scholarly journals Planetary art beyond the human: Rethinking agency in the Anthropocene

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-294
Author(s):  
Joanna Page
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Solar Flares ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Cosmic Time ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Volcanic Eruptions ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Environmental Disaster ◽  
Earth Art ◽  
The Earth

A growing number of transdisciplinary art-science projects across the world are taking up the challenge of representing geological and cosmic time and of rendering visible, audible and tangible the powerful forces that shape the planet’s systems. While art historians have often found the earth art movement to exemplify a new awareness of the geological impact of human activity on the planet, I argue that art may engender a more genuinely planetary perspective when it pays attention to those forces we cannot compel. Gesturing towards the limits of human agency with regard to the Earth may ultimately be a more effective way of challenging anthropocentrism, and of locating human history within planetary time. My analysis draws on works by four contemporary artists – Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (Canada/Mexico), Claudia Müller (Chile), Paul Rosero Contreras (Ecuador) and Michelle-Marie Letelier (Germany/Chile) – that explore the science of turbulent dynamics that are impervious to human action, such as solar flares, earthquakes, winds, tides, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. As Nigel Clark argues, the fundamental asymmetry that governs our relationship with a volatile planet is often lost in accounts of the entanglement of human and nonhumans that have recently prevailed in the humanities and social sciences. The works I discuss revise the practices of earth art to create a ‘planetary art’, cultivating a sense of the planet beyond the human that allows us to understand its dynamics more fully, and to resituate human agency more properly within geohistories of matter and energy. In many cases, this art remains fully alert to the geopolitics of the Anthropocene, focusing on the increased vulnerability of the Global South to climate change and environmental disaster, and gesturing towards a decolonial critique of the objectification of nature and the dissociative, rationalist knowledge produced by modern science.

Religion in the Age of the Anthropocene

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arianne F. Conty
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Risks And Benefits ◽  
Human Exceptionalism ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Contemporary Christian ◽  
Genesis 1 ◽  
Forms Of Life

Though responses to the Anthropocene have largely come from the natural and social sciences, religious responses to the Anthropocene have also been gaining momentum and many scholars have been calling for a religious response to complement scientific responses to climate change. Yet because Genesis 1:28 does indeed tell human beings to ‘subdue the earth’ monotheistic religions have often been understood as complicit in the human exceptionalism that is thought to have created the conditions for the Anthropocene. In distinction to such Biblical traditions, indigenous animistic cultures have typically respected all forms of life as ‘persons’ and such traditions have thus become a source of inspiration for ecological movements. After discussing contemporary Christian efforts to integrate the natural sciences and the environment into their responses to the Anthropocene, this article will turn to animism and seek to evaluate the risks and benefits that could ensue from a postmodern form of animism that could provide a necessary postsecular response to the Anthropocene.

scholarly journals Quantum Genetic Terrain Algorithm (Q-GTA): A Technique to Study the Evolution of the Earth Using Quantum Genetic Algorithm

Proceedings ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 26
Author(s):  
Pranjal Sharma ◽  
Ankit Agarwal ◽  
Bhawna Chaudhary
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Algorithm ◽  
Isotopic Fractionation ◽  
Volcanic Eruptions ◽  
Temperature Characteristic ◽  
Isotopic Ratios ◽  
Mantle Lithosphere ◽  
Monitoring Networks ◽  
Temperature Changes ◽  
Quantum Genetic Algorithm ◽  
The Earth

In recent years, geologists have put in a lot of effort trying to study the evolution of Earth using different techniques studying rocks, gases, and water at different channels like mantle, lithosphere, and atmosphere. Some of the methods include estimation of heat flux between the atmosphere and sea ice, modeling global temperature changes, and groundwater monitoring networks. That being said, algorithms involving the study of Earth’s evolution have been a debated topic for decades. In addition, there is distinct research on the mantle, lithosphere, and atmosphere using isotopic fractionation, which this paper will take into consideration to form genes at the former stage. This factor of isotopic fractionation could be molded in QGA to study the Earth’s evolution. We combined these factors because the gases containing these isotopes move from mantle to lithosphere or atmosphere through gaps or volcanic eruptions contributing to it. We are likely to use the Rb/Sr and Sm/Nd ratios to study the evolution of these channels. This paper, in general, provides the idea of gathering some information about temperature changes by using isotopic ratios as chromosomes, in QGA the chromosomes depict the characteristic of a generation. Here these ratios depict the temperature characteristic and other steps of QGA would be molded to study these ratios in the form of temperature changes, which would further signify the evolution of Earth based on the study that temperature changes with the change in isotopic ratios. This paper will collect these distinct studies and embed them into an upgraded quantum genetic algorithm called Quantum Genetic Terrain Algorithm or Quantum GTA.

scholarly journals Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (33) ◽  
pp. 8252-8259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Steffen ◽  
Johan Rockström ◽  
Katherine Richardson ◽  
Timothy M. Lenton ◽  
Carl Folke ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Economy ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Behavioral Changes ◽  
Earth System ◽  
New Governance ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
Average Temperature ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Potential Threshold

We explore the risk that self-reinforcing feedbacks could push the Earth System toward a planetary threshold that, if crossed, could prevent stabilization of the climate at intermediate temperature rises and cause continued warming on a “Hothouse Earth” pathway even as human emissions are reduced. Crossing the threshold would lead to a much higher global average temperature than any interglacial in the past 1.2 million years and to sea levels significantly higher than at any time in the Holocene. We examine the evidence that such a threshold might exist and where it might be. If the threshold is crossed, the resulting trajectory would likely cause serious disruptions to ecosystems, society, and economies. Collective human action is required to steer the Earth System away from a potential threshold and stabilize it in a habitable interglacial-like state. Such action entails stewardship of the entire Earth System—biosphere, climate, and societies—and could include decarbonization of the global economy, enhancement of biosphere carbon sinks, behavioral changes, technological innovations, new governance arrangements, and transformed social values.

The earth as transformed by human action

1992 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-82
Author(s):  
Heather A. Viles
Keyword(s):  
Human Action ◽  
The Earth

The Earth as Transformed by Human Action. Global and Regional Changes in the Biosphere over the Past 300 Years

1993 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 401
Author(s):  
A. S. Goudie ◽  
B. L. Turner II ◽  
W. C. Clark ◽  
R. W. Kates ◽  
J. F. Richards ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Action ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Past 300 Years

The Earth as Transformed by Human Action

1992 ◽  
Vol 82 (2) ◽  
pp. 201
Author(s):  
Marvin W. Mikesell
Keyword(s):  
Human Action ◽  
The Earth

scholarly journals Organizing in the Anthropocene

Organization ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 455-471 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Wright ◽  
Daniel Nyberg ◽  
Lauren Rickards ◽  
James Freund
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
Exponential Growth ◽  
Life Support ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
Crucial Issue ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Introductory Article

The functioning of the biosphere and the Earth as a whole is being radically disrupted due to human activities, evident in climate change, toxic pollution and mass species extinction. Financialization and exponential growth in production, consumption and population now threaten our planet’s life-support systems. These profound changes have led Earth System scientists to argue we have now entered a new geological epoch – the Anthropocene. In this introductory article to the Special Issue, we first set out the origins of the Anthropocene and some of the key debates around this concept within the physical and social sciences. We then explore five key organizing narratives that inform current economic, technological, political and cultural understandings of the Anthropocene and link these to the contributions in this Special Issue. We argue that the Anthropocene is the crucial issue for organizational scholars to engage with in order to not only understand on-going anthropogenic problems but also help create alternative forms of organizing based on realistic Earth–human relations.

scholarly journals El conocimiento administrativo, retos y oportunidades en la identificación de una epistemología de la administración

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-32
Author(s):  
Patricia Carolina Barreto Bernal
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Complexity Theory ◽  
Organizational Theory ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Current Paper ◽  
The Third ◽  
Siglo Xix ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Xix Century

Pensar en la administración como un conjunto de conocimientos organizados y sistemáticamente construidos para explicar la especificidad de una disciplina ha sido un esfuerzo aun no terminado de más de un siglo de autores que desde finales del siglo XIX hasta estas primeras década del siglo XXI han venido construyendo el discurso teórico de la administración. El presente artículo hace un pequeñorecorrido por los diferentes intentos de organización de dicho conocimiento desde la reflexión de los tres componentes que constituyen una epistemología a saber: su objeto de estudio, su cuerpo teórico y su relación con las demás ciencias sociales para el desarrollo de un método. A partir de dichos elementos, en la tercera parte del artículo se arriesga una propuesta de construcción epistemológica en elconocimiento administrativo acudiendo a la filosofía integradora de la teoría de la complejidad. La metodología seguida para realizar el artículo fue la de revisión documental y concluye que la potencialidad de la administración como práctica social y conjunto de herramientas de gestión y dirección puede ser pensada como un campo epistemológico flexible y abierto a las relaciones de transdisciplinariedad que se presuponen necesarias para una comprensión integral y dinámica de larealidad.PALABRAS CLAVEPensamiento administrativo, epistemología, teoría de las organizaciones, acción humana. ABSTRACTThinking about administration as an ensemble of organized and systematically constructed knowledge in order to explain the specificity of a discipline has been an unfinished effort of more than a century of authors who since the late XIX century until the first decades of the XXI century, have been constructing the theoretical discourse of administration. The current paper makes a brief tour through thedifferent attempts of organization of such knowledge, from the three components reflection which compose an epistemology as follows: its object of study, its theoretical body and its relationship with other social sciences for the development of a method. From these elements, in the third part of the paper, it is taken the risk of making a proposal of epistemological construction in the administrative knowledge,turning to the conciliatory philosophy of the complexity theory. The methodology used to carry out the paper was the documentary review, and it concludes that the potentiality of administration as a social practice and a set of management and leadership tools could be thought as a flexible epistemological field, open to the relations of transdisciplinarity which are presupposed to be necessary for anintegral and dynamic comprehension of reality.KEYWORDSManagement thinking, epistemology, organizational theory, human action. 

scholarly journals Plant Life and More-than-human Agency in Zainab Amadahy’s Resistance

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 79-91
Author(s):  
Paula Wieczorek
Keyword(s):  
Human Agency ◽  
Speculative Fiction ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Bruno Latour ◽  
Donna Haraway ◽  
Cultural Violence ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Plant Life ◽  
As If

For centuries humans have acted as if the environment was passive and as if the agency was related only to human beings. Both Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers, scholars, and artists express the need to narrate tales about the multitudes of the living earth, which can help perceive the Earth as vibrant and living. The following paper discusses Black/Cherokee Zainab Amadahy’s speculative fiction novel 2013 Resistance as an example of a story resisting the claim about human beings as the ultimate species. The paper initially scrutinizes the phenomena of “plant blindness” and then explores how Zainab Amadahy illustrates plant life in her book. Unlike in traditional literary depictions of botany, the writer presents tobacco as an active and responsive agent that influences the characters, which, consequently, opposes anthropocentrism. The article also addresses the cultural violence and disregard that has dominated the Western perception of animistic cultures and expresses the need to rethink the theory of animism. This paper draws from posthumanist writings by scholars including Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour, Jane Bennett, and Stacy Alaimo. It also refers to some of the most influential contributions to critical plant studies made by Indigenous thinkers such as Robin Wall Kimmerer’ s Braiding Sweetgrass (2013).

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