Manifesto for Living in the Anthropocene

In the moist heat of a Sydney February a group of concerned scholars gathered on the banks of the Georges River close to the University of Western Sydney, Bankstown. Amongst us there were key thinkers from the fields of Anthropology, Education, Human Geography, Philosophy, Science and Technology Studies, Sociology, Political Theory, Communications and Film. We gathered to consider an ethics for living in this new era of human driven climate change called the “Anthropocene.” We wrote the Manifesto above. We think that we can work against singular and global representations of “the problem” in the face of which any small, multiple, place-based action is rendered hopeless. We can choose to read for difference rather than dominance; think connectivity rather than hyper-separation; look for multiplicity—multiple climate changes, multiple ways of living with earth others. We can find ways forward in what is already being done in the here and now; attend to the performative effects of any analysis; tell stories in a hopeful and open way—allowing for the possibility that life is dormant rather than dead. We can use our critical capacities to recover our rich traditions of counter-culture and theorize them outside the mainstream/alternative binary. All these ways of thinking and researching give rise to new strategies for going forward. Think of the chapters of this book as tentative hoverings, as the fluttering of butterfly wings, scattering germs of ideas that can take root and grow.