In and Against Eco-Apocalypse: On the Terrestrial Ecotopianism of Radical Environmental Activists

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article draws on utopian and posthumanist theory in order to critically assess the contemporary resurgence of green utopianism in the form of contemporary radical environmental activists (REAs) mobilizing against the socioecological perturbations of the Anthropocene. Featuring empirical data in the form of twenty-six semi-structured interviews with REAs from groups such as Earth First! and Sea Shepherd, the article critically examines the singular modality of ecotopianism exhibited by REAs, and explores the degree to which their post-anthropocentric worldviews—and crucially the widespread annihilation of cherished Earth kin amidst the Anthropocene era of climate and ecological breakdown—influences their imaginative reconstitutions of human–animal–nature relations. REAs exhibit a distinctively earthbound or terrestrial ecotopianism that disavows future-oriented modalities of hope and closure around particular notions of the “good” in light of the intrusion of ecological decline into the present, instead emphasizing the need to disrupt the present and live better alternatives in the here and now. The article concludes with reflections on the value of some closure for necessary socioecological transformations, and on what REA ecotopianism suggests about the potential for posthuman utopian modalities that decenter the human in their projections of more livable worlds.