As many ‘cenes’ as necessary: multiple conceptual visions over the Anthropocene
Abstract
Discussions on the Anthropocene have surpassed the limits of geosciences and are incorporated into fundamental themes in the field of environmental humanities. Thus, the present essay aims to evaluate the contradictions of the Anthropocene concept and situate other possible nomenclatures. It employs a narrative revision of theoretical and methodological bibliography concerned with the discussion or alternative proposals of the prevailing lexicon. Face the anthropocentrically universality of the dominant term, it demonstrates that other concepts propose to situate ways of mobilizing against the global environmental crisis. These ideas converge in the necessity of surpassing the exclusive usage of the Anthropocene to refer to the current epoch of eco/geosystem derangements caused by geophagic activities of production. Therefore, it discusses the contributions of many others examples of ‘cenes’, indicating what are the specific critics of each theorization in accordance to a classification in meta-propositions, diagnostic proposals, spatial proposals and postulative proposals. It concludes that the multiple ‘cenes’ present complementary or counternarratives that converge in ways of understanding and situating possible solutions to the pluralization of worlds, places, territories and activisms that rebel against the environmental crisis. Each in its own way, they conform means of cultivating irreverent imaginaries that challenge the modern occidental separation of culture and nature. Consequently, the articulation between multiple ‘cenes’ is a pathway towards new cohabitational horizons of earthly survival and livability.
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