CFP: How to think the Anthropocene? Anthropologists, philosophers and sociologists facing climate change.

For the Conference How to Think the Anthropocene?, we invite researchers to submit proposals addressing the following subjects and research themes:

• Justice in distribution of environmental responsibilities in responding to climate change. We will launch the discussion with the principle “of shared but differentiated responsibilities” adopted in Rio de Janeiro and debated since then at climate conferences. Already discussed in the context of gas emissions reduction, it can also be applied to adaptation. Local consequences of climate change (sea level rise, drastic decline or increase of mean precipitation, melting of glaciers and ice caps, droughts frequency and intensity, hurricanes, forest fires, etc.) will impact populations with different resilience capacities. Responsibility and justice also presume active solidarity from countries either better adapted or richer, or both; therefore, we have to think about climate migration and its social and cultural consequences.
• The Anthropocene hypothesis implies that human and natural history meet, and this affirms the unification of humanity, understood as a natural force. What does this unity mean, if, at the same time, we acknowledge that the magnitude of the influence of each human population on the global climate change varies considerably, and that different populations experience differently its consequences? How should it be understood from an anthropological point of view, since anthropology tends to insist on diversity of cultures and communities? Moreover, if nations’ search for a common stance makes it necessary to define the general interest, what are possible bases to determine this unity, given that this stance has to be not only political but also scientific?
• Other representations of Earth, both scientific and popular, e.g. Gaia hypothesis. How do these representations relate to the diversity, within various populations, of perceptions of the transformations of their living environment (given the variety of their world views, practices and knowledge)?
• Adaptation to climate change as a problem largely neglected by philosophy which tends to privilege the voluntarist heroism of mitigation or emissions reduction.
• Geoengineering or climate engineering, both from the point of view of its effects and role: is it a form of adaptation or of mitigation?

Speakers can submit their proposals for either:

• individual papers (abstracts up to 400 words)
• formal sessions (cluster of 2 to 4 longer presentations with discussion ; abstracts up to 1000 words, with a general presentation of the whole session and short information about proposed contributions)

We invite researchers to send their proposals at [email protected], in files doc, docx (Microsoft Office) or pages (Apple Works), before March 31, 2015.

Attendance at the event is free of charge and open to all, yet we are unable to reimburse for travel and accommodation expenses.