Extinction Temporalities: Rethinking TimeSpaces, Knots of Life and the Sixth Extinction in the Necrocene
Keywords:
Necrocene; Extinction Studies; Sixth Extinction; Environmental Humanities; New Materialism; Multispecies Studies.Abstract
By using the Necrocene nomenclature as opposed to the term Anthropocene as a concept to describe the extinctive and necrotic logic of capitalism, this essay analyses the multiplicity of non-linear, uneven multispecies knots of life in the Sixth Extinction. Namely, it focuses on the desynchronization of the relationships between elements and lifeforms in the current global paradigm. This is done scrutinizing three different events that intertwine non-human ecosystems, human ecosystems and beyond-life-and-death agents through a New Materialism, Multispecies Studies and Environmental Humanities lens grounded in theoretical reviews and analyses. Relying on the connection between death, extinction and capitalism, this article generates, through the different cases of analysis, an alternative narrative for the current epoch while challenging anthropocentric views of time, space and ecology and, thus, reconnecting New Materialism and Historical Materialism as disciplines that can be generative if intertwined.
Downloads
References
Ainsworth, T. D., Heron, S., Ortiz, J.C., Mumby, P., Grech, A., Ogawa, D., Eakin, M. & Leggat, W. (2016). Climate Change Disables Coral Bleaching Protection on the Great Barrier Reef. Science. 253 (6283): 338-342. DOI: 10.1126/science.aac7125
Alaimo, S. (2014). Thinking as the Stuff of the World. O-zone: A Journal of Object-Oriented-Studies. 1: 13-21.
Barboza, L.G., Vethaak, D., Lavorante, B., Lundebye, A.K., & Guilhermino, L. (2018). Marine Microplastic Debris: An Emerging Issue for Food Security, Food Safety and Human Health. Marine Pollution Bulletin. 133: 336-348. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2018.05.047.
Barrat, James. “COTS: Aitutaki”. Living Oceans Foundation. https://www.livingoceansfoundation.org/science/crown-of-thorns-starfish/coral-killers/.
Bastian, M. (2017). Encountering Leatherbacks in Multispecies Time Knots. In Deborah Bird Rose, Thom van Dooren and Matthew Chrulew (eds.) Extinction Studies: Stories of Time, Death and Generations, (pp.149-185). New York: Columbia University Press.
Bastian, M. (2009). Inventing Nature: Re-writing Time and Agency in a More-than-Human World. Australian Humanities Review. http://australianhumanitiesreview.org/2009/11/01/inventing-nature-re-writing-time-and-agency-in-a-more-than-human-world/
Bastian, M, & van Dooren, T. (2017). Editorial Preface. The New Immortals: Immortality and Infinitude in the Anthropocene. Environmental Philosophy. 14 (1): 1-9. DOI: 10.5840/envirophil20171411
Clark, J. P. (2019). Between Earth and Empire: From the Necrocene to the Beloved Community. Oakland: PM Press.
Crary, J. (2013). 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep. London: Verso Books.
Crist, E. (2016). On the Poverty of our Nomenclature. In Jason W. Moore (ed.) Anthropocene or Capitalocene: Nature, History and the Crisis of Capitalism (pp.14-33). Oakland: PM Press.
David, G. (2018). The Challenge of Sustainability for Pacific Island Village Fisheries, a Historical Perspective. In Simmone Pawels and Elodie Fache (eds.) Fisheries in the Pacific: The Challenges of Governance and Sustainability (pp.221-253). Marseille: Pacific-Credo Publications.
De’ath, G., Fabricius, K.E., Sweatman, H., & Puotinen, M. (2012). The 27-Year Decline of Coral Cover on the Great Barrier Reef and its Causes. PNAS. 109 (44): 17995-17999. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1208909109.
DeLoughrey, E. (2017). Submarine Futures of the Anthropocene. ACLA Forum: Oceanic Routes, Comparative Literature. 69 (1): 32-44.
Dutra, L.X.C., Haywood, M., Singh, S.S., Piovano, S., Ferreira, M., Johnson, J., Veitayaki, J., Kininmonth, S., & Morris, C.W. (2018). Effects of climate change on corals relevant to the Pacific Islands. Science Review: 132-158.
Geisler, C., & Currens, B. (2017). Impediments to Inland Resettlement Under Conditions of Accelerated Sea Level Rise. Land Use Policy. 66: 322-330.
Gelonesi, J. (2014). Extinction: A Matter of Life and Death?. ABC The Philosopher’s Zone. Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone/questioning-the-meaning-of-extinction/5909094
Gilkson, A. Y., & Groves, C. (2016). Climate, Fire and Human Evolution: The Deep Time Dimensions of the Anthropocene. New York: Springer.
Gordon, T.A.C., Harding, H., Wong, K., Merchant, N., Meekan, M., McComrick, M., Radford, A., & Simpson, S. (2018). Habitat Degradation Negatively Affects Auditory Settlement Behavior of Coral Reef Fishes. PNAS. Latest Articles: 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1719291115.
Guattari, F. (2000). The Three Ecologies. First published in 1989. Translated by Ian Pundar and Paul Sutton. London/New Brunswick: The Athlone Press.
Haraway, D. (1988). Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective. Feminist Studies. 14 (3): 575-599.
Haraway, D. (1991). A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century. New York: Routledge.
Harman, G. (2012). Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy. London: Zero Books.
Harris, W. (2010). How Long Does it Take for Plastic to Biodegrade?. How Stuff Works Science. December 15 2010. https://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/how-long-does-it-take-for-plastics-to-biodegrade.htm.
Heise, U.K. (2017). Introduction: Planet, Species, Justice – and the Stories We Tell About Them. In Ursula K. Heise, Jon Christensen, & Michelle Niemann (eds.) The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities (pp.1-10). London: Routledge.
Hughes, T. P., Barnes, M., Bellwood, D., Cinner, J., Cumming, G., Jackson, J., Kleypas, J., et al. (2017). Coral Reefs in the Anthropocene. Nature. 546: 82-90. DOI: 10.1038/nature22901.
Jameson, F. (2003). “Future City”. New Left Review, 76.
Klein, N. (2019). On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Latour, B. (2013). Facing Gaia: Six Lectures on the Political Theology of Nature. Edinburgh: Gifford Lectures.
LeBlanc, R. (2019). Decomposition of Waste in Landfills: A Story of Time and Materials. The Balance Small Business. October 22 2019. https://www.thebalancesmb.com/how-long-does-it-take-garbage-to-decompose-2878033.
Mahnke, E. (2013). “Pacific Islands Face Fishing Crisis”. DW. September 17 2013. https://www.dw.com/en/pacific-islands-face-fishing-crisis/a-17096053
May, J., & Thrift, N. (2001). TimeSpace: Geographies of Temporalities. London & New York: Routledge.
Mbembe, A. (2003). “Necropolitics”. Translated by Libby Meintjes. Public Culture, 15 (1): 11-40.
McBrien, J. (2016). Accumulating Extinction: Planetary Catastrophism in the Necrocene. In Jason W. Moore (ed.) Anthropocene or Capitalocene?: Nature, History and the Crisis of Capitalism (pp.116-137). Oakland: PM Press.
McKibben, B. (2003). Worried? Us?. Granta, 83: 7-12.
Mcleod, E., Anthony, K., Andersson, A., Beeden, R., Golbuu, Y., Keyplas, J., Kroeper, K., Manzello, D., Salm, R., Schuttenberg, H. & Smith, J. (2012). Preparing to Manage Coral Reefs for Ocean Acidification: Lessons from Coral Bleaching. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 11 (1): 20-27.
Moore, J. W. (2016). Introduction. In Jason W. Moore (ed.) Anthropocene or Capitalocene?: Nature, History and the Crisis of Capitalism (pp.1-11). Oakland: PM Press
Moore, J. W. (2016). The Rise of Cheap Nature. In Jason W. Moore (ed.) Anthropocene or Capitalocene?: Nature, History and the Crisis of Capitalism (pp.78-115). Oakland: PM Press.
Morton, T. (2018). Being Ecological. London: Pelican Books.
Morton, T. (2016). Dark Ecology: For a Logic of Future Coexistence. New York: Columbia University Press.
Mrosovsky, N., Ryan, G., & James, M. (2009). “Leatherback Turtles: The Menace of Plastic.” Marine Pollution Bulletin. 58 (2): 287–289. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2008.10.018.
NOAA. (2020). How Do Coral Reefs Form?. NOAA. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial_corals/coral04_reefs.html
Parenti, C. (2011). Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence. New York: Nation Books
Pilkey, Orrin H., Pilkey-Jarvis, L, & Pilkey K. (2016). Retreat from a Rising Sea: Hard Choices in an Age of Climate Change. New York: Columbia University Press.
Plumwood, V. (2002). Environmental Culture: The Ecological Crisis of Reason. London/New York: Routledge.
Prideaux, B., Carmody, J., & Pabel, A. (2018). Impacts of the 2016 and 2017 Mass Coral Bleaching Events on the Great Barrier Reef Tourism Industry and Tourism-Dependent Coastal Communities of Queensland. Cairns: Reef and Rainforest Research Center.
Radin, J. (2014). Rot. The Multispecies Salon. http://www.multispecies-salon.org/rot/.
Readfern, G. (2020). Great Barrier Reef’s Third Mass Bleaching in Five Years the Most Widespread Yet. The Guardian. April 6 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/07/great-barrier-reefs-third-mass-bleaching-in-five-years-the-most-widespread-ever
Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, A., Chapin, S., Lambin, E., Lenton, T., et al. (2009). Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity. Ecology and Society. 14 (2): 32. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-03180-140232.
Rose, D.B., van Dooren, T., & Chrulew, M. (2017). Introduction: Telling Extinction Stories. In Deborah Bird Rose, Thom van Dooren and Matthew Chrulew (eds.) Extinction Studies: Stories of Time, Death and Generations, (pp.1-17). New York: Columbia University Press.
Rose, D.B. (2012). Multispecies Knots of Ethical Time. Environmental Philosophy. 9 (1): 127–140. DOI: 10.5840/envirophil2012918.
Soper, K. (1995). What Is Nature?: Culture, Politics and the Non-Human. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
Stiegler, B. (2018). The Neganthropocene. Translated by Daniel Ross. London: Open Humanities Press.
Stoekl, A. (2007). Batallie’s Peak: Energy, Religion and Postsustainability. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Stoeckl, N., Farr, M., Jarvis, D., Larson, S., Esparon, M., Sakata, H., Chaiechi, T. et al. (2014). The Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area: Its ‘value’ to residents and tourists Project 10-2 Socioeconomic systems and reef resilience. Final Report to the National Environmental Research Program. Cairns: Reef and Rainforest Research Centre Limited.
Tetrick, S. (2018). Climate Refugees: Establishing Legal Responses and U.S. Policy Possibilities. Scholarly Horizons: University of Minnesota, Morris Undergraduate Journal. 5 (2): Art. 8.
Thorpe, C. (2016). Necroculture. London: Palgrave Macmillan
Timmons, G. (2017). Study Finds Overfishing Primary Cause of Reef Fish Decline in Hawaiian Islands. Nature. September 29 2017. https://www.nature.org/en-us/newsroom/friedlander-overfishing-study/.
Tomba, M. (2009). Historical Temporalities of Capital: An Anti-Historicist Perspective. Historical Materialism. 17: 44-65.
UN Environment Programme. (2020). Coral Reef Resilience Key to Support the Underwater Cities Threatened by Climate Change”. UN Environment Programme. May 5 2020. https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/coral-reef-resilience-key-support-underwater-cities-threatened-climate.
Unzondu, C. (2013). Theorizing Necro-ontologies, Resisting Necro-economics”. Atlantic Studies: Global Currents. 10 (3): 323-349. doi.org/10.1080/14788810.2013.809918.
van Dooren, T. (2014). ‘Care’ in the Living Lexicon for the Environmental Humanities. Environmental Humanities 5: 291–294.
White, C.J. (2005). Time and Death: Heidegger’s Analysis on Finitude. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company.
Wolfe, C. (2017). Foreword. In Deborah Bird Rose, Thom van Dooren and Matthew Chrulew (eds.) Extinction Studies: Stories of Time, Death and Generations, (pp.vii-xvi). New York: Columbia University Press.
Zabala, S. (2017). Why Only Art Can Save Us: Aesthetics and the Absence of Emergency. New York: Columbia University Press.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Matter: Journal of New Materialist Research
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The authors who publish in this journal agree to the following terms:- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication.
- Texts will be published under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work, provided they include an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship, its initial publication in this journal and the terms of the license.
