Feminist Protest and the Anthropocene

Fiona Probyn-Rapsey

doi:10.20897/femenc/9739

Abstract

Preamble: Thanks to Deirdre, Amanda and Azille for inviting me to this conference – Gender and the Anthropocene. This is my first time in South Africa, a country that has always loomed large in my political imagination. Like a lot of Australians, when I was young, I spent a lot of time thinking about race relations in South Africa, rather than looking at race relations in my own country! (I was obsessed by campaigns to secure Nelson Mandela’s release.) While my PhD focused on South African and Australian literature, I have not really spent much time writing or thinking about South Africa since then, so I am very much looking forward to being better informed by listening, learning and participating at this conference.

Highlights

Most of my research over the last few years has been focused on projects that are beyond what Sandra Swart describes as the ‘holy trinity of gender, race and class’ – and focused more on gender, race and species, so in this talk I’ll be invoking that research and the fields of both Animal Studies and ecofeminist thinking, both of which are highly relevant to questions about how to live in the Anthropocene
Probyn-Rapsey / Feminist Protest and the Anthropocene. Their source of hope for surviving the Anthropocene lies not with a lifeline of feminist and anti-racist work against exploitations of various kinds, but with an image of a western male pioneer who, after apparently heeding Gandhi’s message on greed, takes the lead on behalf of all humans yet again: First, we must learn to grow in different ways than with our current hyper-consumption
Teaching students that we are living in the Anthropocene, the Age of Men, could be of great help

Summary

Introduction

Most of my research over the last few years has been focused on projects that are beyond what Sandra Swart describes as the ‘holy trinity of gender, race and class’ – and focused more on gender, race and species, so in this talk I’ll be invoking that research and the fields of both Animal Studies and ecofeminist thinking, both of which are highly relevant to questions about how to live in the Anthropocene. All three exhibit a shock of comprehension, or lack of comprehension and ill-preparedness to imagine the bigness (Morton), and the gaps and absences of knowledge (Chakrabarty and Giddens) that come with the Anthropocene.

Results

Conclusion