Date of Award
2020
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Humanities
First Advisor
Flakne, April
Area of Concentration
Humanities
Abstract
The universalizing narrative of the Anthropocene has been criticized for its failure to engage analyses of power in its representation of the production and distribution of environmental harm. Considering this post-racial and inequity-blind frame, I argue that the concept naturally glides over these realities of life on Earth because it stems from, and perpetuates, a tradition of discursively constructing the Earth in ways that overlook and cause harm toward people of color. I begin by juxtaposing the proposed beginnings of this new planetary era with an example of Anthropocene elision: the nuclear weapons testing and radiological experimentation in the Marshall Islands during the mid-twentieth century. I then engage the work of Sylvia Wynter and T.B. Voyles to articulate a framework for contextualizing these Eurocentric, eco-racializing logics. I trace these logics through the conceptual antecedents to the Anthropocene to show that the Anthropocene’s exclusionary frame can be traced to a history of thought about humanity, nature and the planet that is steeped in environmental racism. I argue that this failure to attend to legacies of environmental injustice is itself a product of the Anthropocene’s continuation of what is essentially a white supremacist framing of the Earth.
Recommended Citation
Neher, Aubrey, "NO MAN’S WASTELAND: A CRITICAL GENEALOGY OF THE ANTHROPOCENE" (2020). Theses & ETDs. 5879.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/5879