Scarcity, Environmentalism and the Politics of Pre-Emption: reconsidering the environmental histories of South Asia in the epoch of the Anthropocene
Scarcity, Environmentalism and the Politics of Pre-Emption: reconsidering the environmental histories of South Asia in the epoch of the Anthropocene
复制标题
稀缺性、环保主义和先发制人的政治：重新思考人类世时代南亚的环境历史
DOI：
10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.09.033
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发表时间：
2019
期刊：
影响因子：
3.5
通讯作者：
Rohan
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
D'SOUZA;Rohan
稀缺性是充满意识形态色彩的，并塑造着政治可能性。最近这个被称为人类世的提法被称为人类世--作为一个独特的知识范畴，用来探索人类在已经发生气候变化的世界中的挑战和前景--声称为从根本上重新设想人类面临的现有挑战提供了新的概念基础。与早先对人口过剩的地球资源耗尽的担忧不同，人类世警告称，过量的温室气体(GHG)排放引发的临界点、地球变暖带来的气候混乱以及关键的生物物理阈值的跨越引发了一场危机。因此，人类世的生态灾难与其说是关于资源稀缺的斗争，不如说是关于维持地球生命的条件。但是，仅仅处理温室气体排放的过度是否完全改变了与稀缺性概念接触的紧迫性？本文认为，情况并非如此，尤其是如果稀缺性继续意味着有限的界限和无法逾越的界限。然而，揭示人类世的稀缺性概念，需要人们看到双重的东西。首先，只有在关于环境变化和环保主义的更广泛讨论中，稀缺性的概念才能得到有意义的充实。其次，我认为，通过与南亚环境历史的比较，人类时代话语的新颖主张可以得到鲜明而明显的浮雕。我认为，人类学不仅被迫承认稀缺性的强势版本，而且至关重要的是，它的有限限制概念塑造、定义并影响了一种新马尔萨斯式的环保主义，这种环保主义本质上依赖于先发制人的政治。
Scarcity is ideologically charged and shapes political possibilities. The recent but richly debated formulation termed the Anthropocene – as a distinct intellectual rubric for exploring human challenges and prospects in an already climate changed world – claims to offer new conceptual grounds for radically re-envisioning the existing challenges that confront humanity. Instead of the earlier anxieties about an over populated planet running out of resources, the Anthropocene warns of a crisis brought on by tipping points from excess Green House Gas (GHG) emissions, climate chaos from a heated planet and the crossing of critical bio-physical thresholds. The Anthropocene eco-catastrophe, hence, is less about the struggle over resource scarcities than it is about sustaining conditions for planetary life. But does dealing only with the excesses of GHG emissions entirely revise the urgency for engaging with the notion of scarcity? Not so, this essay argues, especially if scarcity continues to imply finite limits and boundaries that cannot be crossed. Uncovering the Athropocene notion of scarcity, however, requires one to see double. First, the idea of scarcity can only be meaningfully fleshed out when located within broader discussions about environmental change and environmentalism. And second, through a comparative contrast with environmental histories of South Asia, I argue, the novel claims of the Anthropoene discourse can be brought into sharp and visible relief. The Anthropocence, I suggest, is not only compelled to acknowledge a strong version of scarcity but, critically as well, its notion of finite limits shapes, defines and influences a Neo-Malthusian variant of environmentalism that, in essence, rests on the politics of pre-emption.