Pluralizing the Anthropocene
Reenvisioning the Future of the Planet in the 21st Century
The session will be in English
Registration: Events will take place online. All welcome but registration required by this link
Events
will take place online. All welcome but registration required
The
notion of the Anthropocene spilled out from the geophysical sciences into the
humanities, social sciences, the arts, and the media, triggering a vast global debate on the future of human life on the planet. In “the age of humans”, humans have become one of the most potent geophysical forces in the planet and
their activities are leading to increasing environmental uncertainties. If the
world once had the illusion of stability, it is now facing the prospect of trouble without end. But the Anthropocene is not just about a runaway world of
environmental doom; it is also about overcoming disaster and catastrophe and
creating new visions of hope and justice. The realities of anthropogenic
climate change, species extinction, and sea level rise compel a reimagining of
humanity’s place in the world, and an urgent rethinking of the dominant forces
threatening the ecological balance of the planet. Using the term Anthropocene
to refer to this new age of anthropogenic uncertainties has opened up a whole
new field of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary conversations about
human-environment relations in the 21st century, but it has also generated a
monolithic understanding of the Anthropocene as a unified human experience.
This framing of the Anthropocene around a universalizing species paradigm has a homogenizing effect. And yet, not all humans are equally implicated in the forces driving contemporary human environmental crises, and not all humans are
equally invited into the conceptual spaces where these disasters are theorized
or responses to disaster formulated. Pluralizing
the Anthropocene will feature anthropological reflections from major figures in the humanities and the sciences committed to opening up the plural
possibilities of on-going Anthropocene debates of resilience, adaptation, and
the struggle for environmental justice.
ORGANIZATION
Research Centre for Anthropology and Health (CIAS) | Serralves | Sci-Tech Asia
| Department of Life Sciences of the University of Coimbra | Centre For Functional
Ecology
CURATORS
| MODERATORS
Gonçalo Santos (CIAS/ Sci-Tech Asia) | Ana Luísa Santos (CIAS / University of
Coimbra)
Related
Ana Luísa
Santos holds a PhD in Anthropology, is a professor at the Department of Life
Sciences (DLS) and a full member of the Research Centre for Anthropology and
Health (CIAS) at the University of Coimbra. Her research interests are in
Biological Anthropology, particularly in the biocultural and multidisciplinary
study of health / disease in past populations. Other areas of research are the
history of anthropology and museum collections. She is the author of works
published in national and international journals and books, resulting from
studies carried out in Portugal, Argentina, Jamaica, among other countries. She
served as an associate editor for the International Journal of Paleopathology
and was vice president of the Paleopathology Association. She is vice director
of the DLS, member of the board of the Portuguese Anthropological Association
and of the Spanish Paleopathology Association and Coordinator of the Master in
Human Evolution and Biology