Racial geographies of the Anthropocene

Memory and erasure in Rio de Janeiro

Bibliographic Data

ID6353371
AuthorsMariana Reyes Carranza (0000-0003-4405-517X)
Year2023
Volume43
Issue2
Pages250-266
Publication date2023-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0032-3268 • E-ISSN: 1467-9256
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/02633957211026470
OpenAlexW3183951326
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited56

This paper interrogates the extent to which imaginaries of climate and ecological breakdown attend to the memories, knowledges, and experiences of communities already impacted by histories of racism, colonialism, and poverty. Drawing on insights from Black studies and decolonial thinking, the article reflects on how the causes and effects of anthropogenic climate change can be mapped onto geographies of racialised violence and social dispossession. Specific emphasis is given to Rio de Janeiro, notably its port area, a geographical space where future-oriented narratives remain oblivious to the city’s history of anti-Black violence and Indigenous genocide. In parallel, the paper looks at the recently built Museum of Tomorrow and its public representations of the Anthropocene. Overall, the article contends that pluralising accounts of the Anthropocene might offer alternative epistemic entry points for understanding and interrupting the mounting ecological catastrophe

Anthropocene · Archaeology · Colonialism · Environmental ethics · Genocide · Indigenous · Narrative · Political science · Poverty · Racism · Sociology · Ecocriticism and Environmental Literature · Gender Studies · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Law · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism · Ecology

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access