Carbon: a chemical element, C, fifteenth most abundant element in the earth’s crust, fourth most abundant element in the universe, second most abundant element in the human body, the key element for all known human and non-human life on earth.
What might persuade you that anthropology should discard the distinction between life and non-life if not carbon?
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Waste and toxicity are foundational categories of knowledge for the Anthropocene. Consider how natural scientists approach the topic. Empirically, the “great acceleration” they’ve identified corresponds to a massive increase in human-generated wastes: carbon molecules, toxic chemicals, radioactive particles, plastics, and much more. Measuring molecular concentrations of these materials, and mapping these measurements onto models of earth systems (such as the …
In July 2015 a Facebook campaign entitled selfie lixo (garbage selfie) was launched in Angola. It asked people to pose in front of piles of uncollected garbage in the capital, Luanda, in a bid to put pressure on the government to do something about the situation. The medium and its visuals were a mocking homage to the usual use of …
This is a story of women who invoke another woman’s psychosomatic distress to make a case for the green good life and its possibilities. Hailing from a northern German village transformed by sustainable development projects, the people in this story weigh the promises of the Energiewende, Germany’s “energy turn” from nuclear to renewable energy, through the experience of one woman …
Science, Medicine, and Anthropology