Timescaping the Anthropocene
Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent
Since the coinage of the term at the turn of the millenium, the Anthropocene has raised two waves of criticism. The first one targeted the prefix ‘anthropos’. Humanities scholars objected that the reference to this abstract notion of anthropos, overemphasizes human mastery and conceals differential historical responsibilities, such as imperialism, capitalism, and technology governance.
More recently in March 2024, the suffix ‘cene’ refering to a chronostratigraphic unit in the geological history of the Earth has been rejected by the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). For the geological community, the Earth has not entered a new phase in its history and the current climate disorders are integral part of the Holocene which began 11,700 years ago.
However, the Anthropocene proposal introduced by atmospheric scientists has been supported by many scientific communities and has spread throughout society. Whatever the objections a vast majority of people confronted to climate disorders have adopted the term to refer to the planetary crisis and are ready to admit that we do indeed live in the Anthropocene.
In this paper I suggest that instead of designating a new period on the geological timeline the Antrhopocene points to a clash between the multiple interacting material cycles that regulate the climate of the Earth. The current ecological crisis calls for a radical revision of our notion of time. In focusing on the “great acceleration”, the supporters of the Anthropocene proposal tend to overlook the effects of a “great desynchronization” between various multiscale interdependent timelines.
I argue that the Antrhropocene questions the relevance of the chronological timeline divided up into a sequence of epochs differentiated in terms of scales and invites us to pay attention to the entanglement of the different temporal flows in which our lives and the life of the planet unfold. I venture the metaphor of timescape complementing the usual timescales of the universal chronology, to favour a polychronic approach to the Anthropocene, focusing on the necessary composition of various interdependent temporal regimes into sustainable timescapes.