Abstract

The term Anthropocene was criticized for its tendency to simplify space and time, through over-universalizing language. Climate change narratives are overwhelmingly white, Eurocentric and masculine. The wealthy minority of the world’s population is responsible for the effects of the Anthropocene, while the consequences fall disproportionately on the poorer sections of humanity. The Anthropocene glosses over these differences, ascribing the Anthropocene to “The Human” as a universal category. This is presented in a classically Enlightenment, humanist fashion, as a single anthropocentric entity. A critique of the excluding aspects of humanism is consequently crucial to Anthropocene research and to critical posthuman thought. Intercultural, post-colonial and de-colonial scholarship from the humanities, feminist and gender theories, and ecological thought are necessary to assess the discriminatory aspects of the humanist legacy and make sure they are not continued in the Anthropocene.