Between Horizons and Sediments: the Impact of the Anthropocene in History from the Chakrabarty’s “Four Theses” and Claims
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32991/2237-2717.2021v11i2.p348-396Keywords:
Anthropocene, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Theory of History, Climate Change, Historical Agency, Long DurationAbstract
This article analyzes the development the Anthropocene in history developed by the Indian historian Dipesh Chakrabarty in "The Climate of History: Four Theses", published in 2009, and in later writings. We explore how the growing discussion about the Anthropocene has expanded in the field of humanities in the last ten years, following the pioneering ideas from Chakrabarty’s work. We show how the debates that gravitated around Chakrabarty’s proposals call us to rethink several fundamental historical assumptions, such as the redefinition of the human as a historical subject in its new geological dimension and the problems related to the articulations of space-time scales and human agency. According to Chakrabarty, the definition of a geological time caused by human action on the planet creates a crisis in historical experience and reflection. Such a crisis translates into a political impasse, since the institutions, concepts and parameters related to human history are insufficient to deal with a phenomenon of geological significance. A process that goes beyond the dynamics of capitalism and the inequalities it creates, the human aspirations for freedom, equality and emancipation. The fundamental problem is the difficulty in articulating the historical, biological and geological dimensions of humans as subjects of the Anthropocene. We focus on the controversy over the role of capitalism and intrahuman divisions in the new geological regime, the distinction between the global and planetary dimensions and the challenge imposed by the inconsistencies between historical and geological time, as well as the analytical proposals that sought to answer the questions raised by Chakrabarty.
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