Climate without Nature
A Critical Anthropology of the Anthropocene

The Anthropocene narrative reproduces an ideological divide between Society and Nature and forecloses an inclusive politics of global warming.

Andrew M. Bauer (Author), Mona Bhan (Author)

9781108423243, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 15 March 2018

180 pages, 8 b/w illus. 2 maps 2 tables
23.5 x 15.7 x 1.9 cm, 0.39 kg

This book offers a critical reading of the Anthropocene that draws on archaeological, ecological, geological, and ethnographic evidence to argue that the concept reproduces the modernist binary between society and nature, and forecloses a more inclusive politics around climate change. The authors challenge the divisions between humans as biological and geophysical agents that constitute the ontological foundations of the period. Building on contemporary critiques of capitalism, they examine different conceptions of human–environment relationships derived from anthropology to engage with the pressing problem of global warming.

1. Introduction: materializing climate
2. Assembling the Anthropocene
3. On soils, stones, and social relationships of geophysical history
4. On glaciers and grass and weather and welfare
5. Social welfare without the Anthropocene's nature
6. Conclusion: toward a critical anthropology of global warming.

Subject Areas: Physical anthropology [JHMP], Sociology & anthropology [JH], Environmental archaeology [HDP], Archaeology [HD]