Abstract
In this response to Elisa Perego and Rafael Scopacasa’s article, I reflect on connections across time and space from an Anthropocenic perspective that is, by urgent necessity, open to the unexpected. In Ancient Italy, and contemporary Tuvalu and Brazil, it is possible to find similarly unexpected ends being achieved among populations that move, whose lives are lived on ground that cannot be assumed to be inert: earth has agency, and over time, it shifts, or is flooded, or buries things. When non-elites are moving into marginal places where life is tough, where earthly agency cannot be ignored, such people are also finding themselves at the centre of major turning points in history. Mobility and survival in marginal places can offer a way to live a less colonized life.
Highlights
In this response to Elisa Perego and Rafael Scopacasa’s article, I reflect on connections across time and space from an Anthropocenic perspective that is, by urgent necessity, open to the unexpected
Perego and Scopacasa (2018, p. 2) ask a question that is applicable in Ancient Italy as it is in contemporary Brazil and the Pacific Islands: “how, and in what circumstances, can human agency rework the negative effects of social and environmental constraints, and channel them towards unexpected ends?” Their piece, Agency of the Displaced? Roman Expansion, Environmental Forces, and the Occupation of Marginal Landscapes in Ancient Italy, offers an opportunity to look for connections across time and space, from an Anthropocenic method of inquiry that is, by urgent necessity, open to the unexpected
While geographers have highlighted that the Anthropocene is a geological era and a spatial system, “a human-dominated biosphere challenging the resilience of a livable planet” (Carpenter et al 2019, np), history reminds geography to beware of snapshots
Summary
In this response to Elisa Perego and Rafael Scopacasa’s article, I reflect on connections across time and space from an Anthropocenic perspective that is, by urgent necessity, open to the unexpected. 2) ask a question that is applicable in Ancient Italy as it is in contemporary Brazil and the Pacific Islands: “how, and in what circumstances, can human agency rework the negative effects of social and environmental constraints, and channel them towards unexpected ends?” Their piece, Agency of the Displaced?
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