Between the whale and the kauri tree: (Re)scaling the Anthropocene across multi-species encounters

Description

The purpose of this paper is to articulate a meaningful response to recent calls to “indigenize” and “decolonize” the Anthropocene in the social sciences and humanities; and in doing so to challenge and extend dominant conceptualisations of the Anthropocene offered to date within a posthuman and more-than-human
intellectual context. The paper develops a radical material and relational ontology,
purposefully drawing on an indigenous knowledge framework, as it is specifically exemplified in Maori approaches to anthropogenic impacts on species and multi-species entanglements. The paper takes as its focus particular species of whales, trees and humans and their entanglements. It also draws on, critically engages with, and partially integrates posthuman and more-than-human theory addressing the Anthropocene.

Period	8 Sep 2020
Held at	Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
Degree of Recognition	International