DSA Ecosocialist Resources

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**Heather Davis and Zoe Todd, “On the Importance of a Date, or Decolonizing the Anthropocene”** //ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies//, 2017, 16(4): 761-780

“Since  we  are  not  geologists,  we  cannot  evaluate  the  dates  for  their stratigraphic accuracy or scientific merit. However, we would like to propose that this  dating  of  the  Anthropocene  misses  a  valuable  opportunity  for  evaluating  the concept  and  opening  it  up  beyond  its  current  Eurocentric  framing.  Instead,  we argue that placing the golden spike at 1610, or from the beginning of the colonial period,  names  the  problem  of  colonialism  as  responsible  for  contemporary environmental  crisis.  If  the  Anthropocene  is  already  here,  the  question  then becomes,  what  can  we  do  with  it  as  a  conceptual  apparatus  that  may  serve  to undermine  the  conditions  that  it  names?  One  could  object  that  by  dating  the Anthropocene to colonialism we are undoing the critical and creative work that has been done to name the problem of colonialism and its power differentials because the Anthropocene, as a term, erases these questions of power. Indeed, many people in the humanities have pointed out the failure of the Anthropocene, as a concept, to adequately account for power relations. 4 Instead, all humans are equally implicated under the sign of the ‘anthopos.’ But rather than abandon the term because of these connections,  we  feel  that  the  Anthropocene  betrays  itself  in  its  name:  in  its reassertion  of  universality,  it  implicitly  aligns  itself  with  the  colonial  era.  By making  the  relations  between  the  Anthropocene  and  colonialism  explicit,  we  are then  in  a  position  to  understand  our  current  ecological  crisis  and  to  take  the  steps needed to move away from this ecocidal path.”
DSA Ecosocialist Resources

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