Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing - A Feminist Approach to the Anthropocene: Earth Stalked by Man

To take seriously the concept of the Anthropocene-the idea that we have entered a new epoch defined by humans’ impact on Earth’s ecosystems-requires engagement with global history. Using feminist anthropology, this lecture explores the awkward relations between what one might call “machines of replication”-those simplified ecologies, such as plantations, in which life worlds are remade as future assets-and the vernacular histories in which such machines erupt in all their particularity and go feral in counter-intentional forms. This lecture does not begin with the unified continuity of Man (versus indigenous ontologies; as scientific protocol; etc.), but rather explores contingent eruptions and the patchy, fractured Anthropocene they foster.
Anna L. Tsing is a Professor of Anthropology at UC Santa Cruz, and the acclaimed author of several books including Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection and In the Realm of the Diamond Queen.
This Helen Pond McIntyre '48 Lecture was recorded on November 10, 2015 at Barnard College.
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