Anthropocene Ecologies of Food

Anthropocene Ecologies of Food
Author: Simon C. Estok
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2022-06-22
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1000576345

Anthropocene Ecologies of Food provides a detailed exploration of cross-cultural aspects of food production, culinary practices, and their ecological underpinning in culture. The authors draw connections between humans and the entire process of global food production, focusing on the broad implications these processes have within the geographical and cultural context of India. Each chapter analyzes and critiques existing agricultural/food practices, and representations of aspects of food through various media (such as film, literature, and new media) as they relate to global issues generally and Indian contexts specifically, correcting the omission of analyses focused on the Global South in virtually all of the work that has been done on "Anthropocene ecologies of food." This unique volume employs an ecocritical framework that connects food with the land, in physical and virtual communities, and the book as a whole interrogates the meanings and implications of the Anthropocene itself.

Anthropocene Ecologies

Anthropocene Ecologies
Author: Mary Mostafanezhad
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2020-06-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1000026027

Anthropocene Ecologies brings political ecology and tourism studies to bear on the Anthropocene. Through a collective examination of political ecologies of the Anthropocene by leading scholars in anthropology, geography and tourism studies, the book addresses critical themes of gender, health, conservation, agriculture, climate change, disaster, coastal marine management and sustainability. Each chapter theoretically and empirically unravels entanglements of tourism, nature and imagination to expose the political-ecological drivers of the Anthropocene as a material and symbolic force and its deepening integration with tourism. Grounded in ethnographic and qualitative research, the volume is interdisciplinary in scope, yet linked in its shared focus on the political threat as well as the social potential of the Anthropocene and its imaginaries. This collection contributes to emerging scholarship on tourism, sustainability and global environmental change in the current geological epoch. Anthropocene Ecologies will be of great interest to political ecology focused scholars of tourism, socio-environmental change and the Anthropocene. The chapters were originally published as a special issue in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism.

Feminist Ecologies

Feminist Ecologies
Author: Lara Stevens
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2017-12-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319643851

This edited volume critically engages with ecofeminist scholarship. It tracks the ongoing dialogue between women’s issues and environmental change by republishing the work of pioneering scholars and activists in the field. Together with new essays by contemporary ecofeminist scholars, the book uncovers the dialectical relationship between environmental and feminist causes, the relational identities of feminists and ecofeminists, and the concept of ecofeminism as a rallying point for environmental feminism. The volume defines ecofeminism as a multidisciplinary project and will appeal to readers working within the field of Environmental Humanities.

Capitalism in the Anthropocene

Capitalism in the Anthropocene
Author: John Bellamy Foster
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 371
Release: 2022-08-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1583679766

Over the last 11,700 years, during which human civilization developed, the earth has existed within what geologists refer to as the Holocene Epoch. Now science is telling us that the Holocene Epoch in the geological time scale ended, replaced by the onset of a new, more dangerous Anthropocene Epoch, which began around 1950. The Anthropocene Epoch is characterized by an “anthropogenic rift” in the biological cycles of the Earth System, marking a changed reality in which human activities are now the main geological force impacting the earth as a whole, generating at the same time an existential crisis for the world’s population. What caused this massive shift in the history of the earth? In this comprehensive study, John Bellamy Foster tells us that a globalized system of capital accumulation has induced humanity to foul its own nest. The result is a planetary emergency that threatens all present and future generations, throwing into question the continuation of civilization and ultimately the very survival of humanity itself. Only by addressing the social aspects of the current planetary emergency, exploring the theoretical, historical, and practical dimensions of the capitalism’s alteration of the planetary environment, is it possible to develop the ecological and social resources for a new journey of hope.

The New Ecology

The New Ecology
Author: Oswald J. Schmitz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2018-12-18
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0691182825

Our species has transitioned from being one among millions on Earth to the species that is single-handedly transforming the entire planet to suit its own needs. In order to meet the daunting challenges of environmental sustainability in this epoch of human domination--known as the Anthropocene--ecologists have begun to think differently about the interdependencies between humans and the natural world. This concise and accessible book provides the best available introduction to what this new ecology is all about--and why it matters more than ever before. Oswald Schmitz describes how the science of ecology is evolving to provide a better understanding of how human agency is shaping the natural world, often in never-before-seen ways. The new ecology emphasizes the importance of conserving species diversity, because it can offer a portfolio of options to keep our ecosystems resilient in the face of environmental change. It envisions humans taking on new roles as thoughtful stewards of the environment to ensure that ecosystems have the enduring capacity to supply the environmental services on which our economic well-being--and our very existence--depend. It offers the ecological know-how to maintain and enhance our planet's environmental performance and ecosystem production for the benefit of current and future generations. Informative and engaging, The New Ecology shows how today's ecology can provide the insights we need to appreciate the crucial role we play in this era of unprecedented global environmental transition. -- Provided by publisher.

The Anthropocene and the Global Environmental Crisis

The Anthropocene and the Global Environmental Crisis
Author: Clive Hamilton
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 207
Release: 2015-05-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1317589084

The Anthropocene, in which humankind has become a geological force, is a major scientific proposal; but it also means that the conceptions of the natural and social worlds on which sociology, political science, history, law, economics and philosophy rest are called into question. The Anthropocene and the Global Environmental Crisis captures some of the radical new thinking prompted by the arrival of the Anthropocene and opens up the social sciences and humanities to the profound meaning of the new geological epoch, the ‘Age of Humans’. Drawing on the expertise of world-recognised scholars and thought-provoking intellectuals, the book explores the challenges and difficult questions posed by the convergence of geological and human history to the foundational ideas of modern social science. If in the Anthropocene humans have become a force of nature, changing the functioning of the Earth system as volcanism and glacial cycles do, then it means the end of the idea of nature as no more than the inert backdrop to the drama of human affairs. It means the end of the ‘social-only’ understanding of human history and agency. These pillars of modernity are now destabilised. The scale and pace of the shifts occurring on Earth are beyond human experience and expose the anachronisms of ‘Holocene thinking’. The book explores what kinds of narratives are emerging around the scientific idea of the new geological epoch, and what it means for the ‘politics of unsustainability’.

Ecological Entanglements in the Anthropocene

Ecological Entanglements in the Anthropocene
Author: Nicholas Holm
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2016-12-21
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1498535704

This edited collection explores the relationships between humans and nature at a time when the traditional sense of separation between human cultures and a natural wilderness is being eroded. The ‘Anthropocene,’ whose literal translation is the ‘Age of Man,’ is one way of marking these planetary changes to the Earth system. Global climate change and rising sea levels are two prominent examples of how nature can no longer be simply thought of as something outside and removed from humans (and vice versa). This collection applies the concepts of ecology and entanglement to address pressing political, social, and cultural issues surrounding human relationships with the nonhuman world in terms of ‘working with nature.’ It asks, are there more or less preferable ways of working with nature? What forms and practices might this work take and how do we distinguish between them? Is the idea of ‘nature’ even sufficient to approach such questions, or do we need to reconsider using the term nature in favour of terms such as environments, ecologies or the broad notion of the non-human world? How might we forge perspectives and enact practices which build resilience and community across species and spaces, constructing relationships with nonhumans which go beyond discourses of pollution, degradation and destruction? Bringing together a range of contributors from across multiple academic disciplines, activists and artists, this book examines how these questions might help us understand and assess the different ways in which humans transform, engage and interact with the nonhuman world.

Governing the Anthropocene

Governing the Anthropocene
Author: Sarah Clement
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2020-12-19
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3030603504

This book focuses on the present and future challenges of managing ecosystem transformation on a planet where human impacts are pervasive. In this new epoch, the Anthropocene, the already rapid rate of species loss is amplified by climate change and other stress factors, causing transformation of highly-valued landscapes. Many locations are already transforming into novel ecosystems, where new species, interactions, and ecological functions are creating landscapes unlike anything seen before. This has sparked contentious debate not just about science, but about decision-making, responsibility, fairness, and human capacity to intervene. Clement argues that the social and ecological reality of the Anthropocene requires modernised governance and policy to confront these new challenges and achieve ecological objectives. There is a real opportunity to enable society to cope with transformed ecosystems by changing governance, but this is notoriously difficult. Aimed at anyone involved in these conversations, be those researchers, practitioners, decision makers or students, this book brings together diffuse research exploring how to confront institutional change and ecological transformation in different contexts, and provides insight into how to translate governance concepts into productive pathways forward.

After Nature

After Nature
Author: Jedediah Purdy
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2015-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674368223

An Artforum Best Book of the Year A Legal Theory Bookworm Book of the Year Nature no longer exists apart from humanity. Henceforth, the world we will inhabit is the one we have made. Geologists have called this new planetary epoch the Anthropocene, the Age of Humans. The geological strata we are now creating record industrial emissions, industrial-scale crop pollens, and the disappearance of species driven to extinction. Climate change is planetary engineering without design. These facts of the Anthropocene are scientific, but its shape and meaning are questions for politics—a politics that does not yet exist. After Nature develops a politics for this post-natural world. “After Nature argues that we will deserve the future only because it will be the one we made. We will live, or die, by our mistakes.” —Christine Smallwood, Harper’s “Dazzling...Purdy hopes that climate change might spur yet another change in how we think about the natural world, but he insists that such a shift will be inescapably political... For a relatively slim volume, this book distills an incredible amount of scholarship—about Americans’ changing attitudes toward the natural world, and about how those attitudes might change in the future.” —Ross Andersen, The Atlantic

Against the Anthropocene

Against the Anthropocene
Author: T. J. Demos
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017-09-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3956792106

A critique of the discourse on the Anthropocene and the creative alternatives to it to be found through the arts, sciences, and humanities. Addressing the current upswing of attention in the sciences, arts, and humanities to the new proposal that we are in a human-driven epoch called the Anthropocene, this book critically surveys that thesis and points to its limitations. It analyzes contemporary visual culture—popular science websites, remote sensing and SatNav imagery, eco-activist mobilizations, and experimental artistic projects—to consider how the term proposes more than merely a description of objective geological periodization. This book argues that the Anthropocene terminology works ideologically in support of a neoliberal financialization of nature, anthropocentric political economy, and endorsement of geoengineering as the preferred—but likely disastrous—method of approaching climate change. To democratize decisions about the world's near future, we urgently need to subject the Anthropocene thesis to critical scrutiny and develop creative alternatives in the present.