 nafthology 21 narratives, more-than-human world and 4–11 natality 185, 186, 192 Native Americans, storytelling of 58–9 Native wisdom for white minds (Schaef) 58 natural disasters 73, 107, 108, 116 natural goods 25 natural public square 24–5, 32 natural resources 93–4, 126, 138, 140 see also specific natural resources natural sciences 6 natural world, study of 22 nature 2–3, 9, 23–9, 39, 45, 124, 138–9, 156–8, 162 Nature (Thoreau) 165–6 Naxals/Naxalism 129, 133, 134, 144–5 Nazism 215 needs, assessment of 139–40 net primary production (NPP) 167–8 new materialism 37, 44 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) 89, 94, 95, 129 see also specific NGOs non-humans see more-than-humans non-renewable resources 126 non-time space 11, 184–8 non-Western knowledge 6, 8–10 North America, energy consumption within 154 North-South divide 198, 201, 204–5 objectivity 191–2 oceanic acidification 198 oceans 1, 10, 107 Odisha (India) 128, 134–5 Origins of Totalitarianism (Arendt) 182, 192 overhumanization 22–3, 27

Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA) (India) 128, 144 Parikka, Jussi 18 Paris Agreement 199, 203–4 peasant farmers 113, 114, 119 pedagogy, liberation 33 People’s Global Action (PGA Asia) 109 periodization 155, 168 persuasion 183 petrocultures 158 phenomenological nod 53 phenomenological storytelling 62 philosophical hermeneutics 22 philosophy 152, 163 philosophy of ecology 162 philosophy of energy 160–66 place 19, 20, 30–31, 119 plastics 10 Plastocene 21 platial imagination 31 plurality 5, 177, 179, 180–81, 190, 191 Poetics (Aristotle) 51 political action 179, 180 Political Emotions (Nussbaum) 189 political life 18, 24, 25, 29 politics corruption within 94 dangerous side of 183 ‘divide and rule’ structure within 86 emotions within 190 equality within 183 evil side of 182–3 home and belonging within 186 imagination and 30 imbalance of 27 as local 29–30 mistrust within 94–5 plurality within 190 public square and 24 science and 177, 200 within slum communities 85–9 technology and science within 177 truthfulness within 190–91 politics of place 119 pollution 1 post-colonial theories 10 post-extractivism 136–42 post-growth 136, 137

Index

poverty 93–4, 110–11, 129, 168, 200 see also slum communities (Bangladesh) power 24, 25, 27, 85–9 predatory extractivism 127, 133–4 Preston, Christopher 21 Prityi, Marek 8 private property, social economy and 28 private space 181, 192 problems, wicked 202 problem-solving model 167 protests 80, 85, 87, 90–91, 129–32 see also activism; social movements public opinion 183, 193 public space 177–84, 190, 192 public square 24–5, 32 Pyhä-Luosto National Park 37, 38, 41–2 Pyhänkasteen putous 41 racism 182–3 Rantala, Outi 7, 10, 11 rationality 189–90 rational truth 193 Rautio, P. 44 Rawls, John 189, 191 reality 191 REDD+ projects 205 refugees 72, 73–4, 99 see also slum communities (Bangladesh) relating, caring and 39 relationalities 37–40, 41–4, 214 religion, women’s rights and 88–9 resistance movements 125, 133, 134–6, 142–3 see also activism; social movements resource appropriation 141–2 resource peripheries 138 Ricoeur, Paul 22 Ritskes, Eric 58–9 rocks 35, 36, 37–43, 44, 45–6 Rohingya people 99 Routledge, Paul 7–8 sacredness 134–6 sacred spaces 138 the said 62 Salmela, Tarja 7, 10, 11 Salminen, Antti 21

223

Santhal tribe (West Bengal) 128 Sapiens (Harari) 59 Satkhira District 116 Schaef, Anne Wilson 58 Schrader-Frechette, Kristin 25–6 science 9, 177, 200 science wars 2 scientific fabulation 53, 54, 59, 62, 64, 65, 66, 213 scientific knowledge 150–51 self-empowerment 89, 90, 91 self-help organisations 89–96 Sen, Amartya 189, 191 Seppäla, Tiina 7, 9 7th Environment Action Programme 200 sharia law 88–9 Singer, Peter 159 sites of intervention (Bangladesh) 111, 114–15, 116, 119 situated analyses 6–7 situated knowledge 6–8 Sium, Aman 58–9 slugs 39, 43 slum communities (Bangladesh) see also specific slums community-based organisations within 89–96 conditions of 78–9, 81–3 corruption and 94 displacement within 79 education within 82–3 eviction threat within 84–5, 100 internal displacement overview of 78–81 political struggles within 85–9 population of 75, 79–80, 99 power struggles within 85–9 relief assistance within 82–3 strikes within 88 struggles within 81–3 as vote banks 87–8, 100 women within 79, 91–2 slum communities (India) 80, 81 Smith, N. 27–8 social activism see activism social economy 28 social injustice 75–6 social media 24, 25, 52, 95

224

Ethics and politics of space for the Anthropocene

social movements 112–13, 114, 117–19, 125, 133, 134–6 see also activism; Bangladesh Kishani Sabha (BKS); Bangladesh Krishok Federation (BKF) social space 180, 182, 192 social world 22 solidarity 116–19 South Asia 75, 79 space 3, 28 spatial metaphors 27–8 spatial politics 110–11 species 1, 19 see also animals; humans; more-than-humans Spivak, Gayatri 61 Springgay, Stephanie 36, 40, 41, 43 stakeholder collaboration 8 stewardship, 213 storylistening 58, 62 storytelling 5, 7, 52–3, 58–60, 62–4, 66, 212, 213 see also literature, children’s; scientific fabulation Story telling for Earthly survival (film) 64 strikes 88 Stroemer, Eugene 17, 155 subtractive empiricists 53–4 sustainability 213 Sustainability Agenda (United Nations) 178 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 156 taxonomy 162 technology agriculture and 201 boom within 175 criminal justice and 189 ethics and 178 heroic role of 5 indigenous people and 214 judgement and 189 justice and 188 knowing and making within 178 labour and 179 loneliness and 181–2 politics and 177 public space and 177–84 social space and 192 sustainable development and 214

‘techno-rational’ narrative and 8–9 tendencies of 181 uniformity of 192 utilitarian nature of 178 Technology and Justice (Grant) 178 technology transfer 204–5, 206 ‘techno-rational’ narrative 5, 8–9 technoscience 156–7, 158, 160 Tegmark, Max 212–13, 215 temperature increase 199 temporality 31, 189 Terranova, Fabrizio 64 Thakurdeo, shrine of 134 theoretical-methodological approach 76, 98 theory 10, 77 thermodynamic sciences 164 thinking, action and 185 think-with methodologies 40–41 Thoreau, Henry David 165–6 three little pigs 55–6, 57, 63 time 184, 185, 186, 187, 189 Tiruvannamalai hills (India) 135 totalitarianism 180, 181, 182, 192 tourism 46 tradition, loss of 186, 187 transhumanism 177 traumatic experiences 57–8 Tribals, and Primitive Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PTGs) 128 tropic of chaos 107 Truman, Sarah 36, 40, 41, 43 truthfulness 188–92, 193 Turing, Alan 177 Ulmer, J. B. 40–41 United Nations 74–5, 76, 99, 150, 178, 197–8, 199 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) 199 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 73 United States 154, 168, 203–4 urbanization 203–4 Vadén, Tere 21 Valtonen, Anu 7, 10, 11 values, intrinsic versus instrumental 164 virtue ethics 161

Index

vote banks 87–8, 100 walking methodologies 36–7, 40–41, 42, 45 Walking Methodologies (Springgay and Truman) 40 water, within slum communities 81–2 weather 212 see also natural disasters What would animals say if we asked the right questions? (Despret) 53, 61 wicked problems 202, 206

225

wolf, metaphor of 57, 63 women 77, 78, 79, 88–91, 114, 129, 133 work, characterization of 179 World Bank 150, 154, 205 World Meteorological Organization (WMO) 198–9 World War II 4, 177 The wretched of the Earth (Drabinski) 63 Zibechi, R. 110–11 Zylinska, Joanna 5, 9, 65